Do Personality Tests Give Companies Too Much Power? (thewalrus.ca) 155
One 2016 human resources study found that 48% of American businesses -- and 57% of U.K. businesses -- used personality questionnaires for hiring decisions, a new article reports. They add that the personality test industry may now be bringing in up to $4 billion a year.
But "By relying on these tests, employers can ask questions that would be inappropriate -- or at best bizarre -- in a traditional interview." For example, in 2017 the crafts store Michael's was asking job-seekers whether they strongly agreed with these statements:
- "I am always happy."
- "When I look at the world around me, I have little hope for mankind."
- "Over the course of the day, I can experience many mood changes."
- "When I am in a bad mood, it affects my work."
An anonymous reader quotes an investigative report from The Walrus: Bad hires can be costly for companies, and the tests are now used to screen everyone from minimum-wage employees to consultants and top-level executives. But there is the risk that people saddled with the wrong scores will be screened out en masse without a chance to prove themselves. As part of an attempt to build a perfect capitalist meritocracy, algorithms are effectively monitoring the workforce to decide which traits are deemed desirable -- and who gets left behind...
[S]ome critics say personality tests give companies too much power. Elizabeth D. De Armond, a professor of legal research and writing at Chicago-Kent College of Law, likens personality tests to an "MRI scan of the soul" and suggests banning them, except in cases where a business can convincingly argue that hiring for a certain personality is essential (police officers must be able to handle highly stressful situations, for example). The tests seek "to observe not just what an employee does, but how that employee thinks -- processes that pertain not just to the employee's presence on the job, but the employee's being at all times," De Armond wrote in 2012.
Merve Emre, who recently published a history of the Myers-Briggs Indicator, argues that "All of these tests are registering the interests of power, and capitalist power specifically. Just because that power is being routed through and sanitized by a scientific proof doesn't mean it's not power."
The article also includes comments from an executive at the company that created the personality test for Michael's who argues that the tests eliminate human biases from hiring based solely on an in-person interview.
Their test even check for people who answered too quickly or answered "strongly agree" too often, according to the article -- and if they did, flag their responses with an "authenticity alert."
But "By relying on these tests, employers can ask questions that would be inappropriate -- or at best bizarre -- in a traditional interview." For example, in 2017 the crafts store Michael's was asking job-seekers whether they strongly agreed with these statements:
- "I am always happy."
- "When I look at the world around me, I have little hope for mankind."
- "Over the course of the day, I can experience many mood changes."
- "When I am in a bad mood, it affects my work."
An anonymous reader quotes an investigative report from The Walrus: Bad hires can be costly for companies, and the tests are now used to screen everyone from minimum-wage employees to consultants and top-level executives. But there is the risk that people saddled with the wrong scores will be screened out en masse without a chance to prove themselves. As part of an attempt to build a perfect capitalist meritocracy, algorithms are effectively monitoring the workforce to decide which traits are deemed desirable -- and who gets left behind...
[S]ome critics say personality tests give companies too much power. Elizabeth D. De Armond, a professor of legal research and writing at Chicago-Kent College of Law, likens personality tests to an "MRI scan of the soul" and suggests banning them, except in cases where a business can convincingly argue that hiring for a certain personality is essential (police officers must be able to handle highly stressful situations, for example). The tests seek "to observe not just what an employee does, but how that employee thinks -- processes that pertain not just to the employee's presence on the job, but the employee's being at all times," De Armond wrote in 2012.
Merve Emre, who recently published a history of the Myers-Briggs Indicator, argues that "All of these tests are registering the interests of power, and capitalist power specifically. Just because that power is being routed through and sanitized by a scientific proof doesn't mean it's not power."
The article also includes comments from an executive at the company that created the personality test for Michael's who argues that the tests eliminate human biases from hiring based solely on an in-person interview.
Their test even check for people who answered too quickly or answered "strongly agree" too often, according to the article -- and if they did, flag their responses with an "authenticity alert."
They're weeding out (Score:5, Insightful)
All these tests do is weed out the bad liars (and maybe some overly-honest people) while the craftier ones suss it out and get through.
"When I look at the world around me, I have little hope for mankind."
If you answer yes to that, do you REALLY think they'll be eager to hire you? Would you want to hire someone who answered agreed with that statement?
Get a clue, just as with any subjectively-assessed test, some answers are the kiss of death.
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But it's quite obvious though what you should answer.
However, if you do actually agree with that statement, you really should try to get some help, it's a pretty good indicator for depression and related ails.
On the other hand, these tests open the company up for all sorts of lawsuits. People could claim that they're being discriminated based on disability (eg. depression is treated as a disability/disease in the medical community) if they failed that test.
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They have to know first. It's like any other non-hire or fire situation -- any reasonably intelligent employer will claim a for-cause/non-discriminatory reason (nobody is perfect), even if it's disingenuous. Since we all seem to agree that most people are also going to lie on the test, it just means we're all a bunch of liars, because honesty is penalized.
Anyway, depression can be a perfectly rational response to an accurate perception of the world. Most CBT treatment also happens to involve lying (to yo
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Antidepressants are now known not to work (the report last year that claimed to be a Cochrane review that shows they work was reviewed this year by Norwegian researchers who found that the research was a pack of lies and violated the rules for Cochrane reviews). The UN has been saying that antidepressants aren't the solution - fix the shitty situation the person is in. It's usually economic or social (poverty, sickness, prejudice, isolation, lack of opportunity, etc). Antidepressants can't fix that any m
Re:They're weeding out (Score:5, Interesting)
> (the report last year that claimed to be a Cochrane review
What report was this? There is actually a group that does witch hunts against psychologists and psychiatrists, and the fields in general, called the "Citizens Commission on Human Rights". If you're not aware of them, it's very easy to give them more credit than they deserve, and to allow them to herd the mentally ill from psychiatry towards treatment by the Church of Scientology, which funded them and of which all its leadership are members.
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Antidepressants are useful but not a cure for depression. They can help you deal with it by numbing the worst of the emotional depths, giving you an opportunity to do things to address the depression like build up relationships or hobbies.
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It's very clear what the answers "should" be for the role you want. It's especially clear when the evaluation company discusses the annual test results with the department, comparing results among the staff in a conference room, comparing the scores to the group leader's scores. I saw this happen at a client's job site, and I was shocked.
Re:They're weeding out (Score:4)
CBT has nothing to do with lying to yourself. It's about recognizing unwarranted negative responses and changing them.
People with depression tend to focus on negative aspects of things. They might get someone they care about a gift, but think that it's too cheap, or won't be appreciated, or worry that the recipient will hate it. All those things are possible, but people who don't have depression tend to look at the positives first and at least wait for the reaction.
Starting a new job means lots of new people, potentially stress and what ends up to be a bad environment, worries about not living up to expectations etc. Rather than dwelling on those thoughts, CBT helps them look at the positives. Maybe some more money. Maybe it can't be much worse than their current job that is making them depressed. It's a new opportunity to meet people.
It's not about lying to yourself, it's about learning to not immediately and exclusively think negatively about things. With depression it becomes difficult to climb out of the hole because your mind thinks every action you might take to do that will end negatively, and so very often you just don't do it.
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it's a pretty good indicator for depression and related ails.
That was my observation. These questions appear a lot on mental health screening questionaires. This sounds like a discrimination case waiting to happen.
Re:They're weeding out (Score:4, Interesting)
Meyers-Briggs is somewhat fortunetelley. The questions in the summary aren't from a personality test, they're from a basic psychological screening. I've seen the results. They report on stuff like how likely is this person to steal, cheat, what potentially serious disorders might they have, that sort of thing. That's not the same as a personality test like Meyers-Briggs, which is more about analyzing how someone likes to work, how to treat them to get best results, and how they'll lead/fit in with others.
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You might be right, but then looking around at the world I think you might just be a realist. Doesn't mean you should end your life, or go postal, just that perhaps planning ahead accordingly might be a good idea.
Re:They're weeding out (Score:5, Interesting)
If the tests were that simple, I might agree with you. Unfortunately some are not. I got halfway through one before deciding it was total and utter shiat, and this is the sort of questions they asked:
You Must Choose One:
( ) It's OK to steal a little bit from your employer, as long as you really need the money
( ) If I caught one of my fellow employees stealing and it turned out he had a sick child that needed an expensive operation, I wouldn't turn him in
( ) People who steal deserve to be put in jail for life
( ) It's OK for people to steal if they're smart enough to get away with it
Obviously that's not a real example, but the point is EVERY question was like this. They were a series of negative statements that you had to choose the least bad from, and none of them were "least enough" that you could laugh them off and say you didn't really feel like that. Stealing was covered, but there were other subjects as well. Imagine an entry where you had to choose between four answers, each of which made you look like a racist. That kind of thing.
I bailed on the quiz AND the company, but the only theory I could come up with is that maybe they held on to those answers in case you ever got in a dispute with them. And then depending on what the dispute was about, they could go back to the relevant question and tell the judge (or more likely, "independent" arbitrator) "See, he says right here that he thinks the world would be a better place if there was only one race in it. He probably means HIS race, that horrible nasty bigot. How can he claim to have witnessed discrimination if he's a blatant racist himself?" Or something like that.
Re:They're weeding out (Score:4, Funny)
You defeat the orcs and storm the outpost. All the fighters are all dead. At the far end, you see only a group of orc children. What do you do?
1. I leave them be, because slaughtering children is wrong.
2. I slaughter them, because their alignment is evil and letting evil get stronger is wrong.
3. I leave them be, because they are not part of my contract and I could earn more by killing them once they grow up and become a problem.
4. I toss a coin and let fate decide.
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I kill them all, because if reading fantasy books taught me anything, the very last thing you should do is let the descendant of your enemy live, he will come back when he's grown up and kill you.
Take care of the problem while you can.
Re:They're weeding out (Score:5, Funny)
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Or immediately entered into the TAPS database...
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Well, maybe the next day they decide the tests are more trouble than their worth and get rid of them, but the next time a vacancy comes up they would still have your answers and not consider you.
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If it was for a sales position, they would almost certainly hire you.
Re:They're weeding out (Score:4, Insightful)
I've only ever been asked to do a personality test once, and fortunately it was right at the start of the interview so when I declined I hadn't wasted too much time. They paid my airfare out there too.
"Sorry, I don't do these. We can continue without it but it's going to be hard for you to convince me this is a good place to work now." They asked why I don't do them and I said I'm used to being treated as a complex adult human being, which cannot be evaluated by a simple personality test and who is trusted to make hiring decisions without such things.
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Interesting thread, but I think yours [AmMoJo's] was the best comment. Your moderators' mileage may differ. As I write it has no earned mod points (and I never get any to give).
Having said that, the corporate cancers don't care about not hiring you (or me). If a cancer were capable of actual thought, the thought would be "Plenty more fish in the sea."
Example to cite: Amazon. I am quite unable to imagine how any decent excuse for a human being would work there.
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Your Tripod homepage is amazing.
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You'll probably be sent over to interview for a C-Level position.
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Have you ever tried sugar.....or PCP? (please answer yes or no)
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The hard dilemma is that you have to pick one of the four. Since you disagree with all of them, how do you plan to answer?
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The hard dilemma is that you have to pick one of the four. Since you disagree with all of them, how do you plan to answer?
Who says you have to? Are you an adult with a brain of your own? Handwritten: "If I ever get into the situation, then I will decide according to all the circumstances. "
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"Do not hire: Stupidly wrote on the monitor."
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I do not. I can get up and tell them to shove the test where it belongs.
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But I really wonder about the other questions.
"Over the course of the day, I can experience many mood changes."
Are they really asking if the question taker is at least theoretical capable of experiencing at least a handful of different human emotions?
"When I am in a bad mood, it affects my work."
Are they really asking if the question taker believes in human psychology?
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Some of these questions doesn't feel like a psychology test as much as something a toxic startup identifying traits suitable for explotation, for instance: "I am always happy."
Reeks too much of startups who either wants to look for shiny eyed fresh grads with no live experience who are willing to engage in "false positivism" for 80~90 hour work week job, and declares about "We're going places!!" "I love our game project so much I want to come to work in the game on Sundays, and we are so into our game t
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The world does not owe you a job
Capitalism will mean that those who make businesses more profitable will get jobs.
Capitalism will mean that companies do not discriminate, if they do then there will be a pool of employees available who can be employed to make a profit and due to the fact that there is a pool and the laws of supply and demand they are cheaper to hire giving the company that hires them a edge until the pl
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The world does not owe you a job
If the world doesn't want me growing crops in my front yard and hunting in the neighborhood, then arguably, it does.
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Answering no to that question might not be that bad; it is a question of how it factors in with other less extreme versions of the question. I don’t have much hope for mankind, so I didn’t have kids— I wouldn’t want to bring them into that environment or make them an additional burden on the future. At the same time, I would not answer a question like “Do you feel that in extreme conditions you need to take matters into your own hands?” or less dramatic versions that su
"so just lie" (Score:5, Interesting)
This is something you need to think about before responding that you don't care because you'll just give the "correct" answers - they don't interpret them that naively. As long as the questions elicit some systematic difference between desirables and undesirables, it still works.
It could be as simple as, people willing to lie and give all the "right" answers are more compliant, which is nice for them.
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systematic difference between desirables and undesirables,
Guess you missed the study where they figured out pretty much all "metrics" were absolute horseshit and you'd be just as successful picking employees completely at random.
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Guess you missed the study where they figured out pretty much all "metrics" were absolute horseshit
I missed it. Got a citation?
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Google works for you, too [slashdot.org]
That is not a "study". It is just one random guy's opinion, with no supporting data whatsoever.
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This is something you need to think about before responding that you don't care because you'll just give the "correct" answers - they don't interpret them that naively. As long as the questions elicit some systematic difference between desirables and undesirables, it still works.
It could be as simple as, people willing to lie and give all the "right" answers are more compliant, which is nice for them.
When in doubt, give them the answer they want. I think a lot of people probably give the answer they want. I'm not generally the kind of person to give the best or worst score on any given metric. So i'm OK on the strongly agree part. You'll be lucky to see one of those. But I hadn't fully considered the "time to respond" metric until now. I'll keep that in my pocket, thanks.
An intelligent test (Score:2)
So I suppose the tests weed out those too stupid to fill them out cleverly. Put on a persona, and answer as that persona would answer.
And if you can keep that persona up at work they will be happy, who cares what you are really like.
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P.s. i'm an ENTP
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I was tested twice. Results INTJ and ESFP.
That's a big difference. I'm curious how strongly you scored in each of your traits and what mood you were in (work vs play) when you took the tests. And if you mostly chose "no preference" instead of strongly agreeing/disagreeing with the questions, I can see how you flipped like that.
I consistently test as an INTJ-- perfect for the work I do, but I would rather be an ESFP outside the office.
Re:"so just lie" (Score:5, Interesting)
If you read the test instructions, you should also make sure the person taking it doesn't know what a test like this is or has ever administered it themselves.
I've read through, administered and even analyzed the answer/responses on a number of tests (Murphy-Meisgeier, Myers-Briggs etc, all which you can purchase from Pearson) as part of comparative psychological assessments for psychophysics research so I know roughly what answers out of the hundreds of questions create what results (whether desired or undesired) and thus these tests are completely invalid for me because I'm already biased.
For example, as you said, scoring some of the 'right' answers too high may result in a false test reading or even indicate a potential sociopathic or psychopathic disorder, on the other hand in those cases the results always tell you to refer to a psychologist for further analysis of the test subject which is the only ethical thing to do.
You can't just administer these tests as a company for no good reason, the ethical and legal consequences of not dealing with adverse findings is too large.
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There are tests you can not cheat. Those tests for psychopathy, where they monitor your brain function as you are shown a series of images. Normal brain will react to the image, taking on the emotion shown in the image and then control and suppress it (empathy and control of that emotional response) the psychopath mind can not, it fails to take on the emotion properly and shows the lack of emotion control elements (actual control of emotion rather than just suppressing it public expression). So effectively
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While walking along in desert sand, you suddenly look down and see a tortoise crawling toward you. You reach down and flip it over onto its back. The tortoise lies there, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs, trying to turn itself over, but it cannot do so without your help. You are not helping. Why?
Re: "so just lie" (Score:2)
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Sigh. The correct answer is "What's a tortoise?"
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So effectively narcissists and psychopaths can be totally detected and promoted to managment for the obvious reason.
Fixed that for you.
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Had a minor tiff with a management consultant brought in for a Ra Ra session, I have never believed the accuracy of these tests as if you\re even a so-so actor, you can make it say what you want.
The problem is you know what the position is, and what kind of people are generally accepted into that field.
You want it to say docile office drone, go getter sales weasel, how about mildly psychopathic upper management. Yup, can do all those with 2 mins of "reflection" before testing.
He swore up and down the metri
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Reminds me of an article I read by two HR experts (if I recall, they were the head of HR departments in big companies) who advised that when encountering the "what is your greatest weakness" question, that this was a no-brainer as you were obviously supposed to lie.
Maybe I'm a little naive, but I found that really upsetting.
The idea that you had questions that might essentially screen out honest candidates bothered me, and the fact that these two felt that this was completely acceptable was even worse. Not
No. (Score:3, Interesting)
Personality tests are just the result of having way too many out of work employees while somehow pretending we're at full employment.
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Balance of power (Score:2)
Knowledge is power. And as power becomes more asymmetrical it becomes more abusive. That is the overall pattern: business think that knowing more about their employees is always a good thing .
You can always quibble about individual cases. Having some knowledge is reasonable. Some knowledge is misguided. Some knowledge is wrong. It is also general practice to sell a policy with a case which everyone agrees on: 'if a dangerous psychopath applies for a job, don't you want to know?'. Such cases don't exemplify
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That's not the point. You don't have to interpret this as 'Only knowledge is power'. The same balance of power rule can be applied to money.
Not testing what they think they are testing (Score:2)
Some people may actually answer honestly. Some will outright lie and answer what they think the company wants to hear. Others inbetween.
Then there is interpretation: "When I am in a bad mood, it affects my work" Do they mean are you unable to work if some random thing goes wrong, or do they mean that if you just had a day that would make for a good country music song, your efficiency drops a little.
Mood changes during the day - again what do they mean? I'm happy if something I've been working hard on wo
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Well, they are also asking for "strongly agree". So one could still "agree" with the statement, but answer false because they don't agree strongly about it. So in that sense, probably the "correct" way to answer those questions would be false for all of them, as anyone answering that they strongly agree to any of them probably has issues. Or is lying. Or didn't read the instructions.
Of course, their interpretation could be completely different, and they aren't going to let you explain your answers eithe
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Then there is interpretation: "When I am in a bad mood, it affects my work" Do they mean are you unable to work if some random thing goes wrong, or do they mean that if you just had a day that would make for a good country music song, your efficiency drops a little.
When I'm really pissed off, I work most efficiently. So yes, my mood does affect my work.
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That's something I hate about multiple choice tests - they can really suck if the people making the questions don't think of all possible ways that question can be interpreted.
One of the "greatest" things you can do is ask negated questions like people sometimes do colloquially - especially when asking someone like a programmer or mathematician:
"Don't you agree that
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Some people may actually answer honestly.
My chances of answering honestly are inversely related to how badly I need the job. If I need the job, I'll answer whatever way I think will help.
If they actually care about my personality, they'll have to figure that out in a face-to-face interview.
Companies already have tons of power... (Score:2)
Banning the use of personality tests, which have very limited validity outside very specific research circles makes perfect sense. If you need to screen for certain things, use trained individuals do the screening in a structured interviews. It's quickly nothing but junk science without that kind of overview.
Honestly, law enforcement, security companies and the like should have independently contracted psychologists to review new and existing workers.
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The only time personality tests should be banned is in salary negotiations. But honestly, a good negotiator doesn’t need a formal personality test to know how to approach a person.
Yes, but candidates have the power of "not gonna." (Score:5, Insightful)
The first time I was faced with one of those things, I called up the recruiter and asked if it was actually mandatory. He was floored- no one had ever asked that before. He asked some questions, and the answer came back that "yes, it's mandatory." I gave him the standard "thank you for your kind consideration, but I am no longer interested in the position..." and that was that.
These days, I don't even bother doing that. As soon as one of those assessments come up or they tell me that they want to schedule an automated video interview, I simply ghost them. A company like that doesn't deserve a response. They aren't looking for people who can justify their reasons for not taking those tests. They're looking for people who are COMPLIANT. Those tests weed out independent and willful candidates. There isn't a company in the world- at least none that I'd want to work for- that wants an employee who feels empowered enough to tell them to fuck off.
I had a recruiter tell me something once, and it's stuck with me for decades: A company will never treat you better than they do when they're trying to get you to come work for them. If you're treated like shit as a candidate, it's a virtual certainty that you'll be treated like shit as an employee.
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I had a recruiter tell me something once, and it's stuck with me for decades: A company will never treat you better than they do when they're trying to get you to come work for them. If you're treated like shit as a candidate, it's a virtual certainty that you'll be treated like shit as an employee.
Thanks for that nugget of wisdom. I'll keep that in mind in case I ever go out job hunting again.
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Its been a long time since I did one but I got the impression that one of the metrics was consistency: there were essentially the same propositions spread across multiple questions and part of the test was to see if you were actually thinking when answering them.
I and most of my peers who were successful had researched this kind of psychological questionnaire and determined what selections wouldnt harm our chances of recruitment. In other words, the company chose the best liars! Which may have been their in
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That is a metric. It's one way to distinguish completely random, confused, or "mark all answers as A" behavior. Long enough tests can even do some measurement of correlations a subject may not be aware of to detect deceit, which is anothe factor these tests can try to measure. The tests are fundamentally quite old and with only modest knowledge are typically easy to beat.
A long time ago, as part of a security assessment, a team I worked with sent one candidate in first to photograph the test, and a second c
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I had a recruiter tell me something once, and it's stuck with me for decades: A company will never treat you better than they do when they're trying to get you to come work for them.
+5 insightful if ever I saw one.
MBTI is bunk (Score:4, Informative)
The Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) has no foundation in evidence-informed psychology. It's basically pseudoscience & yet it's the most popular test used for candidate selections by employers.They may as well be using horoscopes to select candidates.
Yes, these test should be prohibited from use in selecting employees but because they're not valid tests & are likely to reject perfectly suitable candidates with no reasonable basis, i.e. they're a purely superficial prejudice against how some people might answer pseudoscience questions.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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Exactly my response when my Director forced us all to take this test. I suggested astrology was a better approach and offered to cast everyone's charts. (I used to do it as a good way to meet women.) Oddly, the Director was the one who wound up getting fired. P.S.: INTJ, of course.
I know this isn't the direction the article went.. (Score:5, Interesting)
But it just so happens that the other day, I watched The Great Hack [youtube.com] on Netflix. And so, when I read the headline, "Do Personality Tests Give Companies Too Much Power?", I immediately recalled how Cambridge Analytica used Personality Tests to profile millions of Americans, then use those profiles to bombard targeted users in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Florida with a blitzkrieg of anti-Clinton campaign ads via Facebook. And they successfully managed to turn the election to Trump.
So, Do Personality Tests give companies too much power? Yes, yes they do. In more ways than one.
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The kind of personality test that Cambridge Analytica used wasn't like the ones they used for hiring though. They were not really personality tests in fact, they were more like political alignment tests. The goal was to filter out anyone who had a strong, established affiliation that was unlikely to change and instead concentrate on those who could be persuaded.
There were also questions designed to determine how gullible that person was and how effective the CA bullshit would be on them. That aspect was par
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And they successfully managed to turn the election to Trump.
DNC anointing Hillary as the candidate turned the election to Trump.
those tests can hurt the company (Score:2)
by eliminating anyone who think differently, feel differently and not a carbon copy of themselves, they weed out those who could think outside the box that would benefit the company.
Power? (Score:2)
"Just because that power is being routed through and sanitized by a scientific proof doesn't mean it's not power."
Typical post-modern crap: everything is about power and power relationships. This is just another tool to help sort the overwhelming number of applicants each job receives. If there is a power imbalance, it arises from the relative scarcity of jobs vs. applicants, not from the screening procedures.
Shifting costs (Score:3)
If this is actually effective (and that is questionable), it shifts the costs of dealing with even mildly mentally divergent folks out of the workplace, creating even more displaced people, and exacerbating the problem of dealing with them. Keeping people employed is a proven method in maintaining a healthy society. The alternative (other than chaos) is institutions with drugs and restraints (as in the past), or games (in the future). We have seen that private / religious organizations have not been able to be effective enough by themselves, as was apparently hoped when the institutions were closed, and we should not allow those who are currently being carried/tolerated by the workplaces to also be added to the ranks of those on the street.
Not just power (Score:3)
Obviously these give the employer too much power. I have not had an actual questionnaire like this but from what I understand they are yet another asymmetric recruiting tool that puts the candidate at risk if they answer dishonestly but gives the employer the ability to interpret the answers as subjectively as they like. That means they can introduce whatever bias they think they can legally get away with.
But there's more to it. It reminds me of some of the stuff people are always predicting AI will (eventually) do. Sure, these sorts of things may give you some insight into the potential of a prospective worker, and likely will have some statistical validity. The thing is they can't be perfect, and while human intuition is definitely not perfect either, people (usually) know to be suspicious of intuition (if not their own, at least other people's). But way too many people way too easily will blindly trust things that are 'scientific' or 'on a computer' when they don't understand the statistics enough to evaluate their reliability.
If it's used to eliminate job candidates, there will be false positives.
Extensive Personality test + timed math test (Score:2)
I worked for a company years ago that used multiple personality tests, and a timed math test. It was a very well known nationwide company with hundreds of branches. It took 3 interviews to get in.
In hindsight i'd imagine it's because they wanted to squeeze blood from a stone. Or the spirit from a human soul.
It wasn't until years later that they administered the test that revealed i was a Myers-Briggs ENTP.
I wasn't with them long after that. They don't need that kind of shit.
Authenticity alert? (Score:2)
I don't think that's the word you're looking for; try this https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Comment removed (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
I have no patience for pop-psych bullshit, and any prospective employer asking me to fill out one of these tests will be told to get bent.
Something we agree on. It's a hard pass, insta fail do not pass go, do not collect $200 kind of deal. Even waiving the test isn't enough. If they're using junk science based hiring then it's going to affect everyone there and make hiring much much harder.
Lie your way through (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
that might backfire. That's what the "Authenticity Alert" thing is about. If you answer like a robot eager to please, it marks you down as a liar.
Also, you can't know what they want to hear, and if they're at all intelligent, they'll realize that they don't know what they want to hear either - this is a situation for machine learning.
That's the point of using an automated test. logically, they can't know which responses will lead to good workers. Someone who is "happy all the time" might just make a lot of
Personality test or IQ test? (Score:3)
(- "I am always happy." - "When I look at the world around me, I have little hope for mankind." - "Over the course of the day, I can experience many mood changes." - "When I am in a bad mood, it affects my work.")
shows an IQ deficiency and shouldn't be hired.
Re: (Score:2)
And your post demonstrates perfectly why these tests are utter junk.
If you can't cope with someone who has a different interpretation of the question from you then you're a terrible boss and a dreadful company to work for.
"When I look at the world around me, I have little hope for mankind."
Stealing from above: humanity is doomed with the heat death of the universe, the cry before eternal darkness and all that jazz. There is ultimately no hope, so it's a strong yes.
"Over the course of the day, I can experien
I insist- give me the test ! (Score:2)
When told I need to take a personality test (or a blood or urine test or hair sample) I would put on a big smile and say "Of course, I insist on it. My job may not be quite as important as the CEO's but it's only fair that I take the same tests that she took!"
Right, that gets me a dumb look from the idiot HR person. HR doesn't even have a file on the CEO, much less test results. HR doesn't even know that a CEO is not recruited like ordinary employees; a CEO is hired by friends in high places. There's no app
Re: (Score:2)
HR doesn't even know that a CEO is not recruited like ordinary employees; a CEO is hired by friends in high places.
Maybe. But many CEOs spend time in lower ranked jobs in the company before being given the top spot. They are watched while they work by both the board of directors and their peers. And there is probably no better recommendation for promotion than from people who are potentially competitors for that top spot.
Shitty companies (Score:3)
No! (Score:2)
First, because Betteridge says so and second if you really want that job you learn to beat those. There are lots of documentation, books and people teaching you that.
The first thing to do is to recognize the questions that are meant to check if you're lying or not, the second thing to do is to find what sort of people they want if it's a CEO job f.ex. it's perfectly normal to simulate being a psychopath if it's customer service, not so much:-)
Just wait a little (Score:2)
Evidence? (Score:2)
Pseudo science (Score:4, Informative)
I suspect the real reason for the tests is for the additional excuse it gives employers to turn somebody down - "oh I didn't reject that person because he's black, or her because she's pregnant, no I did it because the test says they're not suitable for the role". Yeah right.
A further thing is that Scientology commercially sells personality tests with the phony-legitimate sounding name "Oxford Capacity Analysis". If you ever find yourself being interviewed for a place that asks you to complete one of those, that then I suggest you let them know it originates from a cult and decline to fill it in.
Re: (Score:3)
Oh, I remember being shown those to analyze my staff for a consulting task. They were especially used by "WISE", a Scientology run business consulting group. There was an infamous case about this involving Allstate allowing WISE to recruit employees to help them pass these tests, in 1995: which we cited as a reason not to trust such tests. See https://apnews.com/4b821522864... [apnews.com] for historical details on it.
No (Score:2)
Tests (Score:3)
Sigh.
If you hire based on a test... any test... you will hire people who are good at passing that test. That may be through trickery, lying, skill or just random chance.
The same as any interview, test or exam - you don't get people who are good at the job, you get people who are good at the interviews and exams.
Now, if you're interviewing for, say, a sales position, that may be exactly what you want - someone good at lying convincingly, face-to-face. But if you interviewing for almost anything else, it's probably NOT what you want.
Same with the logic tests, personality tests, "practical" tests, anything - unless it's literally only a minor component of the interview process you will end up with someone good at acing those tests. Not necessarily someone good at the job.
And, after 20 years in the same industry, I can tell you now that I have never seen a worthwhile test or interview question. They're all too far removed and about what you can spin well rather than what you actually will do.
Also, when I interview others, I don't bother with that shite. It's just a waste of time. I put people into their job for the day, or part of the day, and see what they do. It's that simple. And I've had employees leave (for personal reasons) and then ask to come back later, and my workplace basically begged for them to come back over the people they chose "to fill the gap", so I can't be doing that bad.
You can tell more in a morning of working the job, accompanied by the person, and casual chat throughout than any personality test, interview, CV/resume, etc. could ever tell you.
Test do NOT work (Score:3)
They were created by busniesswomen, not scientists.
They are basically the older version of "Which Star Trek character are you?" / "Which Sex in the City character are you?" junk. Only instead of a TV show, they used half baked ideas of Carl Jung without talking to him or any other licensed psychologist.
In the 1950's, two women who were very intelligent, college educated women, but in no way trained psychologists, Katharine Cook Briggs and her daughter, Isabel Briggs Myers created the famous "Myers Briggs" test, based on Carl Jung's psychology. Carl Jung, while better than Freud, is not considered the best source any more. Perhaps because he still believed in Alchemy as late as 1944.
Briggs- Myers only hired trained psychologist after they opened up a corporation to exploit their idea.
interests of power & capitalist power specific (Score:2)
Had laugh at that phrase "interests of power, and capitalist power specifically"
Whomever spouts such capitalist meme fodder ought to try living in a communist state, and see the degree of profiling that starts in childhood
Betteridge's law of headlines (Score:2)
Does a personality test give the company any more power than they had without it? No, of course not.
The company always has the option of not offering a job, and the candidate always has the option of walking.
Re: (Score:2)
Not really. The test results let them fabricate any reason they want to hire/not hire anyone. That can include a conveniently non-racist, non-sexist reason to pass over those candidates.