[Koko2]

What is the ideal strategy for pre-employment psychological profile questionnaires? Should you answer them honestly or should you answer "definitely" or "strongly" yes or no in agreement with whatever an employer would typically desire in an employee? For example, if the question is "Do people come to you for advice?" should I click on "Always" even if people don't generally give a rip what I think?

Moreover, if you test too favorably, do they adversely view it as gaming the test or not being honest?

Also, how do you answer loaded questions such as "How often do you know more than your coworkers?"

[splitimage]

My advice on those tests is to answer honestly and not to try to beat the test. First off they'll have multiple questions getting to the same point, but asked differently, so lying you're most likely to get tripped up.

Second psych tests are meant to find out if you'd be a good fit for the job. I used to work for a company that did psych tests on all it's employees, so I became reasonably good at reading them since I was involved in hiring. It was amazing the number of accountant's who came in who had a sales or some other profile completely opposite to what you want in an accountant. When I asked them, why they'd become accountants they inevitably answered that someone, usually their Dad had told them it was a good stable career. (We hired a lot of people right out of college) But they would have been lousy accountants and hated the job. I finally found someone with the "right" profile and she worked out perfectly and is still happilly in the job 9 years later.

splitimage

[SoupDragon]

Yes I agree about being honest. Many tests have a lie score when they do the stat analysis.

[Koko2]

Is it generally better to give the neutral answer for most questions so you profile as average?

Here's a site with some tips:
http://www.ehow.com/how_4446746_pass...lity-test.html

It says to answer only either extreme, treating it as a true or false question.

[Koko2]

Isn't interview strategy to answer questions in a way they want you to answer rather than honestly? For example, if asked "why do you want to work for this company?", you say "because it's a great company, I want to pursue a career in field "X", etc.", rather than "because I have a mortgage, car payments, etc. and so desperately need the money, I'm willing to rub elbows with you shmucks on a daily basis". So why would these tests be any different? I miss the good old days when they weren't commonplace.