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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?
If I went for a job at google I would expect them to have my profile already. You have been visiting the following web sites...
http://michaelsmith.id.au
I too took Industrial Psychology, and some other psychology courses as well. I remember that two of the courses covered the subject of "personality testing", and nearly all the material and cases we covered criticized the use of personality testing for any kind of serious use, as being notoriously unreliable.
For example, my professors (and our course material) taught me that some corporations still use one or another form of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), or tests derived from it, for personality testing prospective employees and so on. In the words of one professor: "This test and similar tests were thoroughly discredited over 20 years ago. It is astounding that anybody would still give them credence."
But apparently some still do.
Some personality tests are easy to figure out, which indeed rewards cheaters. Others use various levels of trickery to try to combat cheating (multiple, modified forms of the same question scattered throughout the test, for example), which rewards the more intelligent cheaters. And so on. Often the tests are biased culturally, and some of them still in use are so old that their wording, assumptions, and scoring are questionable today.
In short, I would look at personality tests for pre-employment screening the same way I look at drug testing and standard polygraphs: If you are an "innocent" person, you should NEVER volunteer to do these things. They do absolutely nothing to help your situation, and all you can do is lose. Statistically, they are also biased toward false positives more than false negatives, and the odds are not in your favor. And finally, I thoroughly despise the "guilty until proven innocent" attitude that is firmly set by the use of these tests when there is no prior suspicion of wrongdoing or problems. It sends the wrong message to employees, and their families, and their children.
Research tests that are supposed to judge sociological phenomena, designed to be issued to mass numbers of people for data, are being sold to employers as tools to judge individuals. It simply doesn't work that way. Might as well use Astrology....
These are heavily used in the service sector. My personal view, if used correctly in conjunction with an interview and the application/resume, they help give a fuller picture of the applicant. They should not be used as a pass/fail measure.
But, HR believes in it, so it must be golden. If only they knew how many managers had their own answer key tests hard copied onsite, and were used when they had applicants that they wanted.
People are too complex to be sorted out in 200 questions.
"What luck for the rulers that men do not think." - Adolph Hitler
Apparently not being a blithe, extroverted yes-man on some arbitrary test now means you can't get a job.
I was recently hired for a new job, and of my new bosses, while they've uniformly expressed pleasure in my technical abilities, they all say the reason for hiring me was my personality. One mentioned specifically that their job involves keeping clients happy, and who would you rather bring to meet the client: the arrogant jackass who's got a lot of technical experience, or the personable guy who is willing to learn anything he doesn't know and happy to admit that he doesn't know everything.
Your mileage may vary, but I just jumped $30k in salary during a recession.
Did any of them hear of "faking it"?
It's quite possible to "fake it".
it's also quite possible to have an adaptive and modular personality with a "core" that is "you".
I fall into this final category.
My mother thinks i'm one person, my friends think im another, my boss thinks i'm another.
Back in school, the motto was: if it's for a grade I can and will do whatever is necessary. This included phys ed. I'm by no means an athelete but I outperformed the jocks on the track when there was a grade attached to it.
Provide a great enough point of interest (compensation, subject material, a cause to work for, or please please please all 3) and I will adopt whatever demeanor and expertise are necessary to get the job done.
All the personality test does is weed out people like me.
It can measure the core, or whatever I THINK they might want, but without them telling me what they're looking for I can't adapt myself to their environment.
"we're going on a trip, we want a vehicle"
via which medium? microgravity? the ocean? land? the atmosphere?
what are you taking along?
what balance of efficiency or redundancy do you need?
do you value endurance or speed?
When faced with some automated test you can't ask these questions!
I recently completed a postgraduate course on "organisational behaviour", which is the field from where the justification for these personality tests is supposed to originate.
It turns out that there is no objective justification for the tests. The texts were quite clear that little if any benefit can be derived from subjecting individuals to such tests, as the tests were only ever designed to measure populations. While the aggregate score across many people might have meaning, a single individual's results are meaningless. Being subject to such a test is a useful indicator that the prospective employer you are interviewing has a clueless HR department.
It was interesting doing a few job interviews with large companies after having completed the course. It was soooo tempting to answer each question with a page number from the text.
When I was trying to get a job in teaching, the hardest jobs to apply for were the ones that used a personality screening. I never got past that, it was obvious why -- the test was looking for suck-ups and yes-men, teachers who would do exactly what the principal said, and never rock the boat.
And isn't that one of the problems with education today? Not to brag, but I guarantee that I was in the 98th or higher percentile on my Praxis tests. But I know for a fact that other teaching students with me got jobs teaching math while I barely got interviews. People that barely can follow along with the book are going to do a better job of showing the joy of mathematics than I am? When the school is selecting for sheep and not smarts, what kind of teacher do they get? What kind of school do they get? And what kind of "educated" students do we turn out? Shit, shit and shit, of course.
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Perhaps you misunderstood the purpose of the test.
Would you want to hire someone who couldn't even figure out how to lie convincingly during an interview for a position which would involve being in constant contact with the public?
A big part of dealing with customers is figuring out the "correct" answers. Basically, that the customer's concern is important to you, that the more expensive product really is a better choice, and that you really are going to be right back after checking the reserve stock section which really is located right near the break room.
If a simple test can filter out the applicants who are too honest or too clueless for a career in retail sales, why not use it?
'jobs today have a higher technical requirement than back in the day, so while i don't agree that just turning up is enough to get the job'
Your average person turning up has a higher technical capability today than back in the day as well. Almost every position is trainable in any case. Personality checks, credit checks, drug tests, etc are all worthless garbage on the hiring front but what is worse is this obsession with trying to find the already perfectly qualified candidate.
I'm a technician. I work in the field, on a daily basis I encounter systems and software and must master them quickly enough to resolve problems encountered by people who work with those systems all day everyday for a living and make them think I knew more about it than them all along. I have been doing so successfully for years. Yet, despite this, I have been turned down for positions before because I lacked experience with a particular application, perhaps backup application, etc.
When did people lose sight of the fact that working a position within a single company generally involves a skillset that a competent fast learner can master within two months? The fact that two months of training is too much to invest in an employee these days says a great deal about the direction companies are moving in.
He probably wasn't playing games... some places just really are that inconsiderate.
Slashdot needs a "-1, Wrong" moderation option.
The Urban Hippie
'an intelligent person would understand that different sectors, firms within sectors, and departments within firms place different values upon divergent priorities.'
False. The intelligent understands that low level managers that accomplish work within the company do all of the above. The intelligent understands that this test is developed by corporate and marketing type droids and thus they should answer in a manner the corporate/marketing droid would like. Read the employee handbook or watch an orientation video at any company and express the attitude expressed in said video. ATTENTION! Do not give the answers that would actually best fit to accomplish the goals and ideals stated in said video, give the answers the fit the ATTITUDE expressed in the video with the solutions they stated and state the goals they state. Even if those things conflict.
'Efficiency is composed of accuracy and speed. How is each of these weighted?'
You don't weight them, you are superman and work both accurately and fast. Whatever option gives the most of both is what you want. Companies never want you to SAY you are willing to sacrifice quality for speed. If there is an option that says you will exceed goals ahead of deadline, pick that one.
'Work dynamic is composed of the independence vs the subordination of workers to the chain of command. How are those weighted?'
If you are applying for management you are absolutely a free thinker and worker who rigidly adheres to every letter of company policy. If you are applying to anything else you are a self starting management teetsucker. Clear enough for you? Most importantly, as anything other than management you listen to other employees every concern, never get angry, upset, or emotional, make friends easily, and never have confrontations with other employees.
'jobs today have a higher technical requirement than back in the day, so while i don't agree that just turning up is enough to get the job'
Your average person turning up has a higher technical capability today than back in the day as well. Almost every position is trainable in any case. Personality checks, credit checks, drug tests, etc are all worthless garbage on the hiring front but what is worse is this obsession with trying to find the already perfectly qualified candidate.
I'm a technician. I work in the field, on a daily basis I encounter systems and software and must master them quickly enough to resolve problems encountered by people who work with those systems all day everyday for a living and make them think I knew more about it than them all along. I have been doing so successfully for years. Yet, despite this, I have been turned down for positions before because I lacked experience with a particular application, perhaps backup application, etc.
When did people lose sight of the fact that working a position within a single company generally involves a skillset that a competent fast learner can master within two months? The fact that two months of training is too much to invest in an employee these days says a great deal about the direction companies are moving in.
Exactly!
This is my major complaint. I graduated in spring 08 and can't find a job.
The reason?
I focused on the task i was supposed to: school!.. I took a double major and did well at both of them.
Apparently the capacity to focus and train two separate tracks at the same time means NOTHING.
They want "canned labor".
Training your workforce is something to do in india, where there will be none of this "cost of living" stuff.
I give it about 10 more years before they realize there's no such thing as a free lunch, and killing peoples' wages will kill revenues. (they should be learning it now, but the government is bailing them out >.)
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I can see points of bias in your tests already.
The exclusion bias.
You have no idea how many people with different personalities from those you know were excluded. Perhaps people who had personalities with more facets than the test could examine, or with facets none of "kennedy's wiz kids" (who designed the test the same way they ran vietnam) have ever seen.
The inherent inaccuracy of self-confidence.
self-confidence is a relative thing.
People who are interviewing for a job generally have their fundamental ability to eat and pay rent at stake. Those are much, MUCH higher stakes than "this is a new client, let's do a good job" and as such is subject to greater risk aversity.
Analytical capability:
Various positions require various levels of analysis, and my experience is those robotic tests do not provide adequate clues as to the level of analysis which should be applied.
And its not mumbo jumbo that drives this. Its just freaking statistics.
because we all know statistics cannot be manipulated, misrepresented, improperly gathered, etc.
Employment prospects are more like a scatter plot with high variance, and these tests are like the most simplistic best-fit regression lines. They WILL exclude wide swaths of excellent candidates based on arbitrarily placed limits. This is especially true for testing services contracted from outside.
o everyone a huge favor by helping to ensure that the people we offer jobs to will do well in them and be happy
Isn't that what interviews and training programs are for? acquainting them with company policy, teaching them the procedures, filling them in on how to do their job?
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Once a company creates a human resources dept. they have effectively become a bureaucracy and from that point onward filling out the paperwork properly becomes much more important to them than any other concerns.
He called an hour late again.
Remember: you're interviewing your prospective employer, too. This guy clearly failed YOUR test.
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