It seems like awful lot of employers are using them these days. I had to take an honesty test for a job last week. Didn’t get hired. I think it was because I answered the questions honestly.
I just scheduled to take a personality test for a job I applied for online. Had to take one before I was hired at Evil Soulless Mart a bit over a year ago. I really don’t see what good it did. I found myself surrounded by pretty much the same mix of good workers, slackers, drunks, potheads, druggies, borderline psychotics, people with hair-trigger tempers and people who were rude to customers as just about every other job I ever had. The personality test didn’t seem to have weeded out any of the potential problem workers. A couple of weeks ago, there was a Pit thread concerning a Wal-Mart employee who went medieval with a box cutter when he was reprimanded for taking a store-owned map into the crapper with him. This guy would have had to pass Evil Soulless Mart’s personality test.
Near as I can figure, these tests measure nothing more than a person’s ability to guess at what answer a prospective employer wants to see on the personality test. And, of course, people will lie like cheap throw rugs if that means giving the “correct” answer on a personality or honesty test.
Am I right on this?
I feel vaguely insulted that I have to be subjected to this kind of testing (as if the drug test, which is another notoriously ineffective way of weeding out the bad apples wasn’t bad enough) but I’m desparate for work. So, I will go, take the test, lie like a cheap throw rug to give the answers the employer wants to see…
Actually, I do consider myself a basically honest person, and hate lying, but I have some beliefs on certain subjects that do come up on these tests which are not the “correct” way of thinking for a good little corporate drone. So, in order to pay for the groceries, I will take my little intellectual crawl through the mud and feel a little unclean afterward, just like I did at Wal-Mart…
Please don’t take this as a slam on you because I’ve done the exact same thing myself. But I think more or less it’s an IQ test to see if you’re smart enough to lie on the damn things.
I didn’t get hired because one of the questions stated “have you ever fantasized about what it would be like to be a Mafia big shot gangster?” (that was the jist of what the question read anyway) I answered “Yes.” I mean what man hasn’t? It’s not like I would actually be dumb enough to get into that shit for real!! :dubious:
For my current job, I had to take the Myers Briggs test and some test where you answered whether or not you had a particular personality trait and whether your friends would say you had it. I remember one of the traits was “charming.” I’d never thought of whether I was charming or whether my friends would say I was. I said not because it seemed so 19th century to me. I got hired anyway. So maybe they didn’t want charming people.
As for the Myers Briggs test, I’ve probably taken it about 15 times. At this point, it’s really hard to answer honestly because I keep thinking “oh, that answer will make me a ‘P’ and I know they’re looking for ‘J’s’.”
Hey, I got that question too! I answered “no”, since that’s not the way my fantasies of being evil turn. Maybe they figured, “everybody fantasized about that, this person is obviously dishonest.”
Years ago, when I worked in retail, we administered similar tests to people we were thinking of hiring. SHAKES has a point - if you answer totally honestly, you will look like you haven’t the sense to keep your lip zipped when appropriate, sometimes a very important quality in dealing with the general public.
You wouldn’t believe some of the answers we got from people. I suspect that since they were applying to a music store they felt freer to response to the drug and alcohol questions, but really… One of my favorites was the guy who listed “scoodrivrs” as his favorite drink, and said he would smoke a joint on his break as long as the “manger” didn’t mind.
Well, I took the test and qualified. There were a few skills tests before the personality tests.
The job is for a customer service/sales rep at a credit card company, and the test wasn’t Myers/Briggs or one of the personality profiles. The questions dealt strictly with those traits that make for a good sales person. Of course, I did the cheap throw rug thing and my interview is tomorrow. There is a six-week training class, I don’t know if they have you on the phones during the six weeks or not, but I get the impression that there are a lot of “mock calls” that you have to deal with, on top of learning your way around their software, all of the “offers” you are supposed to make, etc.
Now, I think that working sales into customer service is probably the most obnoxious development this side of telemarketing. You call about a problem with your bill, and they try to sell you some program or something you don’t want. But, hey, it’s a job. There’s a 90-day probationary period, which I probably won’t pass, due to the fact that being a sales person is something that just runs counter tomy personality, but hopefully I’ll have my license as a massage therapist by then, and have some money socked away to hold me for a while until I can find work in the field.
Anyhoo, I’m going to be re-reading my copy of The Interview Kit today to make sure I don’t say something stupid during the interview. I probably will get the job. This is a mass hiring situation- their turnover is extremely high, and they bring a new group in once a month for training. I really don’t regard this as anything more than a temporary gig anyway, so I really don’t care if I get fired.
I just wish that the program director from school would get of his scrawny ass and get our certificates in the mail so that I can get my application for the national certification exam in.
