The DiSC Assessment, while popular for exploring workplace personalities, falls short as a hiring tool. Why? Because getting hiring right means choosing the correct assessment at each stage of the employee journey. This article puts Wonderlic against DiSC, highlighting why the DiSC assessment falls short of being an accurate hiring tool.
What is Wonderlic and how does it work?
Wonderlic is a talent assessment platform that evaluates cognitive ability, personality, and motivation. Our multi-measure pre-hire assessment uses leading industrial-organizational (I/O) psychology to evaluate whether workers are a good match for the job. Or, in other words, can they do the job, do they want to do the job, and how will they do the job? These assessments, combined, provide insights into on-the-job performance, team fit, satisfaction, and retention.
When it comes to developing employees, workers can use Wonderlic to quickly understand which aspects of their role come naturally — and which require more effort. With guided, self-paced learning, employees can easily incorporate these results into their day-to-day work to learn and grow at their own pace.
What is DiSC and how does it work?
The DISC assessment reports workplace personality traits, focusing on how people interact, communicate, and work as a team. Unlike Wonderlic, which evaluates cognitive abilities and potential job performance, DISC is about understanding behavioral styles, which are important for team dynamics but not directly tied to job skills or performance metrics. In a head-to-head for hiring, Wonderlic offers insights into an applicant’s aptitude and suitability for a role, making it a go-to for employers aiming to predict job success.
Side-by-Side Comparison
Predictive Accuracy
| Score Breakdown |  Wonderlic DiSC |
|---|---|
| Why is this important? | Success starts with matching the tool to its purpose- some tools are not designed for hiring purposes. Assessments with high levels of predictive accuracy provide better long-term outcomes — including employee performance, satisfaction, and retention — than those with low predictive accuracy and little to no job specificity. |
| How DiSC Scores | DiSC reports that its tool is not validated for hiring use because it “does not measure specific skills, aptitudes, or other factors critical for a position.” DiSC helps test takers understand their personality and behavior styles, promoting teamwork, communication, and leadership skills by identifying work styles. The DiSC assessment is not designed to predict job performance. Instead, DiSC is intended to report traits about yourself- not yourself compared to a job. |
| How is Wonderlic different? | Wonderlic is validated for both hiring and employee development. Science has shown that multi-measure assessments are the most predictive of on-the-job performance. Wonderlic’s multi-measure assessment evaluates cognitive ability, personality, and motivation to provide a single score for easier, faster, and more effective hiring decisions. Wonderlic uses the same test for all candidates, and scores are weighted against detailed job and role requirements. The Wonderlic Jobs Engine is the only database on the market that provides off-the-shelf scoring profiles covering all existing and emerging jobs. This means you and your team get the most accurate information about the role you’re hiring for — without spending weeks or months building customized job profiles or guessing which features are most important. Wonderlic’s assessment doesn’t stop at the hiring decision. Wonderlic also gives employees job-specific insights into their strengths and weaknesses, providing tips and tools they can easily incorporate into their day-to-day work to improve performance and grow in their careers. |
Ease of Use
| Score Breakdown | Wonderlic DiSC |
|---|---|
| Why is this important? | Reports must be clear and relevant to specific jobs for employee selection and development. Otherwise, employees won’t know where to begin, what to focus on, or where they’re going, resulting in low product utilization and performance levels. Suppose the results of an employee assessment are challenging to interpret or inconsistent. In that case, recruiters are more likely to make biased, inequitable, and unreliable decisions — leading to poor hires and, in some cases, legal consequences. If a lot of complexity is required to interpret results, organizations may need to pay for additional training or certifications. |
| How DiSC Scores | It’s easy to understand DiSC’s concept, but it’s challenging to apply the results to one’s job and determine which areas to focus on for professional growth. A benefit of using DiSC is that it can simplify team building because it gives somebody a label or “type.” Understanding how your type communicates with other types could help build self-awareness. Having “types” to categorize behavior can lead to hurtful labels and biases, according to the DiSC website. “it might be tempting to label (aka pigeonhole) our colleagues. But pigeonholing a person or their abilities based on DiSC style can cause unfair generalizations and stereotypes.” |
| How is Wonderlic different? | Wonderlic assessments do not bucket somebody into a specific “type”; instead, Wonderlic provides a score based on the job’s knowledge, skills, and abilities. When it comes to employee development, Wonderlic provides insights specific to an employee’s job. It also requires little to no manager oversight, giving employees the agency and ability to improve at their own pace. Wonderlic provides a single score for reviewers and employees that weighs cognitive ability, personality, and motivation against job-specific requirements. |
Scientific Quality
| Score Breakdown | Wonderlic DiSC |
|---|---|
| Why is this important? | The most effective talent assessments are backed by leading industrial organizational psychology and science. Multi-measure assessments that include cognitive ability, personality, and motivation have been shown to be the most predictive of on-the-job performance. Maintaining scientific integrity for each assessment is crucial for reducing bias and maximizing effectiveness, but it requires constant updating. Providers with many assessments are at a much higher risk of falling behind on the latest science, technical advancements, and job relevance. |
| How DiSC Scores | The DiSC tool can be susceptible to reliability challenges due to the self-reporting nature of the test. Individuals’ responses may vary due to self-perception, mood, or external circumstances, potentially leading to different DiSC profiles on subsequent assessments. The DiSC tool does not report a score or a percentage. Instead, reports categorize test takers into broad categories and do not go into detail on individual differences. |
| How is Wonderlic different? | Wonderlic relies on the combined predictive power of cognitive ability, motivation, and personality to understand whether a candidate can do the job and wants to do it. Our cognitive ability test is widely recognized as the industry standard for aptitude testing. Wonderlic uses the Big Five personality test, one of the most trusted pre-employment personality test frameworks. This model measures an individual’s Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Openness to Experience, and Emotional Stability — the dimensions of personality deemed most comprehensive by I/O research. |
Test-Taker Experience
| Score Breakdown | Wonderlic DiSC |
|---|---|
| Why is this important? | Providing feedback to candidates offers them value post-application process and helps them gain strategic self-awareness. Allowing employees to own their development after onboarding empowers them to take ownership of their careers. This also helps them gain the buy-in to own their development, reducing the managerial overhead of providing day-to-day coaching while improving employee performance and productivity. |
| How DiSC Scores | DiSC assessments report scores in a very easy-to-understand way. The DiSC assessment is often paired with a team event, leading to an engaging discussion with teammates. DiSC reports often grow stale and aren’t used after an event or point in time. There aren’t reasons to continuously use the reports over time as job performance changes. Reports aren’t clear on where to begin for performance improvement. The reports that test takers receive does not tell them which aspects are essential for their job or which items will lead to better job performance. |
| How is Wonderlic different? | After completing the Wonderlic Select assessment, candidates automatically receive a detailed feedback report that provides valuable insights into their essential traits, natural tendencies, and personal drivers. Whether candidates get the role or not, they will walk away with deeper insights into themselves that will help them in the future. Wonderlic’s employee assessments and self-led development give employees a user-friendly way to grow and improve while taking the burden off HR teams and managers. |
Experience the Most Predictive Talent Assessment on the Market
Help your team find top candidates faster using clear and unbiased insights from our multi-measure pre-hire assessment, Wonderlic Select. Select utilizes cutting-edge I/O science to provide easily comprehensible results, without requiring costly certifications.
Wonderlic Develop also gives your employees a personalized, role-specific roadmap for development tailored to their unique roles. These insights can help individuals incorporate professional development into their daily routine, resulting in immediate improvements in their tasks without disrupting their workflow.
