I’ve been on the job hunt for way too long. I need a job.
Last week I interviewed with a place that looked promising, and after a good interview, they said they’d be sending me a personality questionnaire. Now I know there are specific questions prospective job interviewers aren’t allowed to ask, and I wonder if this is their way to try to get around those rules. Employers aren’t allowed to discriminate in hiring on the basis of religion, but what about the absence of religion?
One part of the personality assessment has several lists of values, and you are supposed to rank them 1 to 5, with 5 being the most important and 1 being the least. There are several that list one of the values as 'spiritual growth" and ‘prayer or meditation’ and ‘religious philosophy.’ I got the impression that they are trying to find out how religious their candidates are. Now, they can’t know if the person is Jewish, Buddhist, or Muslim, but once you find someone who ranks ‘religious philosophy’ as a top priority, chances are pretty good that you’ve found a Christian, just because that is the majority religion. And chances are that someone who ranks ‘prayer or meditation’ as their lowest priority will not be a conservative Christian.
What do you think about this? Am I being paranoid, or do you interpret this as a backdoor method of trying to find a Christian?
It’s not that employers are not allowed by law to ask certain questions, it’s that there are certain classes of potential employees that employers are not allowed to discriminate against. I can ask all the questions I want in an interview, but I’d be stupid to do so, because that opens the door to claims that I illegally discriminated in my hiring process. If I don’t ask the question, then presumably I don’t know the answer.
Personally. I doubt the test is a way to find a likely Christian. My perception is that those tests are usually geared to weed out people that are going to be trouble; complainers, slackers, underachievers, violence-prone, whatever.
These tests are becoming more common as they are easy to administer via the internet. They are not looking for Christianity so much as general personality traits. They have been fairly widely disproven to be accurate. I believe there have been several threads on the Dope re this.
Yet another way for HR to get in the way of anything getting done.
Well - I guess it depends on where you stand and where they stand.
To be honest, I would rather NOT be hired by some group of religious fanatics and I only find out the fact later. So if they didn’t hire me because I didn’t seem religious enough, they would be doing me a favor.
True story:
Ages ago, when I thought I was going to quit my job at a movie studio, I took an interview at another smaller, independent movie studio that had a good reputation for some great small films.
It was only during the interview that I discovered this studio has just been sold (two days prior) to a large, conservative religious group. The interviewer asked if this would be a problem and I said honestly, “Yes.”
The interviewer was shocked at my response and I said, “Sorry to have wasted your time, but I cannot work for them.” We shook hands and I left as fast as I could.
I knew I would never be able to work for that group, and regardless of how much money they might have paid, I wouldn’t have lasted there a full work day. Plus, if my friends had ever found out, they would have killed me anyway.
PV I just got back from a conference of Health Insurers. A woman - Alex somebody from a company called Eliza (?)* - got up and discussed a Vulnerability Index and the power of using it with employees. For Health Insurers, her point was that if you talk to a person with diabetes about caring for themselves better, but you don’t know if they are a caregiver for a parent, or have financial concerns, etc. then you aren’t really listening to them and understanding what stresses they have in life and how that affects how they approach their own health concerns…
When she spoke, she discussed Spirituality - her point was that it had nothing to do with specific beliefs, organized religion, etc. - it had to do with one’s ability to calm themselves and put things in perspective when confronted with stress. So their Vulnerability Index asks about spirituality but not with any intent to dial in on specific faiths or approaches to it.
So I suspect those types of questions are a way of trying to assess how you cope with stress and manage your head…??
*here they are: http://www.elizacorporation.com/about
ETA: and hey, good luck - job searches are brutally tough, esp as time goes on. Best of luck if this is an opportunity you find to be a good fit.
I think that is pretty much it. There is plenty of research that indicates that people with any form of positive general belief system are more productive and better able to cope in the work environment.
I suspect that it has something to do with what WordMan posted.
I’d also caution you against using 5s. You want to come across as a person who finds inner peace, not as a person who is going to spend their day laying Chick Tracts on other people’s desks. In corporate America I’ve watched more than one Evangelical Christian make a CLM through religion. (Hint: Bible quotes as your personal e-mail signature is fine, at work it makes some people uncomfortable - especially after 9/11. Especially our Muslim coworkers - which isn’t a small percentage of our staff).
Whether this is true or false, wouldn’t it still be discrimination on religious grounds to refuse to hire someone who lacks “a positive general belief system”? (Assuming we’re talking about the US here…)
It is a weeding out process. It may not have anything to do with religion or stress, but it is designed to give them a reason to not hire you. I’d try to find copies on line with “correct” answers if you want the job.
Probably not. For one thing, you can’t discriminate on the basis of religion, I’ve met Lutherans who go to church every week and lack “a positive general belief system.”
Well, if you give a New Ager and an evangelical the test, you’re just as likely to get the same response from both of them. However, if you give the test to 100 people, you’re more likely to find an evangelical than a New Ager, because the former vastly outnumbers the latter in terms of demographics.
I have never discriminated in hiring due to someone’s religion. However, I always share with interviewees that I am a devout atheist, just in case working for one would be a problem. I don’t really care what you believe, but I don’t want you getting your panties in a bunch when I spout blasphemous oaths on a “bad day”.