A Person-Job Fit Index Using Multiple Intelligences Profiles: Calculating Risk for Chronic Relative Underperformance

In this article an index is investigated which can express the fit between a job profile and a personal profile, which both make use of Gardner’s concept of multiple intelligences. The difficulties are (1) that even though the same conceptual framework is used to describe both the capabilities that functions/jobs need and the capabilities that persons have, the two measurements are not exactly the same, and (2) that the index must be able to indicate whether a person is possibly underperforming, or might be overburdened by the function. Other indexes, such as correlations, or common distance measures provide parts of the answer, but in themselves destroy too much information.  

To illustrate the different steps, data are used from a small set of profiles from well functioning mental health professionals from a community mental health centre in the Netherlands and a job profile, obtained from colleagues from another community mental health centre.

A method preserving the direction of the differences, based on the Mahalanobis distance is developed in this paper, which expresses over- as well as the underscoring of a personal profile in regard to the job profile, as well as combining these in a single index that can be used in statistical analyses. The method might be applicable to compare other kinds of profiles to each other as well.