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?"

Comments

Personality test you say?

[zephc]

Run, don't walk, out of there if they want you to take this 'personality test'

Re:Personality test you say?

[gEvil (beta)]

Wow! They said I'm highly qualified and exactly what they're looking for. All I need to do is pay a small fee to get more information. It's looking like I have a bright future with them!

Say what you know they want to hear

[93,000]

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.

Re:Say what you know they want to hear

[digitalgiblet]

"What would you do if you found a coworker has been stealing office supplies?" (actual question)"

I think a good answer would be something like:

"I would gouge his eyes from their sockets with the very pens he was stealing, then rip off his testicles with the staple-remover he was stealing and cut his heart out with the letter opener he was stealing. Such traitorous acts to the beloved mother company can NEVER be tolerated!"

Unless I was trying to get a job at Enron or Arthur Anderson (the list goes on and on and on), in which case it would be something like:

"I would destroy all evidence as a matter of course."

I'll take it

[alta]

Give me the login info for the test, I'll take it for you, since you obviously have a problem taking it.

I'd use such a test if I were an employer

[CrosbieFitch]

I'd use such a test if I were an employer.

I'd reject all candidates that submitted themselves to it.

don't make this mistake

[eddeye]

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:

• in the interview, puts his hand over his mouth every time he giggles
• looks over his shoulder nervously every time you use the word 'security' and says you shouldn't be talking about this
• after being hired by the clueless manager, does random exercises in his office "to quiet his head"
• when given a half-day task, disappears into his office for a week (no one wanted to deal with him and it was low priority, so we let him be). when he comes out and you ask where the result is, he says "oh that. I didn't feel like working on that so I've been doing something completely different."
• confides in a coworker that he's afraid one day some black suits from Raytheon (his former employer) will shove him into a van, drive him out to the desert, and put a bullet in his head
• after finishing a week-long project with no overtime, says to the president of the company "boy that was tough. i need some time off." and promptly walks out of the office at 2pm on Wed without another word.
• doesn't show up the next day. or the next. or the following Mon. finally Tues morning a coworker spots him in the breakroom getting coffee. asked where he's been for 3 days, he replies "riding my bike around town". when the coworker says "at least you're back", he responds "i'm not back, i'm just here getting coffee." then disappears for another two days.
• one day you see him wearing a bright orange shirt and a snap cap. you say "boy, you look different today". he says "no, it's still me". takes off his hat. "see? it's still me."
• doesn't show up early one morning when he's supposed to get a ride to an out-of-town conference with you. you wait and wait and finally decide to leave without him. as you're pulling out of the parking lot, you see him walking up. you shout his name. he sprints off down the street in the other direction. you catch up to him in your car and identify yourself. he says "oh i thought you were someone else." you say "let's go to the conference." he says "i can't go. i have to go home and shower." which he does.

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.

Re:don't make this mistake

[Xugumad]

> all this during his probationary period and they still kept him on full-time.

So, erm, is your company hiring? :)

I had one of those ...

[Mr.Surly]

... 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.

Re:I had one of those ...

[Trifthen]

Gotta love "tests" that provide completely artificial situations that would never occur, with actions you'd never perform, and supposedly gauge your personality or other metal capacity. It should go more like this:

Interviewer: You're currently raping a quadrapalegic twelve-year-old girl who's recently had her family murdered right in front of her, and...
Me: I'm WHAT!?
Interviewer: Please don't interrupt. This test is designed with situations which provoke an emotional response. These answers are very important to us!
Me: You and your company are clearly insane. How's that for an emotional response?

Sample question

[rlp]

...
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

Re:Sample question

[Joe The Dragon]

Edgar is dead

Re:Sample question

[_Sprocket_]

3) Claim that you told Edgar to do it... knowing full well that Edgar is dead.

Ahhhhh! Snakes!

[blueZ3]

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!"?

Re: myers briggs discrimination?

[Space cowboy]

anyone with a /. UID below 10,000/i.

Damn! So close... Oh well, back to doll queue....

Simon

Re:Your personality is tested *regardless*...

[MaggieL]

And we all know that /. readers are all secretly dangerous psychopaths :)

Obviously untrue. Some of them aren't secret.

Re:Your personality is tested *regardless*...

[morcheeba]

Behavioural interviewing is a very dodgy 'science'

To test your assertion, I ran the text of your post through a behavioral analysis program. Here are the results of your personality, using the HDWU scale:

Happy: 2%
Depressed: 98%
Winner: 3%
Under-achiever: 97%

The stated margin of error is 5%, so I think it did pretty well is assessing your personality. Well, if usernames are to believed...

Re:Right.

[stanmann]

A geek sociopath who can't stay in character for 4 hours of the tests either isn't a geek or isn't a sociopath. I'm confident I could roleplay just about any personality type I selected for the 4 hours required for the test.

Re:Your personality is tested *regardless*...

[aplusjimages]

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... I like to answer this question with "My greatest weakeness is forgetting to take my medication that prevents me from choking people for no reason. I'd say forgetfulness."

Re:Your personality is tested *regardless*...

[gbjbaanb]

I guess you'll have no problems whatsoever with the other damned question, "where do you see yourself in 5 years time?" :-)

HI AGAIN EDDEYE!!! ITS ME

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:"Behavioural" questions at an interview

[Savantissimo]

Some suggestions:

Tell me about a time the system crushed your spirit and turned you into a bitter misanthrope.

Tell me about a time you overcame your bitter misanthropy and pretended to care about management's fad du jour.

What is the most entertaining pointed question you ever asked management in a meeting?

Have you played buzzword bingo?

Brainstorm how your diversity will synergize customer-focused quality transactions with our core competencies.

Tell me about a flawed evaluation metric [bingo!] you have seen and what it actually rewarded.

How do you prefer to procrastinate?

If you were to "sell out", how much would you want? No, really - how much?

Meyers-Briggs HOWTO?

[alienmole]

I know how to answer these tests to get any result I want.

Dude! Write up a HOWTO, put it on a site with some advertising, post a story about it to Slashdot, Digg etc., and you won't need to apply for any more employee positions.

Where do you plan to be in five years?

[SETIGuy]

Q: Where do you plan to be in five years?

A: On the other side of this desk explaining why you won't be getting a severence package.

Works every time...