Introverted or extroverted? AEPG wants to know

Firm looks to find out not only if a person is right for the job, but will they play nice on their team

When Steven W. Kaye needs to figure out if he’s making the right hire, he brings out his test book.

Mr. Kaye, founder and chief executive of the Warren, N.J. financial planning firm AEPG Wealth Strategies, advocates a movement within corporate organizations to sharpen their management by conducting personality examinations on current and prospective employees.

The approach is part of the firm’s overall emphasis on the importance of employee retention, which Mr. Kaye sees as the most important way to maintain his business’ growth.

AEPG generated among the highest profit and growth reported by participants in the InvestmentNews Financial Performance Study of Advisory Firms. Last year, they won a Best Practices Award from the publication.

“WILL THEY PLAY NICE’

Mr. Kaye, whose firm uses the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and the Personality Research Form methodologies, said he’s looking to find out not only if “this person is right for the job, but will they play nice on their team.”

Then, if an employee changes roles substantially, the firm retests them.

The results, he said, speak for themselves. “Unbelievably, scary accurate,” Mr. Kaye said.

“Initially, employees are a tiny bit skittish because they don’t know what their own personalities are and they don’t know how the tests results will come out,” he said. “We don’t ask candidates to take the test until we’ve had two or three interviews and we like them a lot.”

Personality testing also has helped the firm deal with conflict resolution, and soften the raw edges of prickly employees.

“We know certain aspects of their personality, and hopefully how to deal with them in a way which is most comfortable for them,” Mr Kaye said.

While the effectiveness of workplace personality testing has been questioned, Mr. Kaye said it gives him a better understanding of “what makes someone tick.”

AEPG employs Lynne Kirsner, a Baltimore consultant who conducts the evaluations and does other management consulting for the firm. “What’s most important is the interpretation” offered after the testing is completed, Mr. Kaye said. (Ms. Kirsner did not respond to requests for comment.)

RED FLAGS

When an evaluation yields red flags, such as an obsessive personality, the company takes that result seriously.

“There’s been a couple times that we felt it was minor enough that we could work on it, and there’s a couple of times when it’s been an obstacle and we couldn’t hire that person.”

AEPG, whose specialties include serving the financial planning needs of physicians, also provides cash bonuses for employees who earn new credentials, and they provide month-long sabbaticals for employees starting after they’ve had 10 years with the firm. Employees are also given semiannual evaluations.

Mr. Kaye, a golf aficionado who describes himself as the firm’s largest rainmaker, said he provides unlimited free golfing lessons to his employees — a skill that he said can serve young advisers well.

And his firm is an active recruiter on college campuses and a consumer of salary-benchmarking surveys, which they use to “overpay” employees and win their loyalty.

At the end of the day, the goal is to make sure that top talent and clients don’t walk out of the door because of a poor hiring or management decision.

“It’s so ridiculously expensive and time-consuming to rehire and retrain,” Mr. Kaye said.