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Behavioral Interviews for New Hires?
banetbi asks: "I am a PHP developer and FreeBSD administrator, and have been looking for a new job for a couple of months. Finally, I got a call back from a company, but they want me to take an on-line questionnaire before I come in for an interview. After doing some research I found the company that makes the test and checked out their website. It looks like this is some sort of personality test (they call it an artificially intelligent behavioral analysis). What does my personality have to do with my ability to perform in a job? Have any of you had to take a personality test to get a job? Should I do it, or just keep looking?"
What does my personality have to do with my ability to perform in a job?
Don't want to be insulting here, but the fact that you even need to ask that question shows that you need work in this area.
Even if all you do all day is sit at your desk and churn out code, you will have to interact with your other employees and your employer at some point or other. Your personality is a part of you that they will have to deal with, and it's no wonder that your prospective employers would like to know what they're getting. Given the choice between two technically equivalent candidates, if one has a cheerful, helpful personality, while the other has a withdrawn, antisocial one, who do you think they're going to go with?
Have any of you had to take a personality test to get a job?
Yes, I've had to take one for every single job I've ever held. They were called interviews .
While I'm sure you'll be interviewed as well, I think they're just trying to cull out some of the undesirable personality types in advance via this test, just as they cull out the unfit applicants in advance by examining resumes and applications.
Should I do it, or just keep looking?
As I said above, your personality will be tested sooner or later...if not by an actual test, then by the interviewer during the interview.
Personally, I'd much rather take the test...it's probably far easier than answering that damned question, 'What do you regard as your greatest weakness?' during the interview...
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Behavioral and Personality Type tests are becoming almost standard for larger companies (read, ones that can afford them). Whether or not they add value is debatable, and whether you should "move on" obviously will be a personal choice. If it's a job you really want, you probably should consider taking it.
I don't consider these tests harmless, especially since many companies allow too much weight to the results. I wonder how many industry leaders today would get "passing" results.
All that said, if you're interested in what they're looking for and some info on why, and what you might do to improve your results visit this site.
For a perspective from the "hiring" side, you might want to look at this article.
Also, here's an article that describes what behavioral interviews/tests are. It claims (I won't agree or disagree):
It's mostly voodoo garbage (no offense to voodoo practicers) but is a fact of life in the interviewing world.
It isn't a big deal -- it's important for a good employee to be able to play with others as well as make responsible decisions in stressful situations, and sometimes those tests can be an interesting addition to the interview process.
:-)
I find the tests quite entertaining, personally.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
Run, don't walk, out of there if they want you to take this 'personality test'
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
...if you even want half a chance at getting the job. If you're a bunghole, you're going to negatively affect the company in one way or the other. Only way the company is going to hire you is if you do even halfway well at the test. Doesn't really matter what the job is, your personality *will* affect their company, so they would be remiss in *not* checking you out.
Skivvy Niner? Email me!
HEY! Look left just ONE MORE TIME!
I see you're another one of those poor saps who was suckered in by timecop's 'How To Be A Bad-Ass Slashdot Troll' correspondence course.
It's time to ask for your money back.
One time for a Job, they had a 100 question multiple choice personality test. I remeber the first question was asked by the interviewer.. Here are 7 colors on cards. Place the colored cards in the order you like. How that relates to a software engineering job I don't know. The other 100 multiple choice questions were all of the type that they were what would you do in this situation type question, with no right or wrong answer. I had never seen a test like this in an interview before, and was rather un prepared. Anyone know what they are looking for?
I suggest asking your interviewer this question at each interview. I'm sure it will tip them off as to what an insightful potential employee they have on their hands. They'll be stunned at subtle, yet forthright, brilliant logic contained in the question.
Go, young man! Go! Go forth and spread the news that personality has nothing to do with performance on the job! The world awaits to be educated, the world awaits to be freed from the tyranny of its beliefs! Free at last! Free at last!
Pardon my tears of joy. I can't go on. Excuse me, please.
If it's anything like the ones I've taken, the 'correct' response will be pretty obvious.
"What would you do if you found a coworker has been stealing office supplies?" (actual question)
Um . . . Ask for my cut as hush money? Tell him I could peddle his take on eBay? Reccomend a better style pen than the ones he's been stealing? Fall to the ground and play dead every time I see him? Spray-paint 'STICKYFINGERS!!' on his car?
So many choices.
Sweet informative mod.
I used to work as a temp in a company that made entry/promotional tests for various civil service positions. He was an I/O Psych Doctorate and one time he asked me and the grad students working there, "What is wrong with tests that tests honesty?" Which I at least consider similar to these personality tests. I answered correctly. "People lie." Honesty tests and personality tests both have the same problem. I know your testing me. And since the answers are usualy so vague. Its just a matter of me picking the answers you want to hear. I don't think i've ever lied personally but its the flaw of the tests themselves.
For example, if your test responses indicate you prefer working as part of a team, in an interview the employer may ask you how you would cope if you have to work independently at a client's place of work.
Although I do have my doubts about them, they are meant to help eliminate some of the elements of interviews and selection where humans can be fallible - such as making decisions based on first impressions, I have read many times that decisions are often influenced by your first 2 / 8 / 120 seconds of an interview. However, it's still possible for employers to use these irresonsibly and just use them as a blanket screening process.
Back to your question - should you look for something else? Well, these tests are pretty common nowadays, and I think your decision should be based on other aspects of the company - if you like them, the people who interview, and the work environment.
What does my personality have to do with my ability to perform in a job?
Not a thing; however, it does have something to do with how well you'll fit in the culture there. Whether these tests reveal anything worthwhile is questionable, IMO.
What I find much more offensive are drug screening tests before being hired, because of privacy issues.
"It's a wonderful idea. But it doesn't work." -- Tad Danielewski
You will filter out only the truly stupid with these tests and will be needlessly polluting the profiles of very talented people. These things tend to overinflate the value and/or severity of very normal variances in personality. So, you answer "I'd rather go to a museum than an amusement park," "I work best in quiet solitude" and "I enjoy hunting and fishing over canasta" and all of a sudden "candidate X is a sociopathic introvert with severe avoidance issues who can't work with other people and is possibly armed and dangerous."
The true sociopaths that you REALLY want to avoid, however, are generally smart enough to navigate these tests better than the people who write them. You could give them the Meyers-Briggs type/Keirsey temperment desired and they could answer the questions perfectly to hit it on the spot every time.
No, not really. I'm just trying to get the Lib's to blow their Mod points on useless posts like this and keep them away from the conservative ones. For the most part, it works nicely.
Give me the login info for the test, I'll take it for you, since you obviously have a problem taking it.
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
If the results are so important to them, they should be willing to give you a copy. That way you can try to improve any weaknesses it finds.
And since you are going to be working with others in the company, you should be able to get the results of their tests, too. It will help your team operate more effectively.
If they don't agree with that, why are they insisting on the test? And do you really want to work there?
It's funny, I looked at it (they gave me the test before my "live" interview, and handed me the results when I left) and it said some fairly negative things about me (loner, needs his hand held when given new tasks, tendency to run with scissors ;-). I still got the job though. I've only been here a couple of days, but things are going pretty well and my boss seems quite happy with my work (more like my comprehension of what my work will involve when we finally get something I was hired to do).
My advice? Go ahead and take the test. Techies aren't hired for their personality, so if you've got a proven track record a test shouldn't affect your chances one way or the other. OTOH, if this is your first or second job, then a test might carry more weight (since they've got little else to go on).
Just junk food for thought...
The biggest problem I have found interviewing candidates for sysadmin jobs is determining who is going to be motivated to learn on their own and take ownership of systems. I have had trouble before with employees that need to be told what to do and constantly supervised to make sure they complete a project.
Does anyone have any ideas for screening these kinds of traits? What kind of questions would you ask during an interview, beyond technical questions?
I don't know which personality test they're having you do, but at least one has been shown to have psychometic value -- the "big five", which has dimensions of extraversion, neuroticism, Openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. google scholar for "big five personality". if you score high on neuroticism and/or low on concientiousness, studies would indicate that you're not going to be a great employee. the others can have an impact depending on what you do (i.e., salespeople with high extraversion scores tend to do better than less extraverted ones), but generally aren't conclusive about performance across the board.
"You could give them the Meyers-Briggs type/Keirsey temperment desired and they could answer the questions perfectly to hit it on the spot every time."
That would give them away. The very good tests include questions to gauge the accuracy of the answers. In your example, many of the tests would show the person being tested was deceitful.
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
The company I work for consists of about 30 people right now, and we use these tests, too. Everyone already employed was asked to take one so a baseline could be established, and now it's part of the interview process.
It's nice to have an idea of whether someone will fit in or not before they actually start the job. Someone can have a spectacular resume and know how to sell themselves in an interview, and then turn out to be a complete prick that everyone dislikes when they actually start the job. Personally, I'd hate to waste time training a guy only to find out that he got fired because he turned out to be an ass. In the years I've been with this company, we have had two people like that.
2) Out-doublethink them, answer in a way that seems polite, co-operative and not too self impressed.
3) NEVER NEVER use the "Stronlgy agree" or "Strongly disagree" answers, unlessit's an obvious trap
I have a degree in psych, was married to a shrink and have done graduate work in this area. It's all about as accurate as a horoscope, just anothe way to one-up you before they slip on the harness.
Faith: n. -- That human impulse that drives them to steal appliances when the power goes out
I'd use such a test if I were an employer.
I'd reject all candidates that submitted themselves to it.
First of all, personality tests are well debunked in the scientific literature, and they are also easy to beat.
So the first thing this tells you about the company, right off the bat, is that their HR department will be filled with incompetent losers. Are you going to work in the HR department? Will you spend a lot of time working with the HR department?
Personally, I hardly ever deal with HR after the first 3 days at a job. So I hardly care if they're incompetent losers, as long as they are just competent enough for me to get paid. So for me, having to take one of these tests doesn't typically tell me anything too worrying about the company. If someone remarks, 'the personality tests were the CEO's idea, he's a really big proponent' then I might worry and consider skipping on to look at another job.
Since personality tests are easy to beat, if i'm interested in the job, I'll just take and pass the personality test. The real personality test is always going to be the in-person interview anyway, that's when you'll find out if you are a good fit for the team you'll be working with, and if the team is a good fit for you.
So my bottom line: try to evaluate as neutrally as possible just what exactly the company wanting you to take this test really says about the company, and the people you'll be working with.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
The article title makes no sense. New hires whats? Is this about some new graphics card or monitor or imaging format or something? And what does that have to do with behavior?!?
This guy's the limit!
The personality test tells you something about the company. Someone in a position of influence in HR got that instituted as a policy. I've only had one formal test like that. It was the only job I ever interviewed for that I didn't get. I'm making twice what they paid in the first job I got after interviewing there, so it appears to have worked out ok. All of my other employers have been happy with me as a person and employee, so I don't know what the personality tests tell someone.
I primarily do system administration and development centric jobs. The thing that's interesting about the personality tests I had experience with in psychology class and my mom's masters thesis is that they do a decent job of rating specific traits, but it's not clear what any of those traits mean.
For example, I find myself having frequent personality shifts. When I'm asking our senior management about their business needs, I'm a follower. When I'm telling them about technical solutions, I'm a leader. I tell them no and correct their assumptions. They seem to like that I can be an expert in some things without being an arrogant prick in things I know less about. I enjoy working with people like that as well.
How a personality test would help is beyond me. In most cases, it's beyond the HR people too. Technical people are black and white for me. They can either do what they claim they can do or they can't. The computer will be the one to decide if their solution works, so it's pretty easy to evaluate them. The HR people live in a world that is all one shade of grey. Whether or not their personality test is helpful or detrimental can't be determined. If they apply it uniformly, the ones who would have been great employees but fail the test will be working somewhere else, so you don't know that. Likewise, if it gets rid of the people who are one TPS report cover sheet away from going postal, you won't know because it will just be some workplace shooting on the other side of town for all you know.
Every company has weird little things that don't make any sense. If you otherwise like the company, jump through their stupid hoops and see how it goes. If you wouldn't be inclined to work for them even if offerred the job, tell them that you find personality tests to be demeaning and are no longer interested in the position. If you think it's worth posting on ask slashdot, I'm thinking you're already disinclined to do it. Why not give them negative feedback in the process.
If you don't like the idea, keep looking. If you don't mind or don't care, take the test -- as long as you're not suicidal, homicidal, or bipolar you pretty much don't have anything to fear. From what you've said, it sounds like you're aiming for the former and not the latter. Just my 2 cents.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
In one of my previous companies, we usually interviewed just for personality. We would often rate people on personality first and skills second - the idea was that if someone seemed sharp, hard-working, and friendly, then we were likely to get a lot done with that person. If someone's resume says s/he's been a PHP programmer (to use your situation as an example) for X years (and that can be verified with previous employers), then you have to assume that s/he has a pretty good idea of what s/he's doing, and it's very unlikely that you're going to get much more of an idea of a person's skills from his/her interview. Of course, you want to weed out incompetent ones, but you can do that with a 10-minute tech session - after that it's near-impossible to get an accurate gauge of someone's skills. So, more often than not, you're really looking for someone whose personality "clicks" with the group. The only caveat I can think of is that, if you're going to administer this kind of test, you need to have administered the same test to everyone in the interviewee's potential group, and you need some way of predicting how well they'll all get along. Also, you need some variety in a group - groups without some diversity of personalities and styles are (IMHO) much less likely to succeed than groups with a mix of personalities and skills.
--Nate
I feel you have pulled the content of your post out of you ass, and ask you to give a citation indcicating a law, or body of laws, or point to a webpage where I can further research the
validity of your claim.
I think you are (1) wrong (2) full of shit (3) stupid as hell or (4) all of the above.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The only things that are illegal are those that reveal "protected class" status (e.g. race, sex, religion, handicap etc.) -- and even then, it's not illegal per se to ask, it is only illegal to actually screen people out based on that information. Obviously, someone seeking a lawsuit will have a pretty strong case just from the asking, but that only means it is well inadvisable to bring it up, not that it is illegal to do so.
So, those lists of "legal" questions you may see are merely recommendations of what you can ask and not risk litigation. That doesn't mean it is illegal to go beyond those questions, just that you're getting into unsafe territory. You could, say, ask someone "what do you do for fun on Sunday." That's not literally saying "are you a Christian," and the person might be a christian but say "I go to brunch," but they might well say "I sing in the choir at my church" and voila, you could now be accused of discrimination based on religion--even though you never actually asked about it directly. Similarly, you could try to be "safe" and ferret out recreational activity on Saturday but get smacked with "Oh, I go to temple." Voila, now you're potentially an anti-semite. The point of those guidelines is to avoid questions that will give anyone the opportunity to volunteer that information--but that isn't law, it's just good advice.
i applied at blockbuster and whole foods in texas and both locations required me to fill out a 30 page personality test at a kiosk before even getting contacted for an interview.
I'm not in HR, I have a senior technical role, but I give a fair number of interviews - I'm averaging 1 a week at the moment. I've been on the company course to understand what a good interview consists of, and it was worthwhile doing that course...
Two things:
1) "Behavioural questions" are supposed to be based on past experience, not made-up scenarios, eg: "Tell me about a time when you had to give negative feedback to your direct superior". Another example "Walk me through a time when you were working on a small team, and the team disagreed with your ideas". The idea is that there are several ways each of those questions can be taken (mainly because they're challenging situations), and the way in which the candidate chooses to perceive the question is just as much a guide to their character as the actions they claim to take. I always ask at least one question like the above, and the range of answers is quite remarkable...
2) There is no way on this good earth I will recommend anyone who I feel will be disruptive to the team I work within, unless they (a) walk on water, *and* (b) telecommute a lot. Ok, hyperbole aside, the morale of the team is one of the most crucial parts of software development - I want people who go the extra distance when needed (and only when needed, because to *need* that is indicative of a failure somewhere else, probably on my part...); I want smart, motivated, excellent-at-what-they-do engineers and QA. I take the time and effort to build a cohesive team with both a "we can do this" (backed up with some data...) and a "we *want* to do this" attitude, and I don't want Joe Random Nobody upsetting that.
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
You don't have to be a good person with a charming personality. You just have to lie well enough for others to believe that you are/do. It is the most devious sociopaths what will succeed the most in this world, resulting in them producing more offspring. The human race will evolve.
So, if your personality is being evaluated, imagine that Scott Peterson is interviewing for the same job as you. You'll need to come off as more charismatic than him. Use your intellect to determine which answers will make them think the best of you, and that's what you say. Practice your phony plastic smile in the mirror, until it can pass off as genuine. Stuff like that.
It is fairly easy to do well on these tests. Just like answering interview questions in general, any answer that is positive is good and any that is negative is bad. As part of the process for one interview, I had to answer two pages of questions that an HR rep read to me verbatum. When answering the first question, I noticed she was making notes based on certain things I said. By the end of the interview, I had her writing on command. ;) Silly HR departments. In the end, I removed myself from the interview process as this was just one of several things that gave me the impression the place was not for me.
If they are going to partially base employing you on some canned questions that are transparent, give them the answers they want. Of course, if the culture is such that they use such a test to judge you, the company may not be a good "personality" fit for you. :)
Companies develope a certain culture over the years. Generally speaking, the higher ups want to keep that culture stable (culture changes would rock the boat and possibly reduce productivity). If they are trying to keep things stable, at the very least they won't want to hire someone who will conflict with the existing culture.
Honestly, these tests aren't very long and having seen "real" results for whatever temperments, there's no way you could tell a "deceitful" person from an "honest" person if all the answers are the same. A truly deceitful person will fly under the radar because they know the test and know the answers.
Besides, the real problem here is taking something that is actually a relatively neutral analysis and making screening decisions based on the results. In the case of Meyers-Briggs, I'm an INTJ, so how do I compare to a ESFP?
The problem here isn't that the tests are useless, it's that the tests are designed for situations where there is no incentive to deliberately skew the results. If someone's financial livelihood depends on how they "look on paper," it for all reasonable intents invalidates the foundation of the test. Sure, people do the same thing in person, but the problem is relying on these results sight-unseen and giving any credence to the supposedly "objective" results as if it retains any scientific validity.
This may just be to screen out the real whackos. Trust me, this is important. You don't want to hire a guy with all the technical skills who:
all this during his probationary period and they still kept him on full-time. it wasn't til months later when the women in the office said they were seriously afraid of him that he was let go.
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch.
But I mean, if your socially deviant, who wants to hire you? Unless you have an impressive CV and can easily demonstrate your exceptional in what you do, then don't question why an employeer expects you to fit a certain mold.
The bottom line is that the employeer has a right to hire whomever they want. While racial profiling would be far too much and would result in lawsuits, there is nothing inherently illegal about refusing to hire a person, and without cause either.
Even once a person is hired, there is generally few laws that prevent an employeer from firing you without cause, unless your unionized of course.
Love it or hate it, life isn't fair, and if your applying for a company that requires a personality test, look elsewhere. Chances are this company doesn't know their ass from a hole in the ground if they think someone with a nice personality is what they need in good employees. You probably don't want to work for that company anyways.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
I have to add my two cents here. I was asked to take one of these by some employment agency that my old company contracted to handled the people laid off due the dot bomb. As I went through it not only did it keep asking very similar question, but just reworded, it also was asked very personal questions as well. I felt like I was on the couch in a shrink's office. So I just started BSing the thing and it came back with a result that was almost the opposite of what I think I am. Either way, I would feel awkward enough to answer those questions in person to a shrink, there was no way I was going to do it to a computer. Next thing you know, the whole internet is busting your balls over the stupid crap you had to answer for some personality test...
sheesssh....
That said, if you really want the job, I would tell them that you would rather do the test in person. There is no way I would do it to a machine.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable" - JFK
... It didn't go so well:
Interviewer: You're in a desert, walking along in the sand when all of a sudden you look down...
Me: What one?
Interviewer: What?
Me: What desert?
Interviewer: It doesn't make any difference what desert, it's completely hypothetical.
Me: But, how come I'd be there?
Interviewer: Maybe you're fed up. Maybe you want to be by yourself. Who knows? You look down and see a tortoise, Leon. It's crawling toward you...
Me: Tortoise? What's that?
Interviewer: You know what a turtle is?
Me: Of course!
Interviewer: Same thing.
Me: I've never seen a turtle. (pause) But I understand what you mean.
Interviewer: You reach down and you flip the tortoise over on its back, Leon.
Me: Do you make up these questions, Mr. Holden? Or do they write 'em down for you?
Interviewer: The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over but it can't. Not without your help. But you're not helping.
Me: WHAT DO YOU MEAN, I'M NOT HELPING?
Interviewer: I mean you're not helping! Why is that, Leon?
Interviewer: They're just questions, Leon. In answer to your query they're written down for me. It's a test, designed to provoke an emotional response. (pause) Shall we continue?
It went down hill from there. Needless to say, I didn't get the job.
What does my personality have to do with my ability to perform in a job?
Pretty much everything. Most employers take the position that they can train any reasonably skilled person to do the task at hand, as long as they can work with the existing team. OTOH, disruption to the work/team environment, no matter your skill level, can cause real target-missing problems and be fatal to a company if it's small or bad for the department if you're looking at a larger place.
Most HR-conducted interviews are 100% personality tests, since they pretty much don't have the knowledge to quiz you on technical matters. And most employers, even technical ones, don't bother to give you a technical interview. IME. That alone tells you the value that employers put on personality above technical ability.
--
$tar -xvf
I have had to take several of these types of tests. Some are designed to catch certain types of immoral behavior by asking what you would do in a given situation, and what you believe others would do. In general, people actually do what they think others would do, so if you answer that you think everyone steals office supplies, you are admitting to stealing office supplies.
The other type is like the Myers-Briggs test, and is designed to see if you are a good fit for the job. We don't want to stick introverts in sales positions, nor extroverts in a tiny cubicle coding all day long and never talking to anyone.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I am also currently looking for a job. I always feel that I fail to communicate who it is that I really am. I really believe that I would be hired if I could just get them to see the true me. I have maintained a 4.0 in an attempt to demonstrate my potential, but I welcome any help I can get in the interview department. I hope these tests spread like wildfire.
...
I had to take one of these after I had an interview and was considered a good candidate. They emailed me the results the next day. I found it amazing how bang on the results were based on obscure questions. It showed what motivated me, what bugged me, how to get more work out me, etc. I am glad I took it just for my own sake.
If it's anything like the ones I've taken, the 'correct' response will be pretty obvious.
"What would you do if you found a coworker has been stealing office supplies?" (actual question)
Not to be a snob or anything, but that's a pretty telling sign of a crappy job where you're untrusted, unskilled, and replaceable. That's a fast food / call center job quiz. We're talking about something a little more subtle where they're more interested in how well you play with others than whether you're a petty criminal.
The kind of personality tests for corporate office workers are more along the lines of Myers-Briggs tests and and color-ranking quizzes than "don't do drugs; don't steal" tests. I don't trust these quizzes for two reasons:
1) They're not always accurate.
I vary strongly on E/I and J/P scales on a Myers-Briggs test depending on my mood, and with a little understanding of the categories, I can get any result I want. (Solid NT, though -- that part of the test is dead on, and it's extremely obvious in everything I say and do.)
The color test is just so much voodoo, in my opinion. However, since the system is totally opaque to the person being interviewed, you can't game it like you can a test that asks actual questions with recognizeable "right" and "wrong" answers. Similarly, there are all sorts of Bayesian-based tests with crazy questions that somehow tend to correlate to certain personality traits.
2) I don't trust my employer with the results.
Even if they were accurate, I see absolutely no reason to let my employer know anything about who I am beyond what I bring to work every day. Some of the tests purport to tell fears, points of anxiety, reasons for self-doubt, etc. If these results were true, then I don't trust my employers with that information. (I might trust my current boss with that info since we get along well, but I don't trust HR at all.)
Actually, it's even worse that they're frequently inaccurate. HR people who don't ever interact with you beyond an interview or some sort of legal difficulty will ardently believe the results to accurately measure you. What if your test says your intolerant or dishonest even if you're not?
I try to avoid these tests whenever I can. They inherently says that I can't be trusted as much as some scientifically-shaky questionaire since I could be a faker while these tests will reveal "the true me."
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
...
24. Jack calls and says "DON'T TELL ANYONE I called. Just re-position the satellite" Do you:
a) Hang up on Jack
b) Call Division and give them Jack's location
c) Tell Edgar to do it
d) Re-position the satellite
[Insert pithy quote here]
Nothing at all, if you job doesn't ask you do do these things:
1. Be in the presence of people
2. Communicate with others
3. Be trusted with / near property which does not belong to you
4. Provide products or services to customers
5. Exist in the physical world of things and people
---don't make me break out my red pen.
Ran into this when they opened a new Best Buy near us, and I thought I might pick up a little extra money as a computer tech (mostly back-room work, minimal customer contact). They asked a few (very few) questions to establish tech skills, 90% of this on-line application was this behavioral crap, which I answered more or less honestly. I could see where the thing was aiming, though, looked like they wanted everyone in the store to be "Cheerful Charlies" to fit in.
When I went over to their interview site in a nearby mall and inquired, I was told that I had not been selected for an interview. If I wanted I could try again in thirty days (by which time the roster for the new store would be filled up, of course). I didn't bother.
I no longer shop at Worst Buy, certainly not for anything like a computer, since it is obvious they are NOT selecting their PC techs for technical skills, just their beaming and radiant personalities.
Teen Angel - a Ghost Story
Love that story. Here's mine (names removed to protect... well, I don't care, but I took 'em out anyway).
Back in the early '90s I am leading the team doing Windows drivers at a fabless semi. I need more resources. Several months before, we had a new hire, who did not report to me. Was working on SCO drivers, but had the technical expertise to help my group out.
He was temporarily assigned to my group. Needed a couple of days to clear the SCO work, so I gave him background documentation, and discussed the new work with him. Unfortunately, he did not really speak English, but was very good at nodding at the appropriate times, and saying "Yes, I get it. Yes, I understand."
I left it at that (give him a couple of days, and then touch base).
Now, it gets really bizarre. He was a paranoid schizophrenic. After reporting to me for two days, the hard drive on his SCO box crashed. He mumbled "I won't be needing this", threw his security badge at the admin, and left the building before lunch. He went to a local mall, and knifed someone to death.
Not guilty, insane.
Fast forward a couple of years. He is still collecting LTD. During a meeting discussing staffing for the dev on a new chip, the VP asked "What about xxx? Can't he do the Unix and SCO drivers?". "But he is in the insane asylum!". "That's ok, we can give him a computer, can't we? He is still on the payroll".
Personally, I prefer to work with sane and reasonable people (and, no, he wasn't given the work assignment).
Ratboy
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
This doesn't sound like a behavioral interview, but just a personality test. In a behavioral interview, the interviewer asks questions that discuss actual past behavior of the interviewee rather than speculative questions or the dreaded "What kind of tree would you be?" That said, their website looks like they're a yes-man body-shop. Keep looking...
"Worst Buy": My, what delicious satire.
In my experience the typical 'software engineer' is INTJ (clean desk) or INTP (messy desks), and 'tech leads' are usually ENTJ/ENTP (though more often ENTP). So what happens when management (typically ISTJ/ESTJ) or HR (typically INFJ/ENFJ) predecides your fate based upon the arbitrary score you got on a given day? "We're looking for at least 80% 'Thinking' here; but this candidate only scored 75%. Should I send him the rejection letter?" or "This guy applied for the tech lead position, but his score indicates that he's just a regular engineer."
/. UID below 10,000. Ok, just kidding on those last two. Honest! :-)
I'm an INFP. I interview well, I get along with anybody, I learn very quickly, I'm a good teacher and leader, I'm a great problem solver, I think outside the box like nobody's business, and I'm really good at analyzing large systems. But if someone only looks at my myers-briggs score and they have a predefined notion of what scores you're supposed to have for a given position, they'll probably assume I'm unqualified to be a software engineer, let alone a tech lead.
Perhaps the submitter is in a similar predicament and doesn't want to be judged only on his or her personality type. Besides, don't we already have laws preventing companies from making open call for applications but secretly discriminate based on age, race, gender, religion, political affiliation, level of physical disability, etc? I don't see myers briggs type as being any different from those, and I don't think it should be legal to include it in the hiring process. (Note: I'd feel really bad if I found out that I got a job because some affirmative action rule said they needed more INFPs.)
On the other hand, I really wouldn't mind if they had a way to screen out the whiners, deadbeats, loudmouths, pranksters, people that feel the need to make more than a dozen puns every day at lunch, Mac users, and anyone with a
If the person can get their TPS reports done and filed on time, they will be a success in their position.
...most of the ones I've seen "in the wild" are of the b.s. variety. But, by "knowing the answers" and there not being any "correct" ones, well, that's the point. However, there _are_ answers that together will generate a particular result and for the b.s. tests that seem to be in use (probably because they're cheap and short enough that people will put up with them), there are pretty obvious categories of people that they're looking for.
I got tired of one particularly horrible one years ago that was just insultingly obvious--of the "if you know your second cousin twice removed in another state is stealing pencils, do you call the police?" So, I started giving totally "ethical" responses to everything, which oddly enough weren't far from the truth--that is, "no, it's none of my business, let karma sort it out." When I "failed" the test, I confronted the yahoo who "interpreted" the results and asked him point blank, would you really want the psychotic nutjob this test considers "honest?" He agreed and dug up the phone number of the quack who wrote the test.
However my test was after my interview and after they offered me the job. It was about 3 hours long and involed 5-6 tests with lots of questions on each. The shrink that gave the test also secretly tested my test instruction following abilities. He would give me the test, give me some superfluous info about the test, then slip in instructions to take the sample questions and stop. Stop was worded differently but the meaning was to stop and no go any further. Then he'd leave you for 15 minutes. The sample tests would only take a minute or 2 and you'd end up sitting there waiting for the guy thinking that you heard that you shouldn't go ahead with the test but questioning whether you're right or not. He'd come in after 15 minutes and pretend like nothing was going on and he'd instruct you to move on with the questions. I saw a small pin-hole camera in the wall behind an large office plant as I was leaving the test room after the test. I wondered if he was watching me but that confirmed it.
The funny thing about this post, is it shows that it's probably a good idea that you weren't given the job.
... and their ingrained thinking that people skills are not required for what they are going to do.
If they had hired you anyway, you would have mocked the "Cheerful Charlies" that worked there, and created a hostile working environment. You would likely have taken the opportunity to degrade the "less skilled" to customers at times, since you decry them so much.
Doesn't sound like someone I'd want to hire. I find it horrible that I'm no longer amazed at the lack of people skills in many technical people
Ask a friend of mine who has lost at least 3 jobs in the last year and a half because his people skills and cooperation abilities were sub-par. Companies don't hire people who can't communicate with customers and co-workers very well, and who have elitest attitudes. All the technical skills in the world are useless if you're difficult to work with.
Fans of Starship Troopers (the novel) may recall when Rico is undergoing his MI testing and there are both physical and psychological portions . I always liked the part where he says "I don't understand what they can learn about you from having a secretary jump up on her desk and yell 'Snake!'"
I'd like to see tests a little more along these lines. Like maybe in the middle of the interview, smoke starts coming under the conference room door, or the interviewer pretends to be having a stroke. Or both? Or perhaps someone runs by the room yelling "There's a maniac with an axe in the server room!"?
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
anyone with a /. UID below 10,000/i.
Damn! So close... Oh well, back to doll queue....
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
A lot of software engineering textbooks these days have a bit in them about team dynamics and psychology, including how personalities can affect development in positive and negative ways. Taking a personality test can be useful for the company in figuring out who would work best together, allowing them to arrange teams that don't just have the needed knowledge and skills, but who also work well together. Doesn't the idea of having co-workers you can get along with sound great?
I'd advise take the test. Even if you don't get the job, you still get to know more about yourself.
Christopher S. 'coldacid' Charabaruk -- coldacid.net
Actually, I found the submitters second question to be much more indicitive of the need for "work in this area". I, too, would prefer not to be insulting here but quite honestly if you are asking slashdot readership whether or not you should take the test, that doesn't bode extremely well for your independence and emotional maturity. "Should I do it?" is really a question that only you should answer. Asking a bunch of people who don't know really baffles me. You need to decide whether you truly object to this type of test and an employer that would make you go through this trial. I can tell you what I would do in that situation, but I have different values, economic situation, etc. than you do so my answer doesn't (or shouldn't, at least) mean jack shit to you.
Let me put it this way: if you decide not to go through with this on the basis of our advice and forfeit your chance at working for this company, and later you realize that joining them would have been a wonderful opportunity, who are you going to be upset with? Us, for telling you to turn away from this company? You, for believing that our advice was worth listening to? This decision is important and you shouldn't be so quick to abdicate responsibility over it to people you don't know. Simply put: you shouldn't need us to tell you how you feel about this (or anything else). And that's what this comes down to in the end: how will you feel working at a company that made you go through this?
GMD
watch this
For gawd's sakes man, don't take the test! You don't want to be a part of palce like that, not to mention that aspects of your personality will become part of some permanent database, to be later used for who knows what! Also, I'm a PHP developer and FreeBSD administrator, and also looking for a job, but I'm not personally concerned with who pays me or who knows about me!
If you had to spend 40 or more hours a week working with someone that you didnt like b/c of their personality you would go crazy.
If given the choice of a nice person to work with that was less qualified than another person that was a jerk/weirdo, I would pick the nice person b/c i would have to see them and interact with them everyday. I think personality if very important in hiring people.
One of the peddlers of these tests is the Church of Scientology; the fact that they still manage to sell these is testament to the eagerness with which some employers wish to get a tactical advantage over their future employees.
Of course, personality tests are psychological hogwash. They don't teach anyone anything.
Having said that, you will probably have to ask yourself how desperate you want the job. But just the fact that they are asking you to take such a test is writing on the wall. That question alone says more about the personality of your potential employer than any test will reveal about yours.
...doesn't mean that anyone will look at the results.
Many companies have this policy, and many interviewers think that the tests aren't worth shit. Result - test gets put in bin.
In high school. For a job interview at a grocery store...
Q: If you see an employee stealing from the company, would you report them?
A: Yes.
Got the job.
There's an old saying about how "An IQ test measures exactly what it measures." If people can't agree on what something that is supposed to be as "objective" as IQ is, then how are tests that measure "personality" going to be able to assess something squishy like "personality" in any objective, reliable way?
Personality tests can range from things taken out of legitimate psych research to some management guru's take on personality to pop science. Not only is what can be interpreted from them as a measure of one person's personality questionable, the people doing the interpretation may hardly be qualified to understand what the "score" of the test might be.
Picking a test to administer to prospective employees may say more about the company than any individual's results may say about that person. How strictly the company follows up on those results says even more. If some upper management hack falls in love with the Myers-Briggs scale, gives all his middle and lower level managers a one-day training session on how to use MB ratings to optimize productivity and group dynamics, and then actually expects these people to make use of this information on a daily basis (no, I wouldn't be talking about, say, the US Postal Service here, not at all!) ... I'd run away as fast as possible.
Uhm... it is a paying job? Other than that you are just reading slashdot and watching the simpsons. If this is so horrible, you will not like having a job. Filling out a questionaire. I could see not going through a test in which you were electricuted. But... questions. If you need help call a phone sex worker to help you fill out the form. They are good at telling fibs. That is if your mommy will let you make a big boy phone call.
I had a flame... but she had a fire.
I took it - it had a bunch of questions about 'What would you do in this situation', and 'Have you ever stolen anything from an employer.' etc.
I called a few days later, and found I didn't get the job, as I had indicated that, No. I have never stolen from any employer.
The guy let me know that 'Everyone steals, and the ones that say they don't are lying.'
I said, "That may be true about your masturbating, but it's not the case with me and theft. Screw you." and I hung up.
I had *never* stolen from any employer, up to that time. Now, of course, I take all the Post-It-Notes(TM) I can.
Circuit City couldn't leave well enough alone, and sent me a 'You're not Hired!' card a week later, Then another on my birthday, months later. I shit you not.
I feel better when I go through their stores, and pour iron fillings in the floor displays.
Posted anonymously because I'm a U.S. Senator.
..actually, INFPs are more than twice as common as INTJs and ENTJs. Still not very common, though.
k downMBTI.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:PopulationBrea
It is sort of silly and amusing how with something as innocuous as these temperment matrices how easy it is to twist the results around like a horoscope and sound golden no matter what.
Ever since employers couldn't give polygraphs anymore, they wanted some other mechanism to weed out applicants. Hence the personality tests. They want to test your narc-ness quotient (how well you snitch on fellow employees who hurt the bottom line) and test how loyal you'd be to the company to the detriment of your social life and your health. They want unquestioning employees that only show initiative when it comes to their profit.
The tests are dishonest and immoral. And should be outlawed.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Some of the early self-report inventories to determine negative personality characteristics like psychopathy/antisocial personality were pretty easy not to trip up on (e.g., having fun is more important than doing a good job, I like to cut corners, I'm always bored, I am opinionated, I have stolen something, etc.). Of course, only idiots would make it clear that they were slotfully lazy, inclined to cheat and steal when they can get away with it, and admit to getting into fights and shirking all responsibility.
The personality tests are getting sneakier so that people will admit to personality traits they have that may not always be positive. For example, many psychopaths have a way with words and consider themselves devilishly persuasive. They can always get their way. They may see themselves as merely "determined" and "competitive" and not egocentric and aggressive. If they consistently reveal psychopathic personality traits while being relatively low on opposing traits (like interpersonal agreeableness, emotional sensitivity, conscientiousness, etc.), their personality may be considered "high risk" for hire.
On vit, on code et puis on meurt.
There was a case involving Target, where they had security officers take a test similar to this. The problem, the Court found, was that it asked whether "you believe that you are right and everyone else is wrong." or that "your religion is the one true religion."
There are ways that they can phrase questions to sneak in questions about impermissible facts, but the problem is, you would have to take them to court and prove that they were just doing this as a pretext for discrimination. You'd have to find a lawyer who would take the case, and a Court that is sympathetic to challenges by job applicants and employees.
Needless to say, I doubt you would have a real legal recourse. Since this is not a "free market" with regard to jobs (i.e. you dont' come as equals and bargain for the terms of employment), you are not going to get around this test.
Basically, you suck it up and refuse the test (and the job), or take it and try your luck.
Good luck!
"What does my personality have to do with my ability to perform in a job?"
It's not how it affects your job but how you might affect others. You clearly need work in this area. Personality is more important when hiring new people than raw skill. Especially out of college.
If the group doing the interview doesn't think they could work with this person for long, they have no chance.
Of course your skills matter but if you don't get by the personality test, good bye.
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
I'm serious.
An interview isn't just a one-way process where the company asks you questions, it's also YOUR chance to ask the company questions. For example: Questions about the product they sell, questions about the workplace environment and policies, and questions about who you would be working for and what sort of hours you'd be expected to keep are all legitimate.
That being said, I think it's perfectly legit to ask them why they'd like you to take the chance. I wouldn't be surprised if the answer was, "We had a past employee with real attitude problems and don't want anyone like them here again".
That's my two cents. IANAI (I Am Not An Interviewer)
Rewfls.
This dude is seriously pissed at "Worst Buy" (good name for a sausage store...kinda...well, you get the point) but I think what validates that this guy isn't a good "techie" is the fact he would have considered buying a computer at "Worst Buy" or any other chain. One of the first questions I would have to ask, after getting by the personality things, is where did you get your computer. If it's OEM....and you want to be a "techie"....get the hell out.
And to the parent, don't be so bitter. You won't get most jobs you apply for. Besides, you sound over weight and who wants to hire a fat person?
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
I realize a large number of /. people will fail personality tests, however, most companies want someone who can do the job AND is able to talk to managers and co-workers at a reasonable level. Interviewers do a personality test when you visit them anyways, whether you know it or not.
You have been looking for a job for months and are ready to move on because of a preinterview personality test? Is there something you are afraid a personality test will reveal about you? Personality is a large part of fitting into a culture. If you are the best PHP developer in the world but bite the head off the business people every time they request a change then you are no good for the job. You have to "fit in" with the people you work with not just perform the duties of your role.
I was interviewing for a job (Java Development) a few months back. They asked me to come in and take a test. I came in, spoke with the man in charge, and they gave me a test; it was a sheaf of papers and it had a bunch of SAT Math/Mensa style tests.
I know for a fact that I overthought one of them and got it wrong, but the rest were fine.
Then they gave me a Brainbench test. FYI, I have taken many Brainbench tests in my years as a developer, going to different consulting gigs, and at every institution I go to, I inform them (after the fact) that the test seemed quite outdated and one would seriously be unable to gauge one's ability to program from a Brainbench test.
Anyway, I don't think I did too well on it and they never called me back. I got another job closer to home for more pay; I've been optimizing their legacy code systems, and it's been going great. I mention the test thing to a coworker or two, who laugh. Other coworkers and former coworkers agree that "Brainbench is shitty".
Months pass, then I get a phone call.
"Hi, I'm VP of the company you interviewd with that never called you back. I have some questions for you. Do you mind?"
Long story short, this VP knows one of my coworkers through the guy whose desk I am now working at (he wasn't happy at THIS company). They had all met at a party months ago and my coworker brought up the test thing. VP investigated. Then checked out his people.
Turns out that the manager wanted people that he could "control" and essentially enslave. And he also primarily hired people who were non-US citizens.
Suffice to say, the VP is looking into it, but I'm pretty happy where I am anyway. The moral of the story? Brainbench is shitty.
I have taken personality tests for interviews. One I took was similar to yours, for a company that creates them. The tests in short were explained to me as a way to profile people. For instance statistically if a trend shows that a large number of engineers wear glasses and are reasonably good at chess, then it can be applied that people with similar interests when combined with other factors would also make a good candidate. They have profiles of what type of people take what type of jobs. Not being that type of person doesn't neccessarily make you ineligible for the job (at least they say this, probably because they have to)
/.'ians.
.... You say you've done something he feigns interest and implies that perhaps he doesn't buy what your saying. The whole point is to guage your reactions under stress.
.com era) anymore. Slovenly antisocial, rainman types are not longer catered too. The time will soon come when predisposition toward a career path will be considered at a much younger age... but now Im digressing into fear-mongering doomsday propaganda :)
Is profiling wrong... hmmm Ill leave that to my fellow
I have also had to take personality tests in the true sense. There is good reason behind these. We all take them whether they are written or not. Think not? What exactly is a face to face interview? Anything you need to know is in a resume or could be obtained. The face to face is to establish a better idea of Who You Are? Are you slovenly? Clean-cut? How do you different people? (not how you "SAY" you handle differnt people.
I have had these tests to varying degrees. The most interesting involved meeting with several different people all of which "represented" a different personality type. These people would then ask their various questions acting according to role. Of course the most memorable is the disagreeable type. You like sport team x, he will tell you just how much they suck and how much fan boys of team x are whatever
Can you manage a team? Will you fold when sent to a client site who is paticularly terse. Its no the (catch phrase for
you remember me
please don't post about me on my bike again now they'll be looking for me on my bike
i cant find that orange hat do you have my orange hat
i like animals
i need to change my socks because my socks are dirty
i just got rehired
i see you monday free coffee
I've never had a drug-screening test before being hired in Canada. I believe they are illegal here.
The only time I've ever had to take a drug-screening test before beginning work was when I spent a few months working in the U.S.
Anyone remember the article from a few months back about many CEO's being sociopaths?
In corporate America, personality will make and break a team of any kind. Your personality, how it fits with other members of the team, etc adds to the dynamic of the team you join.
Believe me, after 14 years in IT, I've seen great combinations of personalities and bloody awful combinations. The bad ones may have had all "A" players who each had issues with working with others.
If you don't like this concept.... tough.... GROW UP.... Until then, grab your Mountain Dew and go back to your closet and churn out code for "mom and pops" for $25/hour who don't give a crap who you are.
When you're ready for the big leagues.... chop off your freakin' pony tail, tuck in your shirt, shave, apply some makeup to the tattoo on your neck, and put on a damn suit for your interview. Pucker-up by the way.... it's called being polite and diplomatic.
Unless of course you're interviewing in the valley somewhere, in which case.... crawl out of bed, shake your hair into a ball of fuzz and you should be set.
After I got out of college, I couldnt find a job in my field. Desperate for cash, I reapplied to the store I worked at when I was in High School. They had gone from paper applications to electronic but I believe their old paper application had just been transfered(in other words, it was the same thing). It included a 100 question personality test. Being older and more straightforward then I was 6 years earlier when I had first applied for the job, I figured I had a better hold on what to do in some certain situations. After taking it, I went and talked to the floor manager who I had worked with previously and she told me, in private, that I had failed the test and they could hire me(even though I had worked for them before and they were fine with my personality) but I should go retake it. She also told me the test wasn't there to test what I would do, but rather if I knew what the right thing to do was. It seemed they used it more as a liability thing so if their employee did somethign wrong they could prove that, on a signed document, the employee had said they would not react in the way they did. Taking it again, I was able to pass, but I thought it was kind of rediculous. The best scores came from being passive, reporting every infraction witnessed no matter how minor, and being a good semariton(sp?). They ended up refusing to hire me based upon the fact that if I found a job in my field, I would leave at a moments notice but I was hurt because they needed no training time to get me started so I would basically be instantly efficient so no money lost for training. Anyway, thats not my point, my point is the fact that I was told that they(specifically) used the test not to see what you would do, but rather to find out if you knew what you were supposed to do.
If you have a rotten personality, then you may not be suited to work within a company. Plus, if they work in teams a lot, maybe they are concerned with the way you would influence the working environment. The personality of people working in a place contributes heavily on productivity.
I'd pay for a survey that could detect that.
I interviewed at neopets.com a few years back and they gave me some pretty strange personality tests on the second interview. I didn't get the job but a few months later I read this. Guess I'm just not Neopets/Scientology material.
Any job that requires any sort of personality test is usually followed up by a 'training' period and possibly a non-compete agreement. By the time you're done interviewing, testing, training, etc you're dead broke and forced to work there for at least three months before you can quit if you hate the job. Every job I've had that required this process was a terrible one. Due to my experience, this is the point where I would walk out/move on/never call back. It seems designed to leave you in a pinch so you can't leave a horrible workplace once you're hired. There are better jobs out there, so don't waste your time on PHBs.
In the case of Meyers-Briggs, I'm an INTJ, so how do I compare to a ESFP?
I'm an INTP - we had an ESFP working here for a while, and they are STILL finding things in the database that she screwed up, 3 months after she left. But the customers loved her, she was full of sap and oozed it all over people. Me, I couldn't work customer service to save my neck. You and I could share an office and work quietly and happily without talking. She and I would have been in a cat fight after the first day.
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
You may find that, if hired, you have the pleasure of working with mature, professional, and emotionally-stable co-workers.
And while you're there, you can ride your unicorn to the gumdrop waterfall and drink a cup of sunshine.
They are used to determine what motivates you and whether the job you're applying for is a good fit. I have some questions about the accuracy of such tests/interviews but the idea is sound...if you are motivated/passionate in the area you're interviewing in you're likely to be a better cog in the machine.
I know if I'm hiring I'm looking for stuff other than the skills required, if you've an existing team you want people who will fit in with it and note grate on the rest. My last job in the UK hired me not because I was the strongest in the skills but because I was pretty good in the skills AND fitted in with the personalities already there .. and it worked, was a real nice working environment.
.. just used it as an example :-)
(Oh and I'm not saying your a cretin by the way
Go google on "behavioral interviews" to find several sets of typical questions. Try to think up plausible responses.
Not a single technical question for this very techy job! And I brushed up on Java/XML/UML/HTML too.
By the end of the torture sessions, I'd decided I probably didnt want to work for an organization so fouled up in red tape.
They apparently decided that of the EIGHT people they interviewed none was close enough to what they wanted. Sheesh.
It's probably a Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) test. Combined with the types of the existing workers, it can suggest how well you might interact with potential co-workers.
Amen! "TheWanderingHermit" articulated my thoughts exactly every time I see the soft sciences being disparaged on Slashdot. As for the post that started this whole discussion. "Know Thyself" is your best defense.
BTW I've been tested in the past, and have on occasion got a chance to read the results. They're been very insightful, and I think that's why some people are uncomfortable with psychology. Few people like being held up to a mirror they don't control.
Oh and "Zen and the Art of Making a living" is a good book to read.
What does my personality have to do with my ability to perform in a job?
Realistically, a lot. In theory your ability to get along with coworkers is a significant factor in almost any job. But that is, in the end, irrelevant to your present question.
Have any of you had to take a personality test to get a job?
Yes. At the very least everyone has had to meet the boss, which is at least an informal personality test.
Should I do it, or just keep looking?
Yes. And give them the answers they are looking for. Management has a great deal of respect (judging by whom they promote) for people who can lie convincingly, and people who can figure out the answer the boss wants to hear. That is (deep down, on an unconscious level) what they are looking for. It's mildly asinine, but easy. And, given that they believe this is a valid criteria, you can assume that you will be able to advance more easily with less effort at this company than at a company that actually judges you by the real content of your character and ability to contribute.
It's a game, and it's not hard to win. We're smarter than they are.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
... MOTHER!?!?
Be very careful how you answer the Alice in Wonderland questions...
Assumptions are narcotic!
Hi, I'm John Q. Fratboy. I wasn't intelligent or willing enough to study a falsifiable science in college (math is *hard*), so I decided to major in Psychology.
Pretending that human behavior can be quantified and predicted allowed me to go out drinking on Friday night and puke all over some bar-skank I met while the people studying real science were in "labs" or something.
I was afraid that after I graduated, I wouldn't be able to find a job (especially considering that I live in America, which has become saturated with "soft skills" people like me: I can't make or fix anything, but I'm really "creative" and good at "talking on the phone" to other people, and then calling an engineer or an intern when I actually have to do something). But our culture's blind acceptance of the foolish notion that Psychology is a real science allowed me to get a job creating "artificially intelligent personality tests". Even though it fails the most basic "infinitely repeatable and falsifiable" metric for being scientific, I was able to sell it to some HR managers (they are "creative" just like me) to help them pick-and-choose the engineers that will be working for them. After all, if you're only going to have a few engineers and people that actually "do" and "make" things supporting the rest of the "phone-talkers" in the office, you better make sure they're the best ones you can get, right?
There are two reasons for personality inventories or such tests during the interview process.
The first is that, believe it or not, a certain number of people just fail. Yes, fail. When HR has to slog through hundreds of applicants for a position, it's a way of readily eliminating some portion of the applicants, i.e., the ones that either specifically state they'd march right into the boss's office and give the boss a piece of their mind or the ones who admit to sometimes taking a sick day instead of vacation. You know, the idiots.
The second is that the test allows the company to say that *anyone* failed the test (or any of the other hoops the applicants are forced to jump through) and that's why they were not hired. It certainly wasn't because of their age, race, ethnicity, religion or sexual preference. The applicant turns out to be "not a good fit" or "non-customer-oriented personality type". As a side note, it's always amusing to question HR and find out that since these tests are supposed to be an absolute indicator of job success, they've gone back and had all employees who had their jobs prior to the introduction of the test take the test and fired the ones who failed, right?
I recently had an interview process that consisted of an online personality inventory, two phone interviews, an IQ test, two face to face interviews, two more phone interviews, and had another face to face scheduled, when they hired someone with more specific industry experience. Or so they said. I'll never know if that or something else was the true reason.
While studying psychology (during a failed BS run which, I'll admit, was costly), I gave serious consideration to the field of Industrial/Organizational Psychology. This, arguably, is the branch of psychology that should be developing these tests. (Ignore that psychology only works some of the time with most people, and very few times with everyone.)
The problem is, not all of the people developing these tests study I/O psych. Some of them don't even study psychology. There is still a transition going on among those people who study Human Resources as a function of their business degree, and those people who study I/O psychology. People of the "old school" of HR tend to go with the business model, where things are done a certain way because of profit/loss, traditions, and anecdotal empirical evidence.
The "new school" of I/O psychology is theoretically developing a total view of the workplace from hiring, retention, and productivity using empirical research into what groups of people engaged in business actually do, say, and feel. This is the theoretical idea, at least.
In practice, a lot of companies still rely on a mix of the old traditional hiring and HR practices, and then want to just pick a few things from the toolbox of I/O psychology to give them more insight that they might use then on the old subjective system.
Keep in mind, I/O psychology is still a relatively new specialized field of psychology; some of the first undergraduate degrees with this concentration started appearing only 11 or so years back.
As far as legal concerns, so long as the test does not compromise specially protected status, like religion, sex, etc, there are no laws that I am aware of that prevent an employer from making a hiring decision based on the information that might be garnered through such a test. In some fields, it's a requirement for not only hiring, but continued employment. Law enforcement, airline pilots, the like. I work for "the man" in a "sensitive" position; I had to take what looked like a modified MMPI2 test. (That's Minnesota MultiPhasic Personality Inventory, rev. 2.) That is a very very long test. Also not strictly developed for hiring purposes, and that's a major problem with many of these tests. (I know the base test because, during the end of my attempt to gain a Psychology BS, I had good reason to take a *lot* of those tests. And yes, you can manipulate them if you've studied how they are written.)
Getting back to the matter, however, the subjective nature of interviewers (for example, Bob the HR manager was once beaten up by a long-haired hippy, and as such has a deep rooted subconscious fear and unease with people who wear their hair long) is usually the reason for these tests. It helps the interviewers see past any of their own issues or blind spots, to an extent.
And that's the problem. IF the tests are developed specifically with hiring in mind, with specific measures and goals, they may assist the hiring process. An MMPI2, a Rorshack, and the Myers-Briggs are too generic for hiring purposes. IF the hiring process is designed to utilize the test results as an aid to judgement and an adjunct to the interview and hiring process, a test may help the HR person with any questionable areas or unwarranted concerns.
Those are two BIG Ifs. And also, there's a third... IF the person applying answers honestly, truthfully, and takes the test seriously.
Oh, and the fourth... IF the person falls into the statistical population and demographic for which the test was originally designed.
If you like the company, and want to work for them, the test isn't likely to hurt you. (Unless you are, in fact, a completely insane individual. I haven't had any problems with them yet, and I am in fact a functional borderline schitzophrenic.)
It sounds like the test is a big question for you... if it's the only thing you're worried about and it is keeping you from getting interviews, you might want to take a pass. But an earlier poster was right... you'll be under a personality test everyday at any job.
I haven't been on the job market myself but my mate has and he went through a similar interview process. On describing the interview to me, I thought to myself, if this is the interview what is the job going to be like?
Your reply amounts to name calling... this is what the parent poster said some Slashdot poster's do... and believe it to be entirely logicial. You're judging his intelligence on something as useless as poor spelling... Psychology is based on cigars and violins? I'm a huge fan of the hard physics (I'm a math and computer science major) and give my psych major girlfriend a ton of shit for her major, but even I know that there is some truth to pyshcology. It would be a dumb idea to base a person's hiring worth entirely on one test, but coupled with an interview and a resume, the behavioral test is certainly valid. Oh and yes, I've had one on every single job... I think they're fairly easy to "trick". :-)
Boycott Sony
I also had to do one to join Oracle as an intern in an Europan office (note this: as an intern).
I wouldn't worry much about personality tests. In fact I asked Oracle's human resources what was all about and they even told me that this kind of test was to determine if you are violent and/or harmful to other people and things like that.
As they also told me, 95% of the people pass that test without much trouble...
Ran into this when they opened a new Best Buy near us, and I thought I might pick up a little extra money as a computer tech (mostly back-room work, minimal customer contact). They asked a few (very few) questions to establish tech skills, 90% of this on-line application was this behavioral crap, which I answered more or less honestly. I could see where the thing was aiming, though, looked like they wanted everyone in the store to be "Cheerful Charlies" to fit in.
I ran a technical support / repair centre for a large store for about 5 years. During that time I came to realize the following:
1. I can turn almost anybody of average intelligence into a good, serviceable technician.
2. Poor personal skills take far, far longer to retrain than do technical skills. A prick is a prick, and so shall he remain. Ditto for Negative Nancy's.
My team was at its best right before I moved on. The positive people became proficient technicians, and everything ran as smooth as silk. So personality became weighted heavier than technical skills.
I had to fire the most technically gifted person I ever had on my team. He just couldn't understand the dollar value of a good customer relationship.
There are lots of people looking for tech work. It's no longer necessary to hire some introverted jerk just because they're available.
Both London Drugs and Wal-Mart require their employees to take "phyc" tests.
I was personally interviewed by two London Drugs managers who wanted to hire me on the spot but had to wait for my exam results - I failed. No explaination or talk about the results. Note: don't take the exam when you're ill and on medication!
Wal-Mart did hire me for a simular department (electronics), they too had an exam; I was questioned about two of my answers (I totally misunderstood the questions) and then was hired that same afternoon after a second interview with another manager.
Shaw Cable does most of its weeding out via computer tests before an initial telephone interview. My telephone question was how would I explain how to work an ATM to my (grand)mother. After that they double team you with a personal interview, both an HR/union rep and a department manager sit across the table from you and ask you several questions they really shouldn't be. I was turned down not in person or by phone but by a letter in the mail a week later.
If you want the job, take the test. simple.
I have had a few interviews to test the hiring waters in my area, and they all ask "How do you handle an angry customer?" or a question about trying to work with someone you do not get along with... Apparently many companies have had issues where people they employ have "gone postal" on co-workers or clients. So a test to determine at which level you deploy your LFCB is totally acceptable, because they of course want to be first to deploy :)
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing. Emo Philips
You know, two years ago I would probably have agreed with you. But I have spent Jamuary to April of the past two years doing Taxes (for one of the large companies in the field). I have been finding "People Skills" and "Customer Skills" I never knew I had. And this year I found myself helping the new 1st year preparers, especially one who would come to me rather than to the more experienced people because I would help without yelling, insults, and put-downs.
I stand behind my original statement - if tech skills are needed, select for those skills, take a chance you may have to get rid of a few horrible misfits. Picking for personality will get you a company full of compatible mediocrities.
Teen Angel - a Ghost Story
At least I have a legit excuse (PHB)...
Computer Science is Applied Philosophy
i took one of these tests, about 20 years ago, when i applied at mrs field's cookies. i needed a college gig.
anyway, i answered honestly and my friend lied, lied, lied.
my friend got hired.
some people are just very good at manipulating and lying. those people tend to do well on tests like this... and also during interviews.
there is a reason manipulative people tend to do well...
their goal isn't to create excellence on the job, it is to get promoted. since upper management is often not bright enough to realize that someone kissing your behind isn't the #1 promotion criteria, these folks tend to get ahead and make all the good workers crazy.
such is life.
Not being a "Cheerful Charlie" doesn't equate to not having people skills.
Sounds like somebody's got a case of the Mondays!
My previous employer [large techonologically backwards insurance company] uses these all the time now. Personally I find it creepy. It seems like they mainly look for people who have very rigid opinions and then they don't hire them under the theory that they won't be easy to work with and won't be able to accept doing things someone else's way. I was in an analytical position and so it seemed like they tolerated much more sheepish, introverted non-social behavior for those position whereas the people who were in contact with the agents probably wouldn't be hired with that type of personality.
Freedom in our Lifetime www.freestateproject.org
"Personally, I'd much rather take the test...it's probably far easier than answering that damned question, 'What do you regard as your greatest weakness?' during the interview..."
A: That I haven't developed a witty answer to this question.
Employers (and `justice' officials) put way too much faith in these unvalidated para-scientific tests. Polygraphs have false positive and false negative rates of around 50% -- that is, they are as effective as tea leaves, divining rods, and Tarot cards. Voice stress analysis, ink blots, and other personality tests are just the same.
...
Polygraphs and voice stress have largely been banned for employment screening. So should any other non-validated test used to make decisions that bear on somebody's well-being.
Interestingly your friends in `security' are exempt in the US. The FBI routinely screens using lie detectors. If you fail (which is quite likely; less so if you are a trained spy) you will get a permanent federal record of being deceitful.
See "The Lie Behind the Lie Detector," a free book: http://antipolygraph.org/pubs.shtml
The "trick question" about stealing from your employer is discussed in some detail. The bottom line is that these devices are interrogation techniques not diagnostic tools, along with racks, bright lights, rubber hoses, dogs, immersion,
What does my personality have to do with my ability to perform in a job?
Um, only everything.
I know people dream of sitting in a closet writing code all day, not having to go to meetings, interact with others, solve problems as a team, or learn to negotiate, but in the real world, your behavior can make or break a project.
Where I work, we use behavioral to (a) disqualify a candidate, and (b) when technical skill is a tie, behavioral response is the tie-breaker.
We look at it this way: You can teach tecnical skills to anyone, but behavioral skills are permanent.
Get this through your heads folks: ANYONE CAN LEARN TECHNICAL SKILLS. It is not a myth or an elite skill you and you alone posses, makeing ubernerds some super race. It's just a matter of discipline.
Communication, maturity, experience, all sorts of things that are far from technical have a huge impact.
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
Wake up Mr. Freeman, ever since Dubya and 9/11, it's a whole new world. :/
Two words you need to learn to survive: Myers Briggs.
Practice taking these personality tests until you can generate the result you/employers want.
Even low level hourly grunt jobs screen for personality these days.
Close, but wrong.
These tests are used to determine if you are a replicant.
I've dealt with a range of different company sizes, from the old-style huge company I've worked with to the little techie shops my friends and customers have often worked for. The folks in the HR department may have psych degrees, but they generally don't understand how tech people think, work, relate to their work, or relate to each other. They _sometimes_ have a clue about how sales people think and work, but HR people who understand techies are really rare golden folks, and you usually only run into them if they're at consulting companies brought in to help your company out of a jam.
I don't think that an HR person needs to be able to read a Java-graphics-widget-set manual to understand how a developer and tech writer talk to each other through the process, but they do need to be able to read things like "The Existential Pleasures of Engineering" or at least read science fiction or have some familiarity with Monty Python or other fundamental works of our culture, as opposed to "The Inner Game of Golf" or "How To Feel Really Really Self-Motivated about Success" if they're doing HR for sales people.
HR people are usually good at dealing with employment bureaucracy - hiring rules, legal requirements, medical insurance, payroll, administering salaries in line with market trends, etc. Sometimes they're good at employee counseling, and you'll find good psych types there handling things like alcoholism or family-related stress. But how often have you seen the HR folks spending time with your department looking at the personal dynamics between people, coaching managers in how to manage the folks working for them? I'd be happy if the HR people could make sure that the resumes they forward to us are for people who understand what all the buzzwords they use mean; I guess they're mainly adding value by filtering out responses that _didn't_ include the right buzzwords, and by understanding the clues that mean "got fired from last job due to ongoing criminal activity" or checking whether they actually attended the colleges they say they did. But if they don't know how developers talk to each other, or what kinds of stories consultants tell with their clients, or what depth of math background is needed for the kinds of problems we solve, then they're seldom likely to add value by sending the ESFJs to one department and the INTPs to another, much less interpreting MMPIs in ways that are any use at all.
Nor do I usually see them forwarding that kind of information on to managers, who might like to know that one developer is an INTP who needs to be encouraged to see the value of shipping code before all possible features have been added, while another is an ISTJ who needs regular short meetings to discuss whether the tools have sufficient generality to really capture the potential user spaces before starting to write the user interfaces for it, or is an ENFP who needs to be given some critical concepts about the functionality and the capability limits so that the user interface actually supports the right features and also needs a supply of chocolate bars to bribe other developers into communicating with the documentation people.
Back in the early 80s, when Affirmative Action was becoming a social issue, we had a lot of HR types spend a lot of time with us to deal with attitudes about cultural diversity (ok, and to deal with lawsuits), and there was a lot of good psych work in some of that as well as generally useful tools for dealing with situations, not only about cultural relationships but also about getting my ISTJ football-player boss to understand different work styles. On the other hand, when the HR department comes around with courses about "Change Is Good!" and buttons saying "We're Navigating Change!", that's really a clue to get your resume in shape for the upcoming layoffs. (I did wear the button
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I am a Sr Developer for a small company after being unemployed for three months. While I was unemployed I had several interviews and just about every interview I went on had some sort of personality test. They usually claim it is to make sure you fit in with the corporate culture. I am never comfortable with these tests but spoke with some of my HR friends and they gave me tips on how to act and the corporate buzz words they like to hear. The online tests are tougher and I usually take them to learn the questions they are generally asked but continue to look else where.
I find it frustrating that everybody else but me quickly sees the need to change their attitude to match the world at large instead of bitterly insisting things be as easy as they were during the boom... Im serious!! The only way I can get over it and put on a happy face and act like Im a decent productive citizen is to go to a mental health clinic and stock up on antidepressants.. otherwise all the stupid crap that is required of you today to land a job and not be ostrasized for legitimate anger over all the stupid crap is going to drive me so completely insane that I will never get hired, because with all the negativity flowing through me I *definately* dont look like a good hire. I go so spoiled during the boom and now have nothing.. I cannot get over it without some sort of perscribed chemical happiness, theres just no way because my mind is stuck in an endless loop of anger. the world is bullcrap! I have to post anonymous or some idiot employer will look up this post and fire me for not being happy.
Mondays are bad. Mondays are evil. AHHHH!!! The Daystar it burns us!
During a job interview for a mechanical engineering position I had someone ask me what my favorite color was.
Hiring based on Personality Questionaires are a federal crime and violates the American's with Disability Act. Corporations can not discriminate against a persons disability -- physical or mental. There is many mental disorders that can affect personalities.
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dont take the test. its demeaning and offensive. your personality shouldnt matter as long as you have mad coding skilz.
Of course, psychology does have some study that follows the scientific method (rat-maze experiments, for instance), but how can you trust a subject that claims to be a "science" and yet has differing opinions, like philosophy, which is not experimental. I know scientists have arguements, but psychology really seems to have lots of theories going around, and not too many proofs.
I know that personality tests are not the only field of psychology, but I do not understand why we even study something that doesn't seem to serve any useful purpose. Feel free to change my mind.
A: On the other side of this desk explaining why you won't be getting a severence package.
Works every time...
Support SETI@home
That stated, I think you have a right to be concerned. I'm a little uncomfortable working for someone who has to use a computer to judge my personality.
No, I will not work for your startup
About six months ago, I met a young woman in a bar who'd just gotten back the results from one of these 'personality' tests she took for a potential employer. Amazingly enough, they'd assigned her a letter grade on this test: she scored a D+ . Wonderful. How sweet. After a half hour of discussion, I convinced her to walk outside and burn the stupid thing. The barmaid got pissed with the fire, but fuck it -- incineration is the only appropriate way to deal with this kind of garbage.
In my opinion, passing judgement on anyone's personality is a pointless and elitest exercize. It's the same with drug testing. In my experience, it's a sure bet that companies which utilize these tests never expect to maintain the same standards they want to hold me to. When potential employers start offering the results of their owners/executives/managers personality tests, I'll be more willing to take them. Until that time -- and I'm not holding my breath -- I'll look elsewhere for work. I'm just not that interested in being someone's worker drone.
What does my personality have to do with my ability to perform in a job?
Everything. Ever sat in a meeting trying to come up with a solution to a problem and had one person do nothing but make negative comments ? Those are the people I don't want on my team.
I have candidates do a similar test after they pass the first interview. My intention isn't to weed out personality traits that I deem undesirable, I can get your personality from an interview, but the tests give me an idea of certain characteristics. For example, got fed up with the test and just started slapping random answers in just to get it over and done with ? Well that will show up as a lack of thoroughness and a low risk aversion.
It also gives me the chance to ask questions which will probe that "weakness" and see if it's something that can be overcome. By the same token, it allows me to ask questions about the strengths and see if the person in question is just pretty good in a particular area or a real superstar.
Also, nobody takes them as gospel. They are a guide to be used as a tool for the interviewer.
That's problem with personality testing being used for employment. If you don't fit the profile the employer is looking for you've failed. You aren't taking the test for fun but to get a job. If you fail to get the job because of the test then you've failed the test.
Personality testing should never be a matter of passing or failing. That fact alone makes it completely useless to employers. By using the testing to in a pass/fail situation you undermine the results.
Diversity is the strongest attribute of any group. If you specialize the traits, including personality, of your group to those that you *think* are what you want you weaken yourself.
For example;
Additionally, certain tests include a quality indicator. Answering questions like, "Have you ever lied?" with a "no" sets off an alarm that the person may be falsifiying information.
I've worked with an industrial psychologist who generates these exact tests, and helped them provide web-enabled interfaces for it. I've implemented the scoring and ran through the tests as they've changed many times. I'm not going to comment on whether they're accurate or not - it's irrelevant to the people here.
Instead, lets look at how they are used - something that I've also been exposed to, both from the usage of the tools I wrote, to being subjected to similiar tests by potential employers.
These tools are meant to check you into usually four to eight personality types. If you do not fit the type, you do not get the job, for any company who uses them.
Real world examples I've seen include:
Instead of randomly specifying a category, your existing employees are profiled, and you take the results of your star employees and make those the expected attributes for the position.
Many contracting firms expect a contractor to take a behavioral assessment, which is used as a tool by the contract manager to; provide a good match for a candidate, ensure the candidate and company needs match, and to provide humanistic value for an individual they have to represent. You can't easily say "Such-and-Such is trustworthy," having only met them once, but you can point to a psych evaluation and say "Our analysis shows that s/he places a high emphasis on trust."
So, what do you do with this info if you're a tech-savvy guy applying for an IT-related position?
These tests work as filters for, well, non-skilled positions. They are applied to every new hire, usually per company HR policy. Honestly, they don't appear to work very well for skilled labour. Look at the programmer example up above. The profile given is for a programmer who is sedate. No new languages, no new technologies, happy to be doing the same job for the next 20 years. This was just the result of a random decision; you had to pick one of the 8 categories, and the one with 'attention to detail' was the top pick. What happens when technologies change, or the software needs to be updated, or new software designed? Too bad you hired someone who won't tend to learn new things.
What they say they want, and what they need are often disparate things. You can be perfectly suited for the job, but dinged on the somewhat arbitrairy match from the personality test.
To answer my question above, the smart IT person will attempt to determine before hand what the employer is looking for and cheat the test.
These tests are transparent. If something asks if you'd rather have a trophy with your name on it, or a cash prize, you can tell one is focused on recognition, and the other on money. Figure out beforehand what the profile is they're looking for and try to match it. Be consistent, since the same question will be asked 3-4 times using different wording. Most scoring systems ar
It's so plainly obvious what the 'right' answers to those questions are and so ridiculous to think that anyone could truthfully answer them 'correctly' that the only logical conclusion you can make about the personality of someone who does so is that they'll lie to you.
Where I work now does Behavioural Interviews for all new hires, or for internal promotions. The logic goes: we can teach the the technical skills, but unless you are capable of the right behaviours, this isn't going to work out. We work in a team environment, the way people interact with each other and our customers is crucial.
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
There are some people good at that, other bad at faking a "personality". I am rather good at that :). And I know a sme people which are too. What do yo think roleplaying and adaptation is for ? Trusting that posing multiple questions with different meaning and hoping to catch contradiction only mean one : you trully think people are less attentionned and intelligent at catching contradiction themselves than you are. I leave the reader to take its own conclusion on that. You are trully exagerating the advantge of the method. In the very end this is only a game : you think a psychological method works, but you will only weed out people unable to game the system, once the method is known.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
I'm another INTP, but so what?
What good does knowing that do me? I already knew that I liked working with abstract ideas and thinking hard about things, and by and large, that's the kind of work I've done. For INTP type jobs the amount of knowledge required just to be qualified weeds out those who don't have the taste for the intellectual life.
Testing is a racket. Those guys must have a good marketing/sales department.
I have LOST a job I held as a direct result of these type of tests - but it was a few years ago.
I was hired as a salesman, in New Zealand's biggest appliance store - there were 15 sales "men" there (no women at the time!) and I was head-hunted from the competition. I was on a great salary, plus commission, and I had achieved all my sales target except 2 (and they were artificially high, it would have ranked me at #4 in the store after 4 months there!).
Did I mention that the head office, was directly across the alleyway from the store?
In the 6th month I was required to take some kind of test like this - which I dutifully did.
Anyway, I took the test, and two days later was involved in a stand-up shouting match with the sales manager and the marketing manager, who accused me of "failing to achieve your sales targets, and your profile brands you as 'not a salesman'" (which was pretty funny, seeing as I was ranked at #7 for that month.
The short version is that they gave me notice right there and then.
I was only 22 years old, and crushed! I cried for about an hour as I cleared out my gear.
The #1 sales guy found me sobbing in the warehouse and asked what was going on. I told him what'd happened, and he said "Shit, sorry Chris, I should have told you that was coming, because I figured you'd be gone this month."
I asked why, and his response was that it was obvious to him, that despite being a fine salesman, I wasn't going to be happy there 5 years from now, and would want one of the management positions in thehead office - less than 50 metres away.
He said, and I fully believe, that the test I took showed I had "management potential" and that the managers promptly fired me so they wouldn't have to deal with me 5 years down the track, by which time, I would be gunning for their jobs...
Anyway, a word to the wise: be careful how you come across on these things - because if you don't fall into the "right" category according to the tester, even if you are fully qualified for it you probably won't get a job.
Middle and upper management (I know this now!) spend most of their day shitting themselves that someone will find out that they have not a single clue about their job - and the rest of the time they are office politiking to ensure that no one can grab their job.
It mustbe hard work to be such a dirt clod, but there you go.
How many escape pods are there? "NONE,SIR!" You counted them? "TWICE, SIR!"
You mentioned you use FreeBSD. They're not going to actually give you the job -- they just want to know what disorder you have for choosing such an operating system.
A long time ago, I interviewed with a major company. The interview went well, and they asked me to take a personality test, required under their hiring procedures. The test was given by a psychologist off-site, not by in-house HR.
I went to the library and checked out William H. Whyte's classic, "The Organization Man." In addition to some pointers that helped me understand what the test was about and what business organzations were likely to want from it, there was a sample test in the appendix. Knock me over with a feather: the psychologist gave me the very same test the next day.
How did I do? They hired someone else. About a year later, they called and offered me the same job, but I had gone elsewhere by then.
Anyone who answers no to that question is very clearly a liar.
I went through one of those stupid tests twice. The first time I tried to be honest. The second time I tried to say what they wanted me to say.
In the end, I think the tests were meaningless. I think they were just an excuse to exempt candidates they do not want without exposing themselves to accusations of discrimination.
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
And actually, I think my job application was screwed when I wrote that I had a bachelors in Computer Science.
They don't want anybody with real understanding of technology. They want people who will parrot their selling points regardless of how inane or stupid they are. I once got into an argument with a CompUSA salesman over the merit of refilling cartridges on an Epson vs an HP. He claimed that you could not refill HP cartridges because they were disposable and you could risk damaging them. But you COULD refill EPSON because the cartridges didn't have print heads in them. Such shocking gaps in reason always floor me because reason has no effect on people who could believe something like this.
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
Personality, with a few exceptions, is the big factor. Being able to work well with others is more important than all the experience in the world. If you can work well with others, you'll get the experience, and the rest of the team you work with will be more productive as a result. Like it or not, the corporate world is all about teamwork, whether you're a programmer, marketing person or graphic designer. Unless you're an actuary or pure numbers runner, you're simply going to have to work with others.
... that I haven't heard of. At least not outside the context of Best Buy or some place like that.
Now, as for these traits being assessed by an online personality quiz
As you can see from (#15167154) down below, the professionals involved in this field are indeed highly trained and often highly intelligent.
Points for your consideration:
1. While you thought you were just applying for a job, this potential employer intends to probe every aspect of your private life and personality. Perhaps they consider this perfectly reasonable, given the extreme cost to the employer of making a mistake. Perhaps you don't agree with them.
2. A personality test can be formally written and designed by professionals, or informally conducted at interview. An astute interviewer can probe you more deeply than you think; a professionally designed written test will explore you right to the bottom.
3. Until every job includes a paper test, you might easily prefer to avoid those which do.
4. When every job includes a paper test, it might be time to work for yourself.
"We reject kings, presidents and voting. We believe in rough consensus and running code." Dave Clark, IETF
Prepare yourself.
Read this http://behaviouralfinance.net/ and http://www.valuebasedmanagement.net/
Good luck to you!
God and religion are distinct
'What does this bastard want to hear?'
You might get marked down as hopelessly cynical. But most companys can deal with that. Only the most advanced tests are that on the ball. Most are'nt any better then those promoted by 'Scientology'.
Remember you have never lied to a former boss, you have certainly never stolen from one, nor have you drunk on the job, nor while driving, nor do you indulge in high risk behavior on or off the job... The questions were written by full of themselves mental 12 year olds to catch children in lies.
Just lie well and the test will rate you high.
One interview answer I got from /. that I use every chance I get.
Q: What's your biggest weakness?
A: Giving stupid answers to stupid questions.
If they can't handle that answer you don't want to work for them anyhow.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Imagine how they treat you after you go to work for them.
12.3,,14-35i25p1254539029333..........? bye bye
Or, answer A or 1 to eveything. Have fun at their expense.
How many times?
There is almost always a correct answer when taking any of these tests in an interview situation. You are gaming the test. Most are very badly written.
Just don't try to outthink it. You will think they drop in questions like 'have you ever lied to a friend' to catch liers on the test (everybody lies to a friend at least in a little way, they know that).
The answer remains 'no'. In business you need diplomacy skills. Demonstating a lack on a personality test is always stupid (unless you are applying for a job as village idiot). They are'nt looking for a virgin. Don't pretend (this is slashdot...pretend).
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
So if you "strongly agree" that work is the highest priority in your life the report says you are an obsessive workaholic and are likely to be unstable. So all he did was tone down the strength of his agreement/disagreement with some answers and hey presto he has 90% suitability for the role and is an all round perfect employee. He was then hired on the basis of this, despite his employers commenting that he didnt sell himself very well in the interview.
(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
You can crack the various personailty test with some practice, especially the written one and even face to face. It is not so difficult to impersonate an expected personality, atleast for hardened ones amongst us.
In my personal experience I have found that true personality comes to surface easily when you approach towards extreme moods - happiness, joy, frustration, bugged and so on. The usual personality testing can't detect true personality easily. One of the reasons being the own biases of the judges, resulting from the theoritical knowledge and/or their own personalities.
You could project a very healthy and positive personality, but if that's only a mere projection, your inner vibrations will effect/influence the people around you in unpleasant ways anyways.
And it GOT ME THE JOB. The other guy looked better on paper, and was was about the same for personality in person. I blew him away on not only the skills portion of the online test, but the personality portion, too.
Just before my interview, the company implemented a policy that they would test for personality before hiring ANYONE. Even the lowest worker. The reason is that there were so many people that disrupted the harmony of the workplace and made everyone's life miserable. They decided to fix the problem and it's worked. It's a totally awesome place to work.
If you don't have the personality to pass one of these tests, by all means, don't take it and just go find another company to apply to. If you think you are a likeable person, take the test.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
It's just like having conduct policies so strict they are vioated by all employees and are only enforced to get rid of people the boss doesn't like.
and they'll smash their thumbs.
Are tests like this useful? Yes.
Are tests like this going to cause some people to make bad decisions? Yes.
The bottom line is 90% of the people in the world do not know how to handle data. It isn't about being good at calculation; it's about triangulation. Every bit of evidence has to be weighed in context.
What they need to do is take the following bits of information (in order of importance IMO):
(1) Your references
(2) Your interview
(3) Test results
and look at them as a whole. It's like SATs. You take a kid with low grades, an intriguing interview and high scores and the picture that comes out is, "bright kid, bored in school." Or the kid with high grades, a bit uncomfortable in the interview but obviously bright, and low scores is "test anxiety".
What does my personality have to do with my ability to perform in a job?
A great deal. In many cases as much or more than your technical skills. After all, if you're smart skills are easy to acquire, but attitude is hard, possibly even harder for smart people, who are used to being right when everyone around them is wrong. It may be that they're looking for somebody who doesn't like people. There are jobs for people like that, people who have to do tasks that would suck the life out of a gregarious person. But most jobs require people skills, because most of the time there is more work than one person can do without interacting with others.
The problem with these tests IMO is that they don't necessarily measure adaptability. Sometimes you have be able to work as a loner, other times hand in glove as part of a team. You tend to think of yourself in terms of your most recent work, but it doesn't mean you can't work a different way.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
All these pro-personality test types in this thread and no answers for a very reasonable and very common situation.
Behavioural interviewing is NOT dodgy 'science, but its application is. The standardized personality tests are very scientific in that they are both repeatable and valid however they can only given you measurements that must then be correllated against specific job performance. This means giving the tests for a number of years and then seeing what measured traits are the best predictors of job performance. It is NOT POSSIBLE TO KNOW THIS A PRIORI for any particular job. If the person interpreting the results is not a PhD psychologist there is a good chance the test is being misused. Large organizations often use these test correctly but very rarely are they used properly by smaller companies because the cost of using them properly is prohibitive. The US Army uses this type of testing extensively and properly and many of the tests were developed during WWII.
It was quite a few years ago but I remember it as Besy Buy. A computer repair guy at our college was moonlighting. He told me they had him on a headset. While he was fixing people's computers in-store he was simultaneously answering help line calls. So I guess personality would be a factor -- in several ways.
Actually, I remember a behavioral test being the first thing I had to do to work at Circuit City. Apperently they are kept pretty confidential, even from the person taking them, but they are supposed to reflect how well a person will do as a salesman. (The customer service manager that graded mine said it showed I should have been a very good salesman though in fact I am not.)
I also remember reading a story from some guy applying for the NSA who, along w/ the standard clearance investigation had to take behavioral tests and a polygraph. Basically the test was meant to determine if he had any unnaturally strong personal traits in either direction. From talking to a gal who workeed at the NSA, she said that the analysts are specifically chosen to be heavily introverted so that they won't talk about their work with anyone, (nor even have social contacts to talk to.) She said the analysts wouldn't even look her in the eyes as she passed them in the halls. (She was a very good looking lady.)
I don't really have a specific point, just wanted to share some experiences.
I do security
I don't know for certain, but the rumor was repeated to me from enough sources that it began to look true...
The guy behind the selectric would "convalesce" between revisions.
I think designing things like that would probably be enough to send one over the edge - I have no problem with that. The part I don't get is why he would come back for more.
Just trying to fix the buggers invaded my dreams. I was so glad when the decwriter made the scene.
As somebody who works at a company with a test like that for new hires, I can say this:
1) we pay a lot of money for that test
2) we ignore the results, except for throwing out people who like open source too much
3) our management are really hopelessly stereotypical suits
So, survey with sample size of one says, keep looking....
Why give a Voight-Kampff when they can just see if your eyes reflect like a cat's?
--
WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
I had very strange "personality evaluation" test during an interview once; for an IT position, mostly coding.
... well the new guy anyway.
Little did I know that a big software company was just a front for cult enrollment. I could not find the business online today, but I remember the product "Diskeeper" and Ho and Behold, the CEO of that business is a "Scientology volunteer minister", I think they changed the name of the business for the main product name.
It should be told that at the dawn of the software industry Hubbard ask all his cult followers to start software businesses, that if only one out of ten succeeded, it will bring wonders to the Church Of Scientology, since members must give part of their revenues to the COS. And it worked wonders.
Going in for the interview, my first alarm was the 15+ huge volumes of "L. Ron Hubbard Business Encyclopedia" in the waiting room (the name is probably wrong). For me it was an alarm, since I had a Scientologist manager before and it had been a very bad experience.
I was told during the interview how "near godly Hubbard really was". Then I was asked to do a small test, I found it really strange since I had analyzed similar tests in a psychology class. It cannot be used to evaluate your competency in math or IT.
"Are you often dismayed by the actions of others and are not able to grasp their double-dealing?"
"The OCA has been used as a recruiting tool by Scientology since 1953"
Such tests means nothing if not answered honestly and must be taken under no stress (a job interview?). Anyone that studied in the field can go around these tests easily.
Like the first post said, the personality test is called 'the interview', and no Yes/No or A,B,C personality test will reveal how good a programmer you are.
Back home I hit the NET, and learned everything about "The COS OCA Test". I could even read all the questions and "best answer". "Best" because the test is purposely done to get 20% wrong (no choice is good) so "scientology can help you with that".
The test is also made to seek out "malleable personalities", so they can be directed into obeisance. Now THAT made sense for the test I was asked to fill.
In the interview I was also informed that my first 3 days would be a "formation period" of unpaid 14+ hours a day.
That made a LOT of sense when I searched for Scientology online. Typical strategy for newcommers in the Church is that 3 day 'personality resoucing' strategy to "break" you, so you believe you're a no good puny worker, but don't worry they have the solution you need, they will make you great. Just be a nice little obeying drone. It's really a similar strategy as military boot camps, and LRH based it on it.
That strategy was the problem with my old manager. He started every meeting by yelling and tells you how incompetent you are. When everyone is sitting down he explains what he actually want and at the end throw's a small compl\i9ment that makes you feel good. Everyone ran out working hard
My Manager had the additional problem of being completely incompetent, so it just made a bad situation worst.
I work for a large office supply company and we use an on-line Behavioral Interview in our hiring process as well. Similar to the poster who went to Best Buy for a part time job, my company chooses the results of the "Pre-Employment Screening" over any other perceived or actual skill, trait or characteristic a candidate might have. The results of the screening are broken into three catagories; recommended, marginal and not recommended. We are forbidden to consider anyone who was not recommended and strongly encouraged to not pursue marginals. The idea behind the pre-employment screening (as it has been explained to me) is to save valuable time in the process. A candidate gets screened by a computer and management only sees the cream of the crop. I know of a few candidates who I would have enjoyed working with who didn't make the cut. When I say enjoyed working with I'm refering to their personality and technical competance, not their party passion. It appears that in a retail environment personality skills are rightfully high on the required list for employees. The down side is most (not all) of the bright personalities are not as technically capable. I'm basing this ONLY on the employees that I have seen hired in the last 5 years, all while working in the same store location. And even then, the screening can make horrible mistakes. All in all I would take the test. You won't be able to speak to a real live interviewer without it.
I don't believe it is all about weeding out "undesirable" personalities. In fact, the way you word that tells me you have lumped bad character, you know: when you have more choice about what you do, with personality. I don't think "antisocial" is really part of one's personality. Even people who won't talk to you very much might have someone at home with whom they can't shut up. That's not antisocial behavior. It just means they don't trust you enough to go running their mouth off to you or that they are satisfied with having the person/people at home as their confidant(s); that's not antisocial.
When I think of antisocial I think of people who are aggressive against others or against interacting with them. That's not the same as non-social (with their co-workers).
There are theories out that are used for linking personality with preferences, particularly job preferences. Doesn't the ASVAB ask personality related questions? Not only that, if there is an established team working on a project(s), then the manager might want to try to balance that team by added someone they think has the proper personality to fit in with the rest. Afterall, as a manager you don't want two natural-born leaders in one group, do you?
Granted, I don't know if there is any "personality" test that completely discerns between that which is pure personality and that which comes from character. With that in mind, I doubt there are too many companies that are purely interested in your personality alone, but your character also.
This is definitely a case of the new hype going around 'Personnel & Human Resources Management' thing - Trying to profile out a person's characteristics by asking totally irrelevant and absurd questions with no correlation to the job s/he will be interviewed about. It does not matter what a person would do in a 's/he comes home tired from work, learns that friends are coming to dinner and there is nothing in the house except a sack of flour' case if the person is going to be employed in a routine, regular, tedious repetitive duty of maintaining a branch of a production line in a manufacturing plant. I think that the social sciences, yet being too distant to pose all encompassing theories about the human psyche, are being over utilized in industry. This leads to the 'totally irrelevant psychological profiling' and 'human resources management with no correlation to actual work/sector' cases. As a result id say that this company might be one of those that in it the head does not know what the hand is doing. Scratch them out of your list.
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Obviously, your personality is important for your ability to work efficiently in a team. And if your job doesn't involve any kind of teamwork, it will probably be outsurced soon to Ukraine anyway.
The tests, however, are just pseudo-science. They exists in order to allow management to avoid responsibility for their actions. The companies that sell them have many highly paid and competent professionals whose major competance is to invent pseudo-arguments for why their pseudo-science works, using words also found in real science which the customers don't understand. They are on the level with (and in the same market as) astrology, except that most of the astrologist actually believe in their nonsense.
A good manager will know his team, and will ask you question that will reveal if you are likely to fit well into that team. That is not something a standardized test can help with.
If you want the job despite management being incompetent, they way to answer these test is to ignore everything you will be told about the tests, try to imagine what kind of person that would fit the buzzwords would be like, and answer according to that persona.
Basically, you have to be smarter than the people who made the test, which is usually quite easy.
In 1998 I applied for a leadership position in the hospital where I worked. I had serious gaps in my interpersonal skills, and they knew it. My boss's daugher was an industrial psychologist. They got some behavioral test and got their best psych type to ask me the questions in front of the group. Of course, I flunked and didn't get the position. I was really resentful at the time, because I figure I would have done better without these tests. However, what I see now, is that many positions are filled from employee referrals, and they just do the tests because they're on the list. People want to hire folks they are comfortable with.
Behavior address how we percieve and judge, according to Jung. This has a powerful impact on daily work, where the employee puts in alot of his own.
Have you read my journal today?