Peg in the Machine

In the current economy, chances are you or someone you know is looking for work. But gone are the simple days of finding a job, applying, and maybe getting called for an interview.

To get a job now, you have to pass tests before even being considered for a position. While some people say it’s a good indicator of a person, I say, given how a number of these work, that it’s bunk. And here’s why (HR people — take notice!)

Important Missing Information

A job hunter goes to a website (or paper) and goes looking for a job. They see an ad for a company they like (or just is the only one listed they can even remotely do), so they continue reading:

“XYZ Looking for a hard working person to fill a position with our company. Series inquiries only. Send resume and how you’re qualified for this position to: XYZ corp, 1313 Mockingbird Lane, Somewhere, Someplace, 00000. XYZ is an eoe.”

Now while it’s not verbatim for a job application, a number put in something along the lines of “how you’re qualified” in it. But do you see the problem? What’s the job?

That’s right, whoever is at the company in the HR department wants to know how you’re qualified for work at this company — yet they won’t say what the position is. Sad thing is you frequently see this only at companies that have positions ranging from high school diploma required to masters of electrical engineering with 10 years experience minimum. So how would a person know if they are even qualified if they don’t say what it is?

Are you on drugs?

Read into that whatever you want — it applies pretty much no matter what. Some of these tests you have to pass are personality tests. They’re designed to weed out any “bad” people or people who you wouldn’t want working at your company. Basically, if the test comes back you’re an introvert who doesn’t like dealing with people – you’re not going to get called in for a job that involves working the crowd and dealing with people (unless they’re desperate).

But here’s where these things get messed up. Originally these tests were on paper, and then they converted these to online versions for auto-grading and storage. And here’s where it gets messed up and you pretty much find out that many companies need to fire their HR people and hire new.

After you submit an application now, you get a few “gems” on your personality tests that you have to answer “strongly disagree”, “disagree”, “somewhat agree/disagree”, “agree”, “strongly agree”. These examples were on actual personality pre-application screening tests:

When I’m high I get into fist fights with my coworkers

I like to be high before sexually assaulting my coworkers

Rape charges have been dropped

I prefer smoking my cocaine over injecting it

I smoke weed a few times a week

I smoke weed every day

Now some of you corporate brainwashed types might think “what’s wrong with those?” — and other than some of those, and many more on the actual tests, fall into being a question asked in a “if yes” to a prior statement. It’s pretty obviously what a “agree/strongly agree” or even “somewhat agree/disagree” would seem to imply (that it’s true)… but what if you say “strongly disagree/disagree”?

When I’m high I get into fist fights with my coworkers

Are you saying that “no I don’t get into fist fights when high” or “no I don’t get high so it doesn’t apply”? Both apply!

I like to be high before sexually assaulting my coworkers

Again, are you saying that “no I don’t get high first”, or “no I don’t do any of it!”

Rape charges have been dropped

So no charges ever filed, not caught, or never raped anyone?

I prefer smoking my cocaine over injecting it

This one, and similar ones, is especially bad — you either say you prefer to smoke cocaine, or you prefer to inject it. While it’s similar to the others in a “missing ‘do not do at all’ option”, it’s actually making you choose “smoking cocaine” or “injecting cocaine” as your preferred method by your answer. While like with the “rape” question you could say “strongly disagree” and hope they take it as you’re not a rapist — pick strongly disagree here and you are saying you prefer injecting it – and you hope they ask you if you do cocaine in person (as normally this question would’ve followed “Do you do cocaine? If yes then…”)

The others follow the same thing. How can you answer these questions without implying that they’re true? And if a company is using this test to screen people before their application is even seen by them, how would you know if your resume is actually even submitted? Some companies will have these statements (or variants thereof) scattered around:

You must pass this test in order to be considered for employment.

You will not receive any indication whether you passed this test, and we will not acknowledge your application submission.

You cannot contact us about your application; your application will be tossed if you do.

Notice the problems here too? Yep, if you fail the test (i.e. didn’t answer questions as above as you should and is frequently graded by a computer), your resume might not even be given to the company. And worse yet – you’ll never know if you failed or if they even got your resume as they won’t acknowledge anything.

Wrapping up

So there you have it. HR personnel using automated tests to get personalities – yet they screw them up (or just don’t pre-screen them) so you end up with these things happening. Toss in computer-scored into it, and the person is at the mercy of computer code for whether they get a job or not. And the best part of it all? You almost always see “do not contact us about the application or you won’t be considered” whenever you have these messed up tests — so you can’t even call to explain things or to even tell them “hey, uh, you really need to redo your online test! Take it yourself and see why.”

So any HR people out there — take your own personality tests, and actually think what the answers they have to select would mean based on the question.