Eliminated from consideration after a personality test.

As the title states, I was in the early stages of a hopeful job change and received the results of the personality test I took a couple days back. I had high hopes as this job would have been a nice upward move for me with plenty of room to grow and I've admittedly spent far too long at my current place of employment as I approach upon 7 years in February. I took the exam and to be honest, after I completed it my mind was thrown for a loop. I didn't know what to think other than a gut feeling of wow, I sure botched that since it was often contradictory and repetitive of similar traits the test had asked about - likely to try and catch people trying to work the test to what they felt would be the employers desired outcome. Clearly that was the case, I answered truthfully and in the end I was out of the running since they work it on a pass/fail system.
Now I'm sitting here second guessing myself because they are known for hiring for this role based primarily on ones soft skills rather than technical expertise. In fact, I've been told they hire people in with little to no technical experience because they invest a lot of time and resources in training their candidates on the tech side - which makes sense since soft skills are much more difficult to train and in some cases come down to you either have them or you don't. It left me feeling puzzled because I consider myself to have excellent soft skills and work well with others who have varying personalities. I've turned around two run to the ground retail PC repair shops in the past and built two very successful stores out them which grew significantly in a short amount of time, largely because I'm good at working with people and obtaining trust and respect from those I associate with. That being said, I don't absolutely love working with others - especially large groups. This doesn't translate into me not functioning just fine in that environment, it just means that perhaps my honesty in taking the test may have likely put me out of consideration for the role. In some ways I feel I was deprived of an opportunity that given a chance to have a sit down interview I would have wowed them and had I been placed in the role I would have excelled.
Anyone else run into this as of late? I'm seriously due for a job change so I'm going to be out seeking something else actively but after this experience I'm left wondering just how common these tests are and perhaps how often I get to look forward to being out of the running early on like this again.
Now I'm sitting here second guessing myself because they are known for hiring for this role based primarily on ones soft skills rather than technical expertise. In fact, I've been told they hire people in with little to no technical experience because they invest a lot of time and resources in training their candidates on the tech side - which makes sense since soft skills are much more difficult to train and in some cases come down to you either have them or you don't. It left me feeling puzzled because I consider myself to have excellent soft skills and work well with others who have varying personalities. I've turned around two run to the ground retail PC repair shops in the past and built two very successful stores out them which grew significantly in a short amount of time, largely because I'm good at working with people and obtaining trust and respect from those I associate with. That being said, I don't absolutely love working with others - especially large groups. This doesn't translate into me not functioning just fine in that environment, it just means that perhaps my honesty in taking the test may have likely put me out of consideration for the role. In some ways I feel I was deprived of an opportunity that given a chance to have a sit down interview I would have wowed them and had I been placed in the role I would have excelled.
Anyone else run into this as of late? I'm seriously due for a job change so I'm going to be out seeking something else actively but after this experience I'm left wondering just how common these tests are and perhaps how often I get to look forward to being out of the running early on like this again.
Comments
That may be true, but the people who design these exams put a significant amount of work into trying to catch people from working the exam to how they believe one should answer it. I'm not saying they can't be beat, but just that I felt less risk answering truthfully than working the exam to how I felt they would have desired.
Live and learn I suppose.
Choose which you feel describes you best:
1) You like to work alone
2) You like to work alone but don't mind working in a team
3) You like to work in a team all the time
4) You like to work in a team but don't mind working alone
Best answers is 4, worst is 1, 2 is better than 3.
Now in reality i'd be 2, but i'll answer 4. But you'd be surprised that people don't know which answer is best. They cant catch people working the test, they tell you this so you will answer honestly otherwise they are wasting their time. The only way they would know if you are working the test is if answers are significantly different in regards to your personality. For instance if in one section is say your generous and ten minutes later in another section you say you don't like sharing etc. If your clever enough you should be able to work the test and that's exactly who they want to employ, clever people.
I've always passed these and i've only been truthful when i thought the answer wasn't important
Main things they look for is if you are social, can deal with conflicts and are easy to get along with.
If I ever get asked to take one I'll simply explain how I don't feel a multiple choice test is a good representation of my personality but would be happy to discuss it more in person. A company that bases their hiring on such a flawed test and refuses to treat candidates like real people is one I don't want to work for.
Think of the 2:00 a.m. test—if you were awakened in the
middle of the night because of a network problem and had to figure out the
traffic flows in your network while you were half asleep, could you do it?
I will never go along with any employer who asks me to do such a test ever again or may will i?
Anyway, that sucks. A lot of those tests are cheesy and I've done so many and talked to the people that administer them, that I know what they are looking for and just tell them that. Just be consistent with your responses and show that your honest, dependable, responsible, and that you believe in the best in others (and you like being around them), and you'll pass every time.
That's pretty much the position I took. Though I do contend I have a great ability to blend into any environment and get along just fine. It simply wasn't worth it to me to try and "work" the test to how I felt they would want me to. I'd feel a bit dishonest for one, which as much as I would have loved to possibly get a job there it would have stuck with me. Mostly I just weighed things out in my mind and I felt the best chance for success, knowing a good bit about these sorts of tests and how they work, would be to just answer truthfully and hope for the best. Being honest was the lowest risk in my mind rather than trying to fudge the test and be eliminated based on suspicion of faking the test. As good as I am at detecting their traps, I gave the team of psychologists who likely developed the test the benefit of the doubt that I wouldn't be able to outwit them. I've seen a myriad of various personality tests since I've entered the job market, simple ones that could likely easily be faked, ones like what I took then ones which are much longer such as the MMPI-2.
I'm still a bit disappointed because of how flexible I can be in working with various types of people. I spent almost a decade in sales and learned to read people very well and interact with all kinds of different personality styles. While I may desire one type over another, I have the ability to adjust myself to work well with most except for the extremely abrasive types with little stress to myself. I get they need a quick way to weed out undesirables, it's just frustrating to be weeded out by an algorithm rather than a human.
Onward it is, to the next opportunity.
There was a 3 part test I had to take online. It asked you to rank in order things like "getting married" "having kids" to what do you value more "money" "free time". I was told that the tests would be compared to everyone at the company who took it in order to see if I would "mesh" well with the current employees or not. It was completely bizarre. But everyone that worked there did seem to get a long well.
The company I work for now decided after I had been here for a year to do a "Culture Index" on every employee. It was a series of 3 web pages with like 50-100 words on each page. And you had to for example the first page click every word that you feel applies to yourself. Then click every word that you feel applies to your job.
The report gives the explaination:
The first section titled “Traits” is a summary of seven work-related characteristics. These “Traits”
assess who you are outside of work, or who you are when you are not modifying your behavior to
meet the needs of your surroundings. These seven work-related “Traits” are inherent behaviors
and are typically established by ages 8-12.
The “Traits” summary portion will help you and others understand how you make decisions, what
your communication style is like, the pace of the work you engage in naturally and your inclination
towards detail orientation or conformity.
The second section of this report entitled “Job Behaviors” is a summary of how you perceive you
need to behave to meet the demands of your existing job and the responsibilities you are
accountable for. This summary may also be helpful in assisting you and other people as to the
cause and/or effect of stress or possible morale issues, if prevalent.
Ill skip the boring stuff. But the Job behaviors is what I believe they were looking for. Mine stated:
This person is currently in a position that requires the same basic energy level they already
possess naturally.
This person is not utilizing their natural level of Ingenuity in the work culture. This may result in
feelings of under utilization and morale issues.
This individual perceives a need to react with more emotional understanding at work, displaying
more empathy and sensitivity for others.
Ever since then the one owner randomly stops me and asks if I have any ideas of what needs to be changed or how we can improve our processes.
I think its a bunch of hokum. But hey if it works for them who are we to disagree?