Why do jobs have so many personality tests?

mr_fegelien

I've been applying for jobs online and the personality assessments are ridiculous. And these are just for jobs in IKEA, Aldi, McDonalds. What's up with that?

My dad says when he was growing up, you'd just hand in your CV, get an interview with a manager, and get a job the next week. No B.S. like this.

Samuel T. Cogley

To avoid hiring the crazies.

ED E

If you want a blog, set one up. Or get twitter. The 100/threads a week is getting fierce tiring.

Gannicus

It's down to a couple of things

1. They don't want to be hiring crazies.
2. They are to see how you are with customers.
3. They are supposed to be an indicator of your work ethic (which is bull****)
4. To see how subservient you are as an employee (ie roll over and take it)
5. To save time interviewing tonnes of people even once each

AlfaZen

mr_fegelien wrote: »

I've been applying for jobs online and the personality assessments are ridiculous. And these are just for jobs in IKEA, Aldi, McDonalds. What's up with that?

My dad says when he was growing up, you'd just hand in your CV, get an interview with a manager, and get a job the next week. No B.S. like this.

Because companies are looking for certain personality types that they know work well for the type of work they need.
They don't want people that may be disruptive to the current ways of working.

Back in your Dads time I'm sure it was a lot easier to get ride of employee that did not "fit in". Nowadays it can end up very expensive to remove disruptive employees. In a way companies are only protecting themselves as sad and all as that is.

Jim2007

mr_fegelien wrote: »

My dad says when he was growing up, you'd just hand in your CV, get an interview with a manager, and get a job the next week. No B.S. like this.

Well when your Dad was out, things were not as automated nor as complex as today.

When I was in secondary school a easy money job for the summer was sign painting for the board or works. It was really simple, you collected the boxes of paint at the depo and then spent your time cycling around the county painting the roads signs as you came to them alone whatever road you were told to cycle.

I say my nephew doing it this summer and the job now involves ordering the correct pain, reading up on who to apply the different types of paint, marking on OS maps where the sign was that your painted, providing weekly reports etc...

Everything has got more complex and so employer need to ensure they get the right person on board, because recruiting is not for free either....

greenspurs

Another 7 threads started in one day !!

Id say the reason is , the employers have seen your Boards stats !!

mr_fegelien

I'll bite.

mr_fegelien wrote: »

I've been applying for jobs online and the personality assessments are ridiculous. And these are just for jobs in IKEA, Aldi, McDonalds. What's up with that?

IKEA, Aldi and McDonalds are enormously large, very serious companies - there's no 'just' about it. IKEA's revenue in 2018 was €25.5 billion. Just because they're in retail doesn't mean they're small-time. Which also means they probably have very good training programs.

If a company has a good enough training program then it's not really about what you know when you apply - it's all about your aptitude and attitude. If aptitude and attitude are the right fit for the company, they can just teach you anything else they need you to know.

I think it also goes without saying that they can't hire everyone, so they need some way to differentiate people.

Out of interest, what do you think they should be basing their acceptance criteria on, if not personality?

greenspurs

true-or-false wrote: »

I'll bite.


IKEA, Aldi and McDonalds are enormously large, very serious companies - there's no 'just' about it. IKEA's revenue in 2018 was €25.5 billion. Just because they're in retail doesn't mean they're small-time. Which also means they probably have very good training programs.

If a company has a good enough training program then it's not really about what you know when you apply - it's all about your aptitude and attitude. If aptitude and attitude are the right fit for the company, they can just teach you anything else they need you to know.

I think it also goes without saying that they can't hire everyone, so they need some way to differentiate people.

Out of interest, what do you think they should be basing their acceptance criteria on, if not personality?

Your well thought out , intelligent response will not receive the same reply from Mr Feg .

mr_fegelien

greenspurs wrote: »

Your well thought out , intelligent response will not receive the same reply from Mr Feg .

Hmmm..I'll try.

Anyway, Despite my frustrations, I understand why employers are using stringent assessment tests. They want the best of the best. The increase in the number of individuals competing for ANY job, graduate jobs as well as minimum wage jobs means that these corporations can be picky.

A high skilled job would not require these tests as much due to employers looking for very specific requirements and experience. Anyone in IT needs to be good in IT skills at the most. Someone in a biomed career requires a science/biomed degree.

But a minimum wage job doesn't have one major requirement and since most applying will have various skills, the company can use assessments to discover from answers which employee is most likely to balance time management, along with a polite service to their customers. It's about attitude really.

I shouldn't have been lazing around in my teen years. I'm 22 now and most of my classmates already completed 4 years in school (was held back in 5th year, then took a PLC for a year, then repeated the L.C, and then did another PLC which I got 5 distinctions in).

But it's still not too late

greenspurs

You asked the question, but you knew that answer?

What ?

mr_fegelien

greenspurs wrote: »

You asked the question, but you knew that answer?

What ?

Is it a good answer? Am I smart?

Here's one if you are considering call centre tech support: ALL customers calling in will be wanting YOU to send out an engineer straightaway for some fault the machine has, which could be rectified in 5 minutes.

SOFTSKILLS are important here:

Have you got the softskills (google it) to persuade the customer to accept your troubleshooting steps over the phone, without making the customer angry, and asking to speak to your manager, and making a complaint about your rudeness, well, because the customer wants to "punish" you because you won't send out an engineer?

landofthetree

Back in the day the only time you every got asked to do a personality test was by the scientologists on Middle Abbey St.

greenspurs

mr_fegelien wrote: »

Is it a good answer? Am I smart?

So if you knew the answer , why start your 7th thread of the day to ask the question ?

Jim2007

Jim2007 wrote: »

Everything has got more complex and so employer need to ensure they get the right person on board, because recruiting is not for free either....

And it can be very expensive for recruitment if the wrong type is hired or gets through.

Before online fraud, it was occasional in ireland that building hands would sell on cement on black market instead of it being used in for the intended construction project.

Why ebay doesn't have a great reputation.