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Personality Testing For Employment
Thelasko writes "While I was in college, I had the opportunity to take an elective course in Industrial Psychology. One section of the course covered hiring practices and the validity of 'personality testing' to screen applicants (Google link for non-subscribers). The Wall Street Journal has a long article discoursing on how such tests are used in today's economy. While personality tests may be designed to uncover underlying personality traits such as honesty, critics claim that the tests instead reward cheaters." The article talks mostly about the tests' use in winnowing candidates for retail positions — deciding whom to interview. Anybody encountered them in an IT or more technical context?
I've never seen one where which answer went with which "type" wasn't completely obvious.
Just pick how you want it to turn out, and answer consistently. Piece of cake. I'd be shocked if anyone with half a brain did anything other than that.
Surely even if you try to answer it honestly you're unintentionally favoring the answers that you want to be true (or the ones that you believe to be expected) rather than the ones that are true.
'As a teenager, I was always passed up because I couldn't "pass" the personality test on BestBuy.com'
Seriously, I have taken these tests. How could not be ABLE to pass one? Just think of any corporate orientation video you have ever seen, imagine one of the employees being portrayed in said video and answer accordingly.
You have no conflicts with other employees. You inform to management. You don't use drugs. You don't think any drug use is acceptable. You report all accident prone things and failure to follow safety procedures to the manager. You believe corporate policy should be followed 100% of the time no matter how ridiculous it would be to actually do that. Bam, simple, 90+% match on the personality test.
In other words, all you have to do is lie.
Polygraphs only determine if you lie or feel discomfort
Yes to the latter, no to the former. Polygraphy is security theater bullshit. It's designed to scare the ignorant and gullible into telling the truth. Anyone can beat a polygraph test. (see http://antipolygraph.org/ for more)
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.