Psychometric Tests, a load of bollocks?

Kichote

Czarcasm wrote: »

There's the most important three words in that paragraph- from YOUR experience, a new bespoke software project requires a lot more than four seconds tp make a decision. In MY experience, you simply don't have the luxury of even four seconds. Time is money, and bad decisions cost even more money, so you're damn right you have to make the right decision. This requires the ability to think fast on your feet.





I don't remember suggesting I personally ever used them, but I have used aptitude tests to determine people's suitability for a role. Psychometric tests give a much broader view of the person. How many people have I played a part in helping them achieve their goals and aspirations? I never kept count is the only honest answer I can give you- you meet a lot of people in 20 years, not just in the field of IT, but in numerous other career paths.




I never said anything about you being fresh out of college? You assumed I made that assumption. Those candidates I have helped to achieve their aims have had a lot more than just two jobs btw, and have not achieved their success by trying to retain the job they were in either! Retaining your job is no measure of success- how fast you progress in your chosen career is a much better indicator of success.





Well you see there again you make assumptions. I have worked to put myself in a position where I can choose who I want to work with. I don't have to seek work. Work comes to me. To give you an example-

I provide my services to charities of my choosing for free, and right now I am in the process of overhauling the IT infrastructure, systems and processes of a national charity. I do it because I want to, not because I have to. I'm not a complete philanthropist though, I still charge a hefty premium for my services to businesses, and I've not gone hungry yet!

Your attitude however would not encourage me to either offer you employment, nor enamour me to working with you.






I'm sure you are quite capable academically and technically, but your people skills (or lack thereof) need a hell of a lot of work.

Must be great doing work for nothing in a place where the CEO shoves 100k into his pocket

I wonder how many poorboxes you'd have to empty out before you get that amount of money.

cuana

I have one coming up for a job and bloody terrified I hate them with a passion!

Czarcasm

Kichote wrote: »

Must be great doing work for nothing in a place where the CEO shoves 100k into his pocket

I wonder how many poorboxes you'd have to empty out before you get that amount of money.

I wouldn't know Kichote is the honest answer to that one. Money motivates some people. It's never been MY primary motivator though.

My motivation (and not to tug at the heartstrings here because she'd rip the head off me herself if she thought that's what I was at! ), but it's when I see a friend who I used work with before, three years ago she had a brain tumor removed, and to see how far she's come that she's able to browse Boards with the aid of a tablet or use a computer to help her achieve tasks many of us often take for granted.

To be able to give her and people like her back their independence, to help them achieve things other people thought they'd be capable of due to adverse circumstances, that's why I do what I do Kichote and don't charge for it- because you simply can't put a price on that.

And it's not REHAB btw, I wouldn't work with them because they quite frankly have more money than sense, and like so many charity organisations that are started by people with good intentions - they don't be long losing sight of their original motivation when you wave a wad of cash in their faces.

That's one of the advantages of psychometric testing - it's easy weed the greedy fcukers only motivated by money from the people who are passionate about what they do.

El Gato

Czarcasm wrote: »

There's the most important three words in that paragraph- from YOUR experience, a new bespoke software project requires a lot more than four seconds tp make a decision. In MY experience, you simply don't have the luxury of even four seconds. Time is money, and bad decisions cost even more money, so you're damn right you have to make the right decision. This requires the ability to think fast on your feet.

Get a grip, please. You made the comment that you make decisions on projects in 4 seconds. My response was that a project that was presented to you as a brand new bespoke project, would require more than 4 seconds to make a 'good' decision. In essence, the psychometric test is presented in this fashion. A topic that is new and unrelated to previous experience requires more than 4 seconds to make the right choice. Most development projects require months of analysis & design before a line of code is written. Those decisions are not made flippantly and require careful consideration and planning (as you well know)

Czarcasm wrote: »

I don't remember suggesting I personally ever used them, but I have used aptitude tests to determine people's suitability for a role. Psychometric tests give a much broader view of the person. How many people have I played a part in helping them achieve their goals and aspirations? I never kept count is the only honest answer I can give you- you meet a lot of people in 20 years, not just in the field of IT, but in numerous other career paths.

I was under the impression psychometric tests are used to test aptitude, using the 3 key areas I outlined in a previous post, no? So you have been recruiting in IT for 20 years then?

Czarcasm wrote: »

I never said anything about you being fresh out of college? You assumed I made that assumption. Those candidates I have helped to achieve their aims have had a lot more than just two jobs btw, and have not achieved their success by trying to retain the job they were in either! Retaining your job is no measure of success- how fast you progress in your chosen career is a much better indicator of success.

I stated my last 2 jobs and I didn't have to try to retain them (assumption on your part). How you measure success is up to you and may not necessarily how I would

Czarcasm wrote: »

Well you see there again you make assumptions. I have worked to put myself in a position where I can choose who I want to work with. I don't have to seek work. Work comes to me. To give you an example-

I provide my services to charities of my choosing for free, and right now I am in the process of overhauling the IT infrastructure, systems and processes of a national charity. I do it because I want to, not because I have to. I'm not a complete philanthropist though, I still charge a hefty premium for my services to businesses, and I've not gone hungry yet!

I too choose who I want to work for (my present role was of my choosing) and now I am looking at other roles.

Czarcasm wrote: »

Your attitude however would not encourage me to either offer you employment, nor enamour me to working with you.

You know nothing of my attitude but I will have my say when a total stranger says my opinion is wrong and presents themselves as very obnoxious on an anonymous forum.

Czarcasm wrote: »

I'm sure you are quite capable academically and technically, but your people skills (or lack thereof) need a hell of a lot of work.

Again, you have no idea of my soft skills, so don't assume.

Czarcasm

El Gato wrote: »

Get a grip, please.

You know nothing of my attitude but I will have my say when a total stranger says my opinion is wrong and presents themselves as very obnoxious on an anonymous forum.

Mmhmm. I see.

I'm reminded of one line from an MIT grad ten years ago when I was involved in setting up a discussion site for all things Windows XP related. He came out with the classic clanger-

"I won't work for any company that won't accept my resumé in PDF format".

Ten years later he's still an Administrator on the site, but that and his MIT qualifications are pretty much all he has on his perfectly formatted resumé, which will never see the light of day while he's still hanging out in his parents basement and the site has pretty much gone the way of the dodo.


I'm done with this thread now as it's become less about discussing the merits (or lack thereof if that's what floats your boat) of psychometric testing, and gone the way of waving our respective e-penis' about, and nobody wants to see that.

El Gato

I don't get the relevance of the quote, but that's probably because I don't have the aptitude.

Hmmmm...Czarcasm, has this been an ongoing psychometric test?

I do agree:

In my opinion, psychometric tests are not an effective way of determining the best candidates for a shortlist of perspective new employees. I do not see the merit in this sort of testing for the roles I am currently applying for (again I probably don't have the aptitude to extrapolate the relevance )

You do believe that these tests are a good way of shortlisting, or contributing to the shortlisting process.

Having reread the thread in it's entirety, my defensive stance was unwarranted and my criticism was also unwarranted. As for my assessment of Czarcasm being obnoxious, yes, unwarranted as there is no way for me to know what kind of person he/she really is without communicating with him/her face to face (I will admit, I did enjoy The Simpsons reference, made me chuckle ) - which almost validates my point about this kind of testing.....(easy Czarcasm, I did say almost)

Finally, if I had known I had an e-penis, I would have never been on this thread as I would have been too busy playing with it (very easily distracted )

If my opinions have upset or insulted anyone else on this thread, I do apologise. That was not my intention.


Now, where is my e-penis gone?????

Czarcasm

Point of the quote El G was that, well, I presume you know how highly MIT grads are regarded in the IT world; now factor in that this was over ten years ago when Web 2.0 was still in it's infancy, so no linkedin/facebook/twitter recruitment tools, only ATS readers, most of which even to this day cannot process PDF format resumés.

So this chap displayed the kind of elitist attitude that gives me a twitchy eyeball, yet he was so smug and so confident in his abilities that he thought when an employer saw MIT grad on his resumé he was a shoe in. His resumé never reached an employers desk because it was rejected already by an ATS reader, so no employer ever saw his MIT grad chops.

Part of me even to this day wonders is this exactly what he wanted- Mr. Forever Alone because he thought he was "too good" to work with other people. His attitude was certainly one of the reasons why myself and the rest of the co-owners of the site let him buy us out of the project a year later.

Again this was one guy with more money than sense, and he's still paying dearly for his arrogance.


Now, if you think the psychometric testing was a load of bollocks, I can't wait to see what you make of the EQ test-

El Gato wrote: »

The steps in this process are as follows:

1.Submission of your application
2.Initial screening of your application
3.Online psychometric testing
4.1st round face to face interviews
5.Completion of an EQ-i online test
6.Assessment Centre
7.Final face to face interview

Even the late, great Steve Jobs who espoused the virtues of zen meditation was known to be a fan of psychometric assessments, then again he was also known to be a cantankerous prick behind boardroom doors! That's where EQ assessment comes in!

Oh yes, Apple use them too in the recruitment process, and reading a book won't help you "pass" them or score any higher. They're designed to assess your suitability for a particular role, not your actual intellect nor your academic qualifications, and those companies you mentioned that don't use them, will more than likely be using them as part of the recruitment process in the future -


http://www.computerweekly.com/feature/You-cant-beat-psychometric-testing

El Gato

I did get the point....(my humor probably didn't come across )

Yeah, I have done EQ tests in the past aswell and, well....that's another thread

I know these books don't help you 'pass' so to speak, but repetition can help get the brain thinking in a certain way (supposedly).

I concede that most companies will be leaning toward using them, but I still believe that they are not a good way to initially reduce the number of candidates.

I would see a place for this kind of testing when a candidate has been tested (technically) selected and offered a role within a company, and then used to determine which team they would be best suited (but certainly not as an 'elimination' tool).

Ah yes, Mr Jobs.....I'll move on

The EQ tests are a sinch. Having Psychosis tendencies has and will help me with this one also