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Pre-Interview Organization Analysis Design Tests?
miasok asks: "Recently I was deemed unfit for a job I was applying to, even before having an interview. A local software development company expressed an interest in my resume, but first wanted me to take an Organizational Analysis Design (OAD) test. The OAD test is a form with approximately 100 personality attributes and you are supposed to identify if they whether they apply to you, and if they are expected of you in your current job. I completed all fo the questions truthfully, and was surprised at the response: '...the results do not fall within our range of acceptance for the programming position'. Has anyone else had experience with such a test, especially as the sole means of determining a candidate suitable for a job? More information about this test can be found at here."
This test seems to be unfairly weighted towards people in the "lying scum who know exactly what the employer wants to hear" category. Of course, that's the way most interviews are, so get with the program!
Or just find out which companies are stupid enough to implement this test, buy some put options, and laugh all the way to the bank when the company collapses under the weight of its own managerial stupidity and/or corruptness (assuming you've timed it right).
Don't check the box that says "Reacts violently to stupid questions."
ph34r teh p0w3r 0f th3 c0w
I think tests like these are a bunch of bullshit. I don't mind a company using tests like these, but they need to understand that there is a lot more to people than what these tests show. (Slightly offtopic: I know that my personality test results (same test by the way, I keep a copy around somewhere) vary according to the mood I'm in when I take it.) Personally, I think if a company is going to use this as their sole basis for determining who to interview, they deserve what they get -- corporate trolls that already aligned with (and won't buck) their corporate philosophy.
Would you really want to work for a company where everyone fitted into the same precisely-defined psychological profile? That isn't a company, it's a cult!
I once applied for a job that gave me one of these personality profiling tests. I completed the test, and the interview, and obviously passed whatever crietia they were looking for, as they offered me the job. I then declined to take the position, and told them the sole reason why I was turning them down was the fact they used a personality profile as part of the selection criteria.
"When I grow up, I want to be a weirdo"
We use similar tests at the place where i work, and i must say, after seeing the results and the candidates, the test results are suprisingly accurate, although we have a policy of interviewing candidates whatever their results.
We usually end up rejecting all the candidates based on their interview, that the tests say we should reject anyway. It also helps us target applicants for other jobs within the company.
This looks to me like just another scam, similar to things like handwriting analysis, horoscopes, or tarot card readings. It's frustrating when employers resort to such nonsense to screen job applicants; it's just a lose-lose situation.
Has anyone else had experience with such a test, especially as the sole means of determining a candidate suitable for a job?
What makes you think this is the sole reason? It is simply a pre-condition, like a degree or exposure to certain technologies or industries. If a company knows that a certain personality from the meyers-briggs (for example) test works best on their team, and they have an abundance of applicants, can you blame them? Talent and skill are important, but if you've worked on a team with the odd guy you know how important team dynamics are. Whether this test can really acertain personality for them is another matter and I'm not really qualified to judge.
Btw, I'm also in the job market, so I feel your pain. It sucks, but for all you know this company did you a favor.
-- Solaris Central - http://w
business and honesty don't mix
The company I work for relies on something a bit more simplistic...code. The client wanted 8 programmers instead of 2, so we went looking. After about 15 resumes that came close 10 were off the wall, and 5 were worth possibly talking too. Well, since I'm the head person of this project I wanted to see code. Just wanted to make sure they actually knew how to program. I found it amazing that not a one of them had anything to show. I was baffled by this concept, since I probably have 20 or 30 little utility program (most are not finished, but have allot of them) just laying arround.
So I put together a simple set of utitlity type programs that they could create to show they knew something. Ten possibilies, all simple, and they just needed to pick 3 and come up with something. For some reason they all decided it was too much trouble. So we still have 2 programmers.
I'd be curious to see what one of those test would have said about the people who applied. Not that I would ever want something like that as a basis for a programmer working for me, but it would be interesting.
Fortunately I have final say in who my company hires for programming.
If ignorance is bliss, the world is full of blissful people
The whole selection process is all about filtering out as many people as you can, as early as possible.
I once had to hire around 20 developers in a 6 month period, while managing the team through a pretty hairy crisis situation. The only way I could do that is by increasing the likelihood of getting a hire for every interview I did. To do that, I developed some heuristics
This process basically gives you 3 piles : rejects, shortlist, and maybes. I'd see the shortlisted folk immediately, and put the maybes through some pre-screening exercise rather than see every single one of them.
I don't particularly believe in psychometric testing when recruiting for technical positions - in fact, I think having a diverse set of characteristics in the team helps - but I would definitely ask people to sit a technical test before getting to see a "real" interviewer. I wouldn't be surprised if many organisations use psychometric tests to thin out the interview list even though most psychometric experts point out that this is not a particularly sensible way to act.
I don't know what the job market is like where you are, but in the UK it's pretty tight. You may have been in someone's "maybe" pile, and they just wanted to slim it down - it's not a personal slight, the company may not even be clueless, and if I were you, I'd concentrate on improving my CV to hit the "definite" pile.
It's all very well in practice, but it will never work in theory.
This sounds like a great excuse for them not to hire somebody they have already decided they don't want. Applicant is too [ethnic|gay|fat|female|disabled|], toss them some "personality test", and "oops" I guess they didn't pass.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
No doubt you encountered the Myers-Briggs Personality Type Assesment test. These types of tests are fairly common and are becoming increasingly common. It isn't a pass/fail type test. Rather it is an assesment of a person's personality. It categorizes your personality into one of several group types. Are you anal and perhaps good for an accounting position? Or are you an artsy, people person that would be well suited for a marketing position?
The thing is that, these tests are amazingly accurate. If you answer honestly and then look at the results, you will see that it does accurately categorize your personality. Even if you don't want to admit that the results match you, you will certainly remember other people describing you as that type in the past. Remember that the test doesn't say anything bad about you. It just categorizes your type. If you were a detail oriented, structured, authoritarian(anal), you probably would not get along well in a job with a company filled with optimistic, free-style, unstructured, talkative, artsy types.
But, as much as it hurts, you shouldn't take it personally. The company has decided what type of personallity they like and feel is best for a position. This means that others in the department and company are likely of the same personality type. If you were of a different personality type and were awarded the position, you would likely have had problems. You would have likely had some friction with your co-workers or perhaps they would have driven you crazy. Such situations are not good for the company or YOU.
A fact of life is that this "profiling" happens in every interview. You, however are more accustommed to it in the more subtle and personal method, where the HR person is mentally profiling you throughout the interview. The thing is that some people/interviewers are good at assessing a person's personality and determining if they are a good fit or not, while other interviewers are no good at it. These tests provide the company with a more standard means of assessing an individual and reduce the likelyhood of a bad interviewer making the wrong assessment.
I once got sent to an HR department, with a note to give them when it came time for the behavior test.
The note said "Don't give this candidate the behavior test. We are satisfied with his performance and have seen enough of his behaviors to know that we don't want to provoke any of them."
(As an independent consultant I'd already written a number of "Let's quantify the stupidity of corprorate policy X in simple, blunt terms that everyone can understand" reports.)
-- MarkusQ
P.S. I got the job.
If the test is accurate, then they've decided what kind of people they want working for them. If they say you're not in their mold, do you really want to be working in a company filled with that kind of person?
And if the test is not accurate, do you want to be working for a company that places that much faith in something inaccurate?
Or, look at it this way:
You seem to see this as a Bad Thing (tm) that you were rejected so quickly by that company. Have you considered turning things around and seeing it as a Good Thing (tm) that you weren't hired? If they're looking for someone that fits a particular description, and you don't, it might have been a miserable fit. Just because it's a chance at a job, doesn't mean it's a chance at the right job.
For example, for most positions in my business, part of the interview process is going through a ropes course with the other applicants. A lot of people can't be bothered. Some tell me they can't afford the time to do it (we do it on weekends). I have my reasons, which are lengthy and based on my experience working in residential treatment centers, but I don't debate it with applicants. This narrows down our pool of applicants. It might seem like a far-out idea, but I have yet to have to fire anyone or have an employee quit on me. Those that don't like the idea of a ropes course are not likely to like the way I think and do things and the way my company works.
I don't know anything about the OAD but by there description it may be clear what they are looking for:
.
But natural competence and personality have scant regard for status. Often as not, a misfit will mean an expensive mistake... low productivity, disruptive staff and poor morale.
While being phrased positively what they are testing for is institutional conformity. The test is designed to eliminate the kind of guy who would go to ask.slashdot to try and find out more about why he was rejected for a job. What they want most likely are people who:
a) Are highly loyal to institutions and tend to follow direction.
b) Are likely to go along easily with group consensus
c) Don't have strong opinions about issues but have very strong opinions about not being divisive.
The fact that you are:
1) A slashdot reader
2) Questioning the methodology
means it is unlikely you fit these personality types.
BTW I would agree with the other poster regarding MBTI. I disagree with the "amazing accurate" comment in fact I think there are some structural problems with MBTI as relates to Jung's theory but regardless its one of the most heavily used personality assessments in the US. A very good first book
I wintered over in Antarctica a couple years ago, so you bet we had to take tons of personality tests as the 2nd step of the selection process. I filled them up exactly as I knew they wanted them. So did everyone else who was selected.
After that, for a while, an interesting ongoing discussion was the various ways we'd lied our way through it. So was lying the wrong thing to do ? I'd say no, everything went well, except for the doctor/psychologist who blew a fuse during the winter and was for two months in a straightjacket. That guy had designed many such tests, so he knew exactly what to answer on them...
But consider yourself fortunate (with a little cunning it's easy to fake tests), in other countries they have much worse methods: in France the big craze is handwriting psychology (or whatever that utter stupidity is called). You have to send handwritten resume and cover letters and they pay contractors to determine your psychologic profile from your handwriting (not from the content of the letters, heavens no) !!! Not only do you have to waste hours to write those by hand, but imagine an IT pro who's been using a 'puter for 20 years and haven't touched a pen since then... I can't even read myself, what does it have to do with my IT ability ? It's the exact opposite, the more you use a computer, the less you can write with a pen...
...and I married a psychologist... ;-)
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