With the recruitment process being a costly and time-consuming process [sic], the use of personality testing has increased to improve staff recruitment retention [sic]. Many recruitment processes now include personality testing as part of its assessment before interviewing a job candidate. By the candidate undertaking the aptitude, personality, and psychometric tests, the results determine if they have the relevant attributes and characteristics for the position. For example, community services and aged care organisations will ask participants to undertake a test to ensure the candidate is empathetic, caring and will embrace cultural diversity. Applying to join the police, army or navy, tests are undertaken to ensure there are no anger management issues.
HR was a mistake. This shit is... Well, let's just say no wonder men feel so alienated, in this process.
I'm not one to go for the "muh women" angle, normally, as you know, but this... Well yeah, this is clearly suited to only a certain type of person, and, at least stereotypically, one gender certainly fits those "characteristics" much more than the other, lol...
Modern interview processes at big companies are pretty demeaning. Made even more so because they're supposed to (in part) weed out incompetents, but then when you start working at these places you see how the bureaucratic nature of these same companies seems to punish you for actually being productive, so what the hell is the point of jumping through all those hoops? Getting hired is probably the hardest you'll ever work at those places.
I've been very fortunate I've been able to avoid this stuff in my career.
when I have been hiring someone, I find any sort of scientific approach to judging their personality is always flawed. just talk to them, and answer to yourself this very simple subjective question: Is this person easy to talk to?
if yes? congratulations they've passed the personality test. if no? or maybe middling? then simply weigh the communication difficulties against their intended position and see if the drawbacks are worth their employment.
The strategy I eventually settled on for interviewing engineers was to ask candidates what they were most proud of in their career, and have them talk about their work in as technical level of detail as they're capable. Just keep asking "how did you solve that?" or "how did that work?" You learn a lot about a lot of interesting tech, get a feel for how much they worked on and if they're bullshitting you.
I interviewed this guy once who worked on satellite TV set top box firmware who told me all about how the broadcast encryption worked, and it was funny later on watching some random video describing how that same system was cracked and realizing "hey this is exactly how that guy said it all worked!"
See, that involves a degree of effort on your part, which is what these shitty companies and orgs obviously want to avoid…
It’s a way of saving them effort, while also weeding out any normal person who decides “This is a bullshit waste of time”, or alternatively “Well, this is dumb, but I really do want this position, so I suppose I’ll have to do it”…
Which is… Nit the most effective way of finding the right match, via a vis your approach, but I honestly don’t think they care, unfortunately…
It’s just another way of massively loading all the effort of the recruitment process back onto the applicant, while saving HR time and effort… 🤷🏻♂️
Like @ernsithe commented elsewhere re:sociopaths, narcissists excel at coming off confident, charming and possessing leadership skills on first meets and short-form interviews.
It's why so many narcissists end up as politicians or initially fool women into dating them.
An organization or person hiring is going to be hoodwinked often if the final hiring decision is based on "gut" feel from brief social interaction.
probably, and in any non-technical position this could definitely be a problem. I've also found that people who talk themselves up excessively usually can't walk the walk. a technical exercise at the interview will usually filter out narcissists in sociopaths in my experience.
Even if it doesn't, so long as I can work comfortably with the person and they can do their job, I really don't care if they are a narcissist or not.
Some professional sports have some degree of psychometric profiles for eligible amateur players for the draft.
What they do, how they weigh it and how effective it is IRL is still kind of a black box though.
The only time you really hear about it is when some scout or executive brags that one of their up-and-coming prospects now in the system tested "off the charts" for intangibles.
You hear it every draft. Like some "scouts" have Zach Benson at 4 or 5 above Will Smith or even Leo Carlsson because work ethic and intangibles.
For context Benson's season was fine, he played on a star studded team and did fine but is tiny and has just ok speed. Will Smith and Leo Carlsson challenged records for pre-draft seasons set by hall of famers.
Hey, at least this isn't the newest, latest, cutting edge test out there... the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator! Just came out of a cycle of training thought up by my retarded (former elementary school teacher) department head who has just fuckin now heard of the MBTI. Between that and the experimental (last updated 2009) 500 question test from a Harvard psych professor... ugh.
Personally, i think these tests aren’t a bad idea for a lot of entry level jobs. They shouldn’t be taken literally as real personality tests so much as they should be something you can use to easily filter out people that are dumb enough to admit to being mad all the time or that distrust authority or something.
If you’ve done one, though, sometimes they’re stupidly involved…
Like, an hour-long test, just to apply for an entry-level job…
Or, the newest “thing” - having to upload video responses where they then analyze your facial expressions and mannerisms to see if you “fit”… I had one of those, this last week.
It’s all becoming very creepy and dystopian…
So I cannot agree, frankly.
It used to be kind of like what you describe, but it’s much, much worse than that now, lol…
The video interview stuff they started pushing the past couple years was weird. And I don't think it's a coincidence that (at least where I worked) they started pushing it right around the time all their anti-white "diversity" initiatives started in earnest.
Whenever HR tried to have me do a video interview I'd just lie and say my camera was broken, and since I wasn't on video they didn't have to be either.
I’ve just been told that I have to do two of these one-way video interviews (i.e. film yourself answering the questions, and upload it), for two very different job applications, within the next 48 hours…
Something very weird has happened with recruitment, “post-Covid”…
This shit should not be normal, or acceptable, yet here we are…
Had that situation in the course I am currently doing (not Uni) this morning, actually...
The instructor got really angry with the people who didn't have their cameras on, too, even though it literally made zero difference to anything...
Like, they were there, they had their mics on, and there was no way to "cheat", as such, in this course, at least at that point, yet it was like they had personally affronted her, lol...
But yeah, I'm currently in that situation, except at a company (public service branch, actually) that I don't work at yet.
I hate the video thing, and I worry your suspicions there may be correct, unfortunately...
What I was saying is: while I don’t know what it’s like for a more “mentally well” person than I am at the moment, it just adds massively to how frustrating the whole process is, and how, frankly dehumanizing it is being subjected to that shit in place of, largely, what would in the past have been an initial interview or phone call…
Like, I want to be assessed on my relevant skills and experience, and how I handle the interview…
Not some third-party, facial assessment-based psychometric testing that has zero practical relevance to the job at hand, lol..,
HR was a mistake. This shit is... Well, let's just say no wonder men feel so alienated, in this process.
I'm not one to go for the "muh women" angle, normally, as you know, but this... Well yeah, this is clearly suited to only a certain type of person, and, at least stereotypically, one gender certainly fits those "characteristics" much more than the other, lol...
Modern interview processes at big companies are pretty demeaning. Made even more so because they're supposed to (in part) weed out incompetents, but then when you start working at these places you see how the bureaucratic nature of these same companies seems to punish you for actually being productive, so what the hell is the point of jumping through all those hoops? Getting hired is probably the hardest you'll ever work at those places.
I've been very fortunate I've been able to avoid this stuff in my career.
They should just ask what your astrological sign is and call it a day. Take off the phony lab coat, lady.
when I have been hiring someone, I find any sort of scientific approach to judging their personality is always flawed. just talk to them, and answer to yourself this very simple subjective question: Is this person easy to talk to?
if yes? congratulations they've passed the personality test. if no? or maybe middling? then simply weigh the communication difficulties against their intended position and see if the drawbacks are worth their employment.
The strategy I eventually settled on for interviewing engineers was to ask candidates what they were most proud of in their career, and have them talk about their work in as technical level of detail as they're capable. Just keep asking "how did you solve that?" or "how did that work?" You learn a lot about a lot of interesting tech, get a feel for how much they worked on and if they're bullshitting you.
I interviewed this guy once who worked on satellite TV set top box firmware who told me all about how the broadcast encryption worked, and it was funny later on watching some random video describing how that same system was cracked and realizing "hey this is exactly how that guy said it all worked!"
See, that involves a degree of effort on your part, which is what these shitty companies and orgs obviously want to avoid…
It’s a way of saving them effort, while also weeding out any normal person who decides “This is a bullshit waste of time”, or alternatively “Well, this is dumb, but I really do want this position, so I suppose I’ll have to do it”…
Which is… Nit the most effective way of finding the right match, via a vis your approach, but I honestly don’t think they care, unfortunately…
It’s just another way of massively loading all the effort of the recruitment process back onto the applicant, while saving HR time and effort… 🤷🏻♂️
This is a good way to end up with an organization full of narcissists.
not sure I follow, I usually find narcissists insufferable
Like @ernsithe commented elsewhere re:sociopaths, narcissists excel at coming off confident, charming and possessing leadership skills on first meets and short-form interviews.
It's why so many narcissists end up as politicians or initially fool women into dating them.
An organization or person hiring is going to be hoodwinked often if the final hiring decision is based on "gut" feel from brief social interaction.
probably, and in any non-technical position this could definitely be a problem. I've also found that people who talk themselves up excessively usually can't walk the walk. a technical exercise at the interview will usually filter out narcissists in sociopaths in my experience.
Even if it doesn't, so long as I can work comfortably with the person and they can do their job, I really don't care if they are a narcissist or not.
It'll help with the gender ratio ESG targets.
Some professional sports have some degree of psychometric profiles for eligible amateur players for the draft.
What they do, how they weigh it and how effective it is IRL is still kind of a black box though.
The only time you really hear about it is when some scout or executive brags that one of their up-and-coming prospects now in the system tested "off the charts" for intangibles.
“His midichlorians we’re off the scale” comes to mind…
You hear it every draft. Like some "scouts" have Zach Benson at 4 or 5 above Will Smith or even Leo Carlsson because work ethic and intangibles.
For context Benson's season was fine, he played on a star studded team and did fine but is tiny and has just ok speed. Will Smith and Leo Carlsson challenged records for pre-draft seasons set by hall of famers.
Hey, at least this isn't the newest, latest, cutting edge test out there... the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator! Just came out of a cycle of training thought up by my retarded (former elementary school teacher) department head who has just fuckin now heard of the MBTI. Between that and the experimental (last updated 2009) 500 question test from a Harvard psych professor... ugh.
Personally, i think these tests aren’t a bad idea for a lot of entry level jobs. They shouldn’t be taken literally as real personality tests so much as they should be something you can use to easily filter out people that are dumb enough to admit to being mad all the time or that distrust authority or something.
I wish it was that straightforward…
If you’ve done one, though, sometimes they’re stupidly involved…
Like, an hour-long test, just to apply for an entry-level job…
Or, the newest “thing” - having to upload video responses where they then analyze your facial expressions and mannerisms to see if you “fit”… I had one of those, this last week.
It’s all becoming very creepy and dystopian…
So I cannot agree, frankly.
It used to be kind of like what you describe, but it’s much, much worse than that now, lol…
The video interview stuff they started pushing the past couple years was weird. And I don't think it's a coincidence that (at least where I worked) they started pushing it right around the time all their anti-white "diversity" initiatives started in earnest.
Whenever HR tried to have me do a video interview I'd just lie and say my camera was broken, and since I wasn't on video they didn't have to be either.
I’ve just been told that I have to do two of these one-way video interviews (i.e. film yourself answering the questions, and upload it), for two very different job applications, within the next 48 hours…
Something very weird has happened with recruitment, “post-Covid”…
This shit should not be normal, or acceptable, yet here we are…
Had that situation in the course I am currently doing (not Uni) this morning, actually...
The instructor got really angry with the people who didn't have their cameras on, too, even though it literally made zero difference to anything...
Like, they were there, they had their mics on, and there was no way to "cheat", as such, in this course, at least at that point, yet it was like they had personally affronted her, lol...
But yeah, I'm currently in that situation, except at a company (public service branch, actually) that I don't work at yet.
I hate the video thing, and I worry your suspicions there may be correct, unfortunately...
I replied to the wrong person before. Whoops.
What I was saying is: while I don’t know what it’s like for a more “mentally well” person than I am at the moment, it just adds massively to how frustrating the whole process is, and how, frankly dehumanizing it is being subjected to that shit in place of, largely, what would in the past have been an initial interview or phone call…
Like, I want to be assessed on my relevant skills and experience, and how I handle the interview…
Not some third-party, facial assessment-based psychometric testing that has zero practical relevance to the job at hand, lol..,
So yeah, not a fan.
Edit: on how I feel about all this stuff, right now - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZlRX03BzeA (King of Pain - The Police)
These tests are just a way to justify a poor quality female hire over a man.
Yeah, I actually agree with you here. But it is... Amusing hearing them try to "justify" it as not being that...