[Eclecticist]

"The beginning of this personality assessment asked for honesty. So here's a bit of honesty about what I think of the whole personality assessment that businesses seem to like to use these days.

Although I understand there is a need to filter out applicants to make the employers' jobs easier, these personality and behavioral assessments will never give any real insight into how an applicant really is as a person. People act differently under different circumstances, and people change over time. Letting some software weed out applicants for having a supposedly 'unfavorable personality' doesn't exactly promote diversity in the workplace or empathy for others coming from different walks of life. And that's just assuming everyone answered honestly. So what if someone doesn't 'make friends easily' or doesn't 'believe they are right', or doesn't 'feel happy most of the time'. It doesn't necessarily prevent them from doing their jobs. And many of these assessments I've done are for entry level jobs for goodness sake.

Maybe no one will read this, or no one will care and this comment will die in the depths among the hundreds of other submitted applications and reviews, but I'm really tired of having a some computer software throw me in the garbage without being given a chance to prove myself. If companies have so much faith in machines, computers, and software to make the right decisions, why don't they just hire those for the job instead."

[Hairball]

well retail tests are mostly about stealing, and working in a team environment and how u would handle interactions with customers. I think most people put the answer they think the recruiter wants, not the honest one. So why do they bother to give these. To me it is like "psychologically" they are trying to assess what you are thinking and I don't like that.

[IceCreamKid]

I care about what you wrote and I agree with you. Where I work hammers the diversity key all day every day, but what they really mean is "we value diversity as long as you are a member of the prevailing culture and if you are not you are a second class citizen." And this is becoming more blatant all the time.

I lie on these because if I was honest about what I think about these B.S jobs than my application would be the first one in file 13 haha.

Just tell these idiots what they want to hear and be done with it.

[Eclecticist]

I'm angry because it was for an application was for a night shift lab assistant position. I've only ever seen these stupid personality tests for retail positions and positions that require a lot of interaction with others, which I can sort of understand.

Personality shouldn't matter so much for lab work. You collect specimens without contaminating them, you feed them through a machine, and report the results. Only a high school diploma and minimal lab experience is required. Pretty much anyone can easily be trained to do the job and yet they seem to want only the most happy-go-lucky, brown-nosing, people-loving automatons.

I didn't even need to do a personality test for this pharmacy tech position I have now in a high-volume retail pharmacy. And pharm techs in my position need to be able to talk to a lot of people.

I just feel like this company I applied to is asking for more in their candidates than what's reasonable. It's frustrating.

[NeedHaldol]

At least with online applications, you don't have to waste your time getting all ready with a suit and tie and travel into the city for an interview that you know will not go well.

Dealing with recruiters and their lies. I went through it for years.

I am now self employed and don't have to deal with anyone but networking and clients.

Originally Posted by NeedHaldol

At least with online applications, you don't have to waste your time getting all ready with a suit and tie and travel into the city for an interview that you know will not go well.

Dealing with recruiters and their lies. I went through it for years.

I am now self employed and don't have to deal with anyone but networking and clients.

This is my ultimate goal in life as well and it's the only logical approach to take for anybody that wasn't born a gifted genius who can get into a top end university, that doesn't have a family with a lot of money and contacts to give them an edge in life, and doesn't have the superhuman level of resilience required to work a full time job and go to college for 4-6 years at the same time to get a decent paying job.

It's unfortunate that in most cases, you need some kind of stable income to support yourself while starting up a business which is what I'm working toward along with trying to learn as many profitable skills as possible.

For the rest of us, the path of the entrepreneur is the only logical one to take because these employers insist on treating us like crap while giving us barely enough money to live off of to do a job that most people would hate doing anyways.

Thank goodness for the internet and the abundance of opportunities to make money off it. I would be freaking dead without the internet

I think it is great what you did. But, I suspect these tests are a way of weeding people out because for years there have just been too many applicants and no way to weed them. At one point I was a member of a hiring committee. We had 20 completely qualified candidates. After interviews... we had 17 qualified candidates. There was just no real way to pick. So we started eliminating by silly arbitrary things... such as where they lived or what school they went to (when that really had no bearing).

This would make me angry too but the real rub the thing we all need to fight, is that these corporations have too many candidates. Why is that? Well not sure but I suspect there is a link with visas and some immigration. Make sure these policies are stopped and the job market might return to what it should be.

I am hopeful that things are changing. From 2008 until now at my workplace no one quit. In the span of 3 moths we have had 3 people quit. (for better jobs)

[leejosepho]

I took one of those "personality tests" many years ago (late '70s) and was shocked when I was told I would not be a good fit there. The owners and I were friends and they knew I could do the job, so maybe they just used that test as an excuse rather than telling me the real issue.