Trait Assessments Overview
What it is
Great interviews elicit enough evidence to determine which candidates are best for a particular role. Hireguide’s Traits Assessments feature is a powerful tool that helps recruiters make every interview a great interview. It surfaces quality insights about candidates’ job-relevant characteristics, helping recruiters make smarter, fairer hiring decisions.
How it works
Hireguide’s Traits Assessment feature is powered by psycholinguistics software that derives insight from language use. Natural language contains powerful information about behaviors, personalities, and workstyles. It reveals psychological patterns and behavioral cues that often go unnoticed, such as what someone is paying attention to or how someone processes information.
This feature works by analyzing language via interview transcripts to score candidates on a pre-defined set of traits that matter most for a role. It then combines these scores into a comprehensive profile, linking each candidate’s strengths to key job requirements. Recruiters get actionable guidance, including areas to probe in follow-up interviews, suggested questions, and tailored evaluation rubrics.
Why it’s valid
Psycholinguistics and Psychometrics
This feature combines the psychology of language and psychometrics into an assessment grounded in the LIWC, a foundational science that has been cited by over 27,000 published research articles. Many of these are scientific studies that have found language to be a valid predictor of individual characteristics such as personality, skills, and abilities,,.
The language-based approach of our Traits Assessment also addresses many of the challenges faced by traditional assessments. Conventional tests often rely on self-report or other-report data, making them susceptible to biases like social desirability or deliberate impression management that can compromise accuracy. Language-based assessments overcome these biases and often outperform self-reports and match the accuracy of other-reports, which are known to predict job performance more reliably. By anchoring outputs in measurable, well-validated linguistic patterns, the system provides a defensible and scientifically grounded way to evaluate job-relevant candidate characteristics.
Algorithms & Data Models
The underlying traits analysis uses a closed-vocabulary, theoretically driven approach based on the LIWC, a proprietary text analysis software that measures the percentage of words in over 100 psychologically meaningful categories. This deterministic model ensures consistent, repeatable results across candidates, unlike human ratings that can vary with the interviewer or moment. Unlike opaque “black-box” AI models, which can be difficult to explain and legally risky in hiring contexts, our approach is transparent and grounded in well-established psychological theory. The trait scores output is interpretable and auditable, making it more defensible in employment decisions while still delivering scientifically validated, behaviorally anchored insights.
Human-in-the-loop Principle
While our assessments provide rich insights, we do not automatically advance or reject candidates based on these results. Instead, we present profiles in a structured, accessible format that highlights strengths, potential areas for exploration, and suggested follow-up questions. This design supports recruiters in making better, fairer hiring decisions while keeping human judgment central to the process. By structuring the output and connecting it to job-relevant criteria, our approach helps reduce bias and ensure recruiters are making decisions that are informed, not automating them.
How to use it
Interpret traits holistically, not individually
Traits interact with one another, and no single score should be used in isolation to make an advance or reject decision. The output summary is intentionally designed to help you understand how multiple traits combine to form a holistic profile. Use the full set of insights together to inform your decision rather than over-weighting any one trait.
Anchor decisions to job requirements
Always interpret trait insights in the context of the job description and role requirements. Selection decisions should be grounded in job-relevant characteristics, and recruiters should be able to clearly articulate how trait information connects back to the demands of the role. This ensures decisions are both fair and defensible.
Use trait insights after screening for minimum qualifications
Trait scores are most effective once candidates have already met baseline requirements through initial screening. After narrowing the pool based on qualifications, experience, and role fit, use trait insights to further differentiate candidates and decide who to advance to the next stage of interviews.