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

Your personality is tested *regardless*...

[TripMaster Monkey]

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choice between two technically equivalent candidates, if one has a cheerful, helpful personality, while the other has a withdrawn, antisocial one, who do you think they're going to go with?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...

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

[Sad Loser]

Behavioural interviewing is a very dodgy 'science'. It is based on the premise that if you ask someone what they would do in a certain situation, then assess their reply. Obviously there may well be a difference between what they say they would do, and what they would do.

Behavioural interviewing has been seized on by HR people as being somehow more valid than any other technique. There is no evidence to support this, and it is more likely that they are just clutching at the nearest pseudo-scientific theory to fill the inner emptiness in their lives.

It is probably more likely that the on-line test is just a Myers Briggs type test where they are looking at Introvert/Extrovert/ Thinking/Feeling/ Perceiving/Judging scales. In this case, don't worry. They still can't tell that you are a dangerous psychopath.

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

[bhsurfer]

My company routinely gives personality tests to all new sales applicants. I suspect they use it more to corroborate impressions from interviews than as an actual "pass/fail" kind of thing - the two work together in tandem.

I was given one during some management training I attended and found it to be not only somewhat interesting but also informative about the other people I was with. I was pretty suprised to see how closely the results matched the predictions. We were given the test and then given the descriptions of the 4 core areas of this test. Then before we got our scores we took turns trying to predict what each other's scores would be. It struck me as a *fairly* accurate measure - nothing to get too bent out of shape about but closer than a 45 minute interview would be.

Another potential positive about taking a test like this is that it could indicate potential to your employers that they might not otherwise have the opportunity to see. If you're working in a cube all day and your bosses boss never sees you then they might not know that you're "a born problem-solver" or "a natural leader" since they never interact with you. Keep in mind that there's room for lots of different personality styles in a business, so there's nothing wrong with being "on record" as having a particular style. Successful people have lots of different personality traits - it's not like there's only one way to do things...

TMM's remark about interviews being personality tests is also 100% correct in my opinion.

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

[disappear]

he expressed the opinion that the best way to get a raise was to jump from job to job

Now, mentioning that while interviewing is in bad taste, but it's actually pretty well established that job-hopping increases salaries. (Yes, those reports are essentially anecdotal; I'm unable to find the survey that report similar results right at the moment, but I recall that they're out there.

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

[TheWanderingHermit]

Behavioural interviewing is a very dodgy 'science'. It is based on the premise that if you ask someone what they would do in a certain situation, then assess their reply. Obviously there may well be a difference between what they say they would do, and what they would do.

WHile a lot of what you say has been well though out, this statement is a perfect example of a major problem amoung hard science people in their view of psychology. It is like an astrologer who says they understand asstronomy because they know astrology. In short, it is a statement that, to those who know much about the field, contains within itself an admission of complete ignorance of the field, yet continues to judge that field from that stand of complete ignorance.

Testing does not always ask what someone would do. There is more to it than that. Often tests do ask what one will do, but what people don't realize is that many times the same essential questions are asked in different ways and the results are compared. If they are inconsistent, that can indicate the person is lying on the test or has ethical issues or perceives himself as being one kind of person when, in reality, he is not. A test can also ask people to pick which term out of 2 or 3 or more applies to them. One set of terms may make the person pick between compassion and logic. Another may make them pick between compassion and fairness. A few other questions with choices like that, when put together can tell that the testee THINKS they value logic over compassion and passion, but may show that they are more likely to react passionately than logically.

I've seen that many times here, on ./, where most people think they know logic and have a better grasp of it than others, but if you challenge a point they don't want to know is weak, sometimes you'll get a vicious attack that is written up as a logical argument, but instead focuses on name calling and other ad hominem attacks. That is a case of someone who thinks he is strong on logic, yet does not realize how much passion blinds him to it and does not realize just how strong his emotions are. Testing can be invaluable in finding such people that claim to funciton logically and do well in teams, but who, in reality, may have ego problems that make them poor team players and unresponsive to logic on some topics.

And to the point where a person may say they will do one thing but, in reality would do another -- did you think that a person who has several degrees in a science that studies human behavior (you don't see tests with credibility designed by someone with a B.S. only) and who has spent years in that field would not know this little detail you are sure of? Do you give psychologists credit for that little intelligence? Serioulsy -- think about it. It's to their benefit, when you're being tested, that you do not see beyond that. Tests are often designed to show what you say you'll do, yet also tell the evaluator what you'll really do.

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:Your personality is tested *regardless*...

[SuiteSisterMary]

Here's my problem with the whole thing.

I've taken a professional, honest-to-goodness Meyers-Briggs test. Administered by somebody specially trained to give them. She spent several minutes explaining about how it shows tendancies, how it's a learning tool, made a great analogy that a right-handed person could, with effort, learn how to be a left handed person, and a given personality type could, similarly, train themselves to new tendancies. It's a spectrum, or a continuum, not an absolute thing, and so on. Test took several hours.

Great. I'm an INTP, by the way.

When a itty bitty 50 question 'MBTI' test is downloaded off the Internet by some random middle manager, who considers it to be the 100% accurate be-all and end-all of crystal balling, and given all willy-nilly, without even understanding how the terms 'introvert' and 'extrovert' are used (and no, they don't mean shy versus gregarious,) I get worried.

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?" :-)

fact of interviewing life these days.

[yagu]

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):

..., behavior-based interviews are said to be 55 percent predictive of future on-the-job behavior, while traditional interviews are only 10 percent predictive. They can help hiring managers get more objective information about a candidate's job-related skills, abilities, interest and motivation, and make more accurate hiring decision. Currently, 30 percent of all organizations are using behavioral interviews to some degree.

It's mostly voodoo garbage (no offense to voodoo practicers) but is a fact of life in the interviewing world.

Re:fact of interviewing life these days.

[Red Flayer]

"It's mostly voodoo garbage (no offense to voodoo practicers) but is a fact of life in the interviewing world."

Not just voodoo garbage -- they also serve a very important purpose -- documented justification for not hiring someone. Many large companies use personality tests to help them avoid liability in case of a discrimination lawsuit. Lawsuit prevention seems to be a major function of HR departments at most firms I've worked with.

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.

Problem with personality/honesty testing

[GodaiYuhsaku]

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.

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.

Spoof it

[Marko DeBeeste]

1) Research the test. Find the "right" answers. (yes, they exist)

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.

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.

Illegal? Hardly...

[C10H14N2]

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.

"Behavioural" questions at an interview

[Space cowboy]

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.

Re:"Behavioural" questions at an interview

[Space cowboy]

When you come to interview with us, you'll get a day's worth of first-round interviews (between 5 and 8 in total) with a variety of different types of interviewer. Whereas I *can* ask the start-off-simple-and-drill-down technical questions, there are others whose job it is to ask that. Mine is normally to assess the character of the candidate - every interviewer has a particular role to play in our process.

I deliberately didn't give many examples of what I ask - and I tend to ask a lot of questions in an hour's interview - because as you say, there are those who prepare answers. Part of the course I went on was to help me come up with a set of my own questions that won't be typical outside my company, another part was how to deal with obviously-prepared candidates...

I personally think a candidate gets a fairly gruelling day, and if (s)he succeeds, there is the (harder) 2nd-round to look forward to, with fewer but far more in-depth interviews. All the interviewers compare notes at the end of the day for every candidate (on 1st and 2nd round interviews), and I think it would be hard for anyone to maintain a faux personality over that entire day, with different people asking similar but differently-focussed questions.

Simon.

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?

Right.

[C10H14N2]

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.

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.

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?

Re:Motivated candidates?

[Red Flayer]

I ask them about out-of-office activities, since those projects are the ones where successful completion depends on self-control, not on direct and constant supervision. If they believably demonstrate that they successfully complete projects on their own, then it is likely that will carry into the office.

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

[_Sprocket_]

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

Hahahaha oh man

[E. Edward Grey]

What does my personality have to do with my ability to perform in a job?

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

Screening for Cheerful Charlies, not Tech Skills

[xjimhb]

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.

I had one

[macdaddy]

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.

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!"?

Why not ask them?

[dmuth]

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)

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

Um... did you not just prove the parent's point...

[figgypower]

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". :-)

HR / Psych usually don't understand Tech workers

[billstewart]

You can usually tell when a small company has hired a professional HR manager - there are about 100 employees, and the HR department kills the every-Friday-afternoon beer party.

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

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.

The answer coming from both sides

[quietwalker]

I think that several people posting simply don't have the right concept about what's going on. This isn't a behavior or social ability test, to see how you can cope with a situation. Rather, as a select few individuals have indicated, this is a measure of your personality type.

For example;

• Are you extroverted or introverted
• Are you more likely to focus on detail and move slowly or focus on results and willing to take a risk.
• Are you motivated by a challenge, or by money.

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.

1. HR requirement as a filter.

   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:

   • Programmer: Attention to detail, motivated by sense of accomplishment, lack of ambition.
   • Manager : focus on completion/results over detail, motivated by power/control, high career ambition
   • Salesman: focus on people, motivated by money & recoginition, optimistic
2. 'Smart' usage

   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.

3. Contract jobs

   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