When a businessman in the village of Hamilton had a question about how best to gauge employees’ abilities, he turned to a Colgate faculty member for advice.
That request has turned into an interesting collaborative project involving a student, a professor, and an innkeeper.
Spencer Kelly, associate professor of psychology, and Zachary Lin Zhao ’12, a double major in mathematical economics and psychology, have been working with Ben Eberhardt, general manager of the Colgate Inn, to create a personality questionnaire that measures the aptitude of current, and potential, inn employees.
“Ben came to me, asking if I knew of any research that would help him better assess his current employees’ abilities, and his future applicants, in some sort of personality measure that could correlate to performance,” explained Kelly.
Kelly said this did not exactly fall under his area of expertise, but he knew Zhao would be great for the project because he is such a good student and his double major offered interesting perspectives. Kelly set up a meeting for the three of them to discuss it.
From those results, Zhao was able to come up with an equation that enabled him to craft a second test for future applicants.
The test questions are purposely general in nature, Zhao said, but the responses can be analyzed to help determine personality traits.
Although the questionnaires are tailored specifically for Eberhardt’s business, Zhao and Kelly believe they can become valuable tools for other businesses, as well.
“This is just one example of how the expertise on campus, from faculty members and students, can have a real, hands-on benefit for businesses in the village,” said Eberhardt. “I hope there will be even more connections between local business owners and students in the future.”
Zhao echoed that sentiment: “This project could be an example for future opportunities between people downtown and people on campus.”
Zhao also mentioned how he personally gained a great deal from working on the project.
“It allowed me to combine my interest and knowledge in psychology and economics, which, academically speaking, is not always easy to do,” he said.