Personality Assessment Tests: Job Search 2014

So, thoughts on those job application personality assessment test things? Just curious. I apply for professional work and sub-professional work (read: retail, restaurant), and I spent more time on restaurant applications than I do on professional applications because of these things.

Today, 105 questions so I can apply to be a dish washer.

FML.

 

Requires little skill but a boatload of mental toughness to contend with the constant dishpan hands.

 

The employers have ALL the leverage.

Not only are you going to bend over, you're going to bend over and say 'ahhhhh.'

 

I've done plenty of them. Did one to get my toy store job. But I've never done so many for a single posting. Maybe a third of that.

And dishpan hands don't scare me. I started working a youth baseball field concession stand at 14, braved Sbarro from 16 until 20, Papa John's, etc. I've done my share of dish washing. Ain't too proud to do it again.

 

I teach seniors. My less than motivated ones who are all the time proclaiming how they can't wait to get out of school, get a job, and never take a test again got a real eye opener when I made them take a few of these recently. "This is stupid." "Nobody makes you do this." "Blah, blah, blah."

I just laughed and told them to get back to me in a few months.

 

NFL draft prospects laugh.

 

I've had jobs where I've taken them before and I've had multiple jobs (ranging from Y camp to my current gig) where I've taken them after.

Also, I learned in applying for federal jobs, the lower the position, the more questionnaires you have. The one for some low-paid journalists for Stars & Stripes and other assorted GS-6/7 positions had over 100 questions on it.

 

You take these tests with almost every job considered blue-collar or lower-level, and even for many management positions, nowadays.

And the bad thing is that, while they say to just go with your first inclination and that there is no right or wrong answer, you'd better believe that, yes, there is a right answer. Or, at least, some more-right-than-others answer, and that those are the ones you'd better give if you want to "pass."

Some tips I've learned:

1). Be as aware as possible, and very purposely conscious, while taking the test, of a company's basic beliefs/operating procedures. These tests are almost always connected, to some extent, to the company's "vision" and "philosophy," etc., and those play a part in determining the best ways to answer the questions.

2). Usually -- not always, but usually -- it's better to go with the extremes among the answers. Choose A or D, or 1 or 5, not B or C, or 2 or 3. Stay away from the middle, unless that seems obvious. They want you to make a choice, and not give wishy-washy responses. Right or wrong, they prefer a strong opinion.

3). Be very careful about certain same questions -- usually having to do with honesty/stealing money or time -- that they may ask a couple of closely-resembling-but-still-slightly different ways throughout the test (so that you can't go back and change an earlier answer) and make sure you respond as closely as possible to the way you responded previously. They're looking to trip you up.

It is possible to fail these tests.

 

If you spend five minutes on google you can find all of the words that employers like to see circled.