I should say in response to this that this is the sort of thing I was referring to when I said, in reference to this employment “assessment”, that “there are ways to design personality assessments that are genuinely useful and actually quite reliable, but this sure ain’t it”. The MMPI is among the most famous of the personality inventories, though arguably not necessarily the best. But what they all have in common is questions with choices that actually make sense, rather than convoluted “gotchas” that are impossible to answer meaningfully, supplemented with statistically validated – and often subtle – consistency checks.
Here’s my bullshit job application story, having nothing to do with a personality questionnaire like that:
I applied for a job as a SCADA operator at a utility company. I had no idea what SCADA was but I read up on it on-line. It appears to be some kind of computerized system for controlling stuff. So the job appears to entail mostly sitting at a computer console in a darkened control room, with perhaps some occasional work out in the field.
The application requires that a copy of a current CLEAN driver record be sent with it. Note that they require this at the very beginning of the application process, not later when they get down to their short list.
Well, that requires every applicant to spend a day waiting in line at the DMV and pay something like $15 or whatever to get that copy. I’m sure there must have been 500 applicants for the job.
Maybe this is to sceen out the applicants who aren’t all that desperate, and narrow the field down to the seriously desperate only.
But wait! There’s more!
So a month or so after I did all that, I got a letter in the mail saying that they had re-organized the department and the position no longer exists. Well, thanks. Are you going to reimburse all of your 500 applicants for those DMV fees they paid for nothing? Ah, but they did mention that they would keep my application on file in case a similar opening should ever arise . . .
But wait! There’s more!
Sure enough, some time later (maybe 6 months or so?) I got yet another letter saying that, sure enough, there was an opening and would I like to apply for it? But there’s a catch! The clean DMV report must be recent, like within the past 90 days, so I will have to submit a new one!
I debated with myself whether it was worth a postage stamp to return their letter with a note telling to fuck themselves sideways with a utility pole. I decided it was not worth that, nor my time to write such a letter.
Fool me once . . .
They’re trying to find out how willing you are to do pointless bullshit when they ask you to.
HR typically does more than one thing. I can promise you that the recruiters, or talent acquisition as they prefer to be called these days, I work with seem very preoccupied with sourcing the best candidates they can for our open positions. I’m not a full time recruiter, but when I recruit I do my best to source candidates as well. When a manager thinks I’ve failed they’re typically not shy about telling me.
I hate bullshit interview questions as well. But those obvious things aren’t always obvious to some people. When interviewing a candidate from Africa one of the people on the panel asked a real world question, “That’s a cool accent you have. Where are you from?” (We ended up hiring him because he knocked the interview out of the park.) Worse yet, I had a hiring manager invite a candidate to attend services at her church.
Yeah, that’s just stupid. A lot of people forget that you’re not just interviewing a candidate they’re interviewing you as well. If I was the one being interviewed I’d have second thoughts about accepting a job at that company.
Best practice is to hold off on any sort of background screening until you’ve offered the candidate the position. And run, run as far as you can if anyone wants you to put in hours or spend money on a background screen. And, yes, your driving record would be part of a background screen.
You probably haven’t ever applied for a job with local government. Just as one example of many, a police dept administrative position required background checks of my entire family (including late parents), transcripts from every school I’d attended from high school and up (all with fees), explanation of every driving ticket ever, etc. And at the end of December, they still hadn’t made up their minds, and had to start over again in January. (I bowed out.) Bureaucracy sucks.
I work for state government. We do background checks on candidates but all we ask is that they sign a form to give us permission to do it, then we take care of the effort and cost. (By “we” I mean someone in HR, the only info I ever got it is they “passed” or “failed”. I have no idea what they are actually checking for.)
I’m curious how these tests are designed and used. I could see training some machine learning algorithm against answers and retention/disciplinary issues. Or whether candidates make past whatever stage involves actual humans.
And then you find out your AI is racist, whoops.
Long ago I was going for two jobs at the same time and this would be my second professional job as a Programmer. The 1 job gave one these annoying questionnaires the other didn’t. The salary offers were very close to the same. The questionnaire company took weeks to make the offer and the other company called me back within hours.
Based on those factors I took the job without the horrible questionnaire. As it turns out, it wasn’t a great choice and I moved on in a year. The 90s were a good time to be a young programmer/analyst.
I would hope so, especially if they do the “Choose between these two right answers”. Unfortunately…
I had an interview for an excellent job where I was well-qualified. Interviewer hands me a questionnaire as I sit down, and it’s full of '90s pop-psycho-clichés: “Would you rather eat a marshmallow or listen to music?” “Oak tree or microwave oven?” etc.
He watches me take the test, then excuses himself and hands it off through an Employees Only door. THEN he introduces himself and starts telling me about the job.
At this point, I’ve barely even spoken, and… that door opens and my test is handed back to him. He glances at it, stands up, and says “I’m afraid we really don’t need you at this time. But thank you for applying.”
I should have said “Wait, are you rejecting me based on thirty random, nonsensical questions?”
What I did say was “Ummm… thank you?” as I beat a hasty retreat. As one does when in a tiny room with a crazy person.
Do they specify that it has to be your current clean driving record?
Sounds like the Professional-Managerial Class strikes again.
Wow. Those questions are insane. I suspect I would have told them that. Or ask the nimrod that presented them to answer and debate them. (No I’m not looking for a job)
I remember applying for a retail job when I was in graduate school, and I was surprised at the half-assed psychological exam they gave me. Half the questions seemed to be anti-theft and personal integrity type questions, and the other half were this sort of question where they aren’t mutually exclusive, or both are important. I mean, asking someone whether they agree more with “I’m open to suggestions or ways to better myself” or “I make sure to complete my work obligations” isn’t something that can’t be a strong “Yes” to both.
That said, I’ve only answered one questionnaire like this for professional positions, and it was some kind of psychological battery that Aetna made their interviewees take. It wasn’t about theft, it was more about how much of a self-starter you were, how deferential to authority, how likely you were to make decisions yourself vs. kick them up the hierarchy, and so on. I tend to be a pretty self-sufficient and independent employee, and view a big part of my job as taking care of business so that my boss doesn’t have to, so naturally I failed Aetna’s test. The funny thing is that the guy (a former supervisor) who had asked me to apply for it was incensed. Not at me, but at the test- I found out later that he ended up going down his list of people he wanted to hire- all of us applied, and all of us failed, because we were too independent, etc… Which frustrated/pissed him off mightily, as that’s WHY he wanted to hire us in the first place.
Personally, I think that stupid canned tests like this combined with the digital weedout HR software make it harder and harder to get hired; you have to have just the right buzzwords, and you have to answer the questions just so, or you get kicked out of consideration. A lot of the time those things get hung up on just exactly WHAT software you know, or exactly how much experience you have, when in fact the best candidates may have slightly different experience or duration, but they’ll get culled out.
Yes… I’d be tempted to answer that question with a question of my own:
“Is this typical of the work culture at your company? Does this sort of childish thing happen often?”
This leads me to believe that these tests aren’t complete bullshit, they seem to at least generally identify personality traits. It’s what you do with it that makes them bullshit. I’ll be interviewing someone for my company next week, so I’ll have to see if HR provides me with results from one of these…
True; I wasn’t implying bullshit in the sense of entirely useless as far as personality traits are concerned, but bullshit in the sense of they aren’t actually that useful in terms of finding good candidates.
I’m trying to imagine the personality traits for various answers to this:
I agree with #1 more than #2: I have a lot of sympathy for my coworkers, and I feel bad for the extra work they’ll have to do when I’m out, but unfortunately, it is very difficult for me to change my plans.
I agree with #2 more than #1: I’m not tied to a schedule, and I can accommodate whatever changes you want, but I’m clueless about my coworkers, so if you need me to change my plans you’ll have to ask me.
I agree with them both about the same: I’m a real team player, a perfect candidate. But you’ll never
know this about me, because you’re making me choose one or the other.
I disagree with them both about the same: I might be a good worker, but only if I’m totally independent. But won’t be warned about this, because you’re making me choose one or the other.
Question to the OP, was this through Indeed or other third party hiring service, or was it actually through the company itself?
I use Indeed to help to find candidates, but I stopped sending skill assessments when I realized how stupid they were. “Reliability? Sure, I want reliable employees.” Well, the score they had on the assessment had virtually no bearing on how reliable they actually were.
I’m not sure the exact questions asked, but I’m sure they are approximately as dumb as the ones in the OP.
So, it could be that those doing the hiring simply didn’t uncheck (Indeed seems to like to make them opt-out) to send these assessments.
I’ve filled out that sort of questionnaire in the past. The trick is not to answer as you would answer, but how you think that the ideal candidate for the job would answer.
Anyway, while the OP’s examples are a bit silly, the idea of having a potential employee show that they are able to fulfill the required personality and skills is not a bad thing. It’s better to have no employee than an employee that quits after a week or two because it’s a bad match, or worse, does something that they need to be terminated over because they were untrustworthy.
I don’t know that the questions in the OP are the best to weed out poor candidates, but, when it comes to entry level jobs, it’s hard to tell what are.
Personally, I spend most of the time in an interview talking about the job, and letting them decide if they are a good fit, as they know better than I do.
“you have a spherical ullage tank with 12,000 psi of helium fall out of a fill fixture and bounce its way across a production floor”
Do you say:
- “Shit shit shit!”
- “Fuck fuck fuck!”
Whoops. My bad, I was rushing to post, and reversed the verbs.
"It’s important to me to finish what I start.
Vs.
“I work well with people from different backgrounds.”
Through Indeed as part of the application process.
They made it seem like my application wouldn’t even go through, unless I spent the time filling out the additional “skills assessment” questions.
- All of the above, plus words you’ve never dreamed about.