Security → Personality tests pose larger hurdle for today's job seekers

quote:

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American employers are relying more on pre-hire assessments, including personality tests, as they fill new job openings, stretching out the hiring process and making it tougher for young adults and the long-term unemployed to find work, the Wall Street Journal reports.

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»www.nola.com/business/in ··· rch.html

Back in "my day" we did these things called "interviews" to try and judge an applicants suitability for a given position. These days you'll have to reveal all kinds of personal information to some 3rd party just to be considered.

Just what do these 3rd parties collect and keep? Do they also screen your social media presence?

. o O (I so glad I'm out of the "rat race")

I had to take one a few years ago. Thought I flunked until called 6 month later for the job. Told them I had another job by then.

If we are talking about hiring burger flippers for McDonald's, intrusive tests designed to reveal personality traits would seem to be a bit excessive (although if you really think about it, there are probably some personality traits that you would not want a food preparer to have).

However, if we are talking about jobs where an employee's integrity might be an important issue, I don't see a problem.

This is really not a new process. I can remember job interviews with major corporate employers ~50 years ago where part of the interview process included taking long involved tests (sometimes conducted off-site at a local educational facility) similar to college entrance exams or military aptitude/placement tests before an actual job offer was made. And many of the questions had nothing to do with determining technical qualifications for the job -- they were were questions designed to ascertain personality traits.

If taking or passing such tests are a problem for today's job seekers, perhaps that says more about today's job seekers than it does about today's employers.

As I have seen reported by, I think CBC, today's job seekers are having much harder times finding good jobs than your generation did.

People used to be able to start working at a company and actually have a career path, there are many more people looking for work, than there are good jobs for.

Employers can be very picky when looking for an employee, and will use any and all tools/tests they can to screen out people.

Personality tests though, are much harder than skill tests to pass, still be studied for, and what personality traits the test is looking for, both positive and negative ones, need to be considered when answering each question.

Sorry can not agree with that at all. With the move from paper apps to online ost all employers use one of a hand full of 3rd party sites. Most of the "application" is of no interest to the employer at all but is used for "job matching" by the site eg brassring.com monster etc. The only personality testing a employer needs to do is at the interview.

Dont forget the one thing that should be illegal unless its a job working with money, The credit check. Some states have banned this for employment screening outside of a few industries.

Any place that does a credit check for a job wont ever see my application. Never fill out a credit check for a job with out exception. Those types of credit checks are hard pull. Meaning they will negatively effect your credit. These are the types of credit checks bill collectors do.

 
Such as asking to access an applicant's social media accounts during the interview....

I would say in no uncertain terms you can stuff the job. Unless it is a job with a extremely high security clearance they have zero need for that period. Now i have no face book twitter etc but for the to even ask yeh no not gona work for e.

See, that's where you and I differ. I'd politely refuse, and explain why. Perhaps then they'd still be willing to offer me the job. Rules can be flexible.

One denial reason I can think of, It is against the TOS of most social sites to share your login information. As such you would have to break a contract to supply such information.

And perhaps the reason for some employers asking for such information is to see just how easily you can be enticed to violate a TOS or contract. They might be hesitant to hire someone who displayed the potential to disclose proprietary company information or violate the terms of an NDA.

What is far more likely is they can sell that information to interested 3rd parties and make money while paying you money or in the case of a no hire get even more money.

Thank you for taking my personality test.

LOL

In this hypothetical situation, I'd tell the truth: that I did not care to share that information. If they're not happy with that, they and I are not likely to be well-suited to each other.