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I Hate Job Searching!!!
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Naderfan
Queen of Confrontation
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Ohio
 
2004-06-04, 15:29

I've been looking for a job for about two and half months now. I had an interview last Tuesday with this company that came across as a great place to work: Good people, good business philosophy, etc. It's a sales job, but that was fine with me, because it was more consultive based. So I went in and they had me take two tests, an apptitude test and a predictive personality test. The personality test sucked: it was a list of statements and you had to circle true or false on how they applied to you. But fine, I did that, went in, and did the interview with one of the managers. Today, I got a call from the recruiter who I had been working with to get the job, who has been super helpful. Her good news was that I did extremely well in both the interview and the apptitude test but based on the personality test, they didn't think I was aggresive enough. However, I've done retail sales for five years, I was a telemarketer (basically) for my college my freshman year, and I did fundraising my junior year and helped raise over $2,000. I can't believe they wouldn't even give me a chance. On the slightly brighter side, the recruiter is going to call the head manager again and try to convince him to give me a chance. I'm not getting my hopes up though. Apparently they put a lot of stock in these damn tests. Has anyone else had this happen? Is there anything I can do to make them change their mind? So far, the only other job lead I have is with a life insurance company and it's completely commissioned based and I really don't want it. However, if I can't get this first job to reconsider, I might have to go with insurance. Ick.
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Ebby
Subdued and Medicated
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Over Yander
Send a message via AIM to Ebby  
2004-06-04, 15:41

Ugh. Tests have done nothing but hold me back. I really think society is too dependent on tests and rules. I talked to a Dean at my college because I didn't score well on a math test and the computer system prevented me from taking the class I wanted. (I haven't taken a math course for 6 years so I was a little rusty.) Basically, he couldn't do anything because he had to follow the "rules". (The Dean for crying out loud!) I explained my situation, he looked at my test score and blatantly called me a liar. I don't like that dean. Just for fun I sat in on the class anyways and in a few hours, I remembered everything from high school. Unfortunately, I can't re-take the test for another year! Darn you people! Give me a chance! What do you have to loose?

^^ One more quality post from the desk of Ebby. ^^
SSBA | SmockBogger | SporkNET
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Moogs
Hates the Infotainment
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: NSA Archives
 
2004-06-04, 15:55

You should've just refused to take the personality test, citing the commonly held belief that they have questionable scientific merit and have very little usefulness as predictive tools.

Then you find out what kind of people they really are. If they say "oh that's perfectly OK, we don't require it to be hired" you know they are somewhat reasonable. If they say "Ok, but it will hurt your chances for hire", then you know they're trying to get you to pigeon-hole yourself so they can stick you somewhere and cite your own test as a reason for doing so.

Technically, I doubt it's even legal to require job applicants to take personality tests, let alone derive hiring decisions based upon them. But not many people would have the cahones to call their lawyer and say "let's get these pricks for biased hiring practices".

Either way, it's a fair bet that if they are putting more stock in a personality test than your actual job experience, they've got their heads up their asses. You don't want to work for a company that's more interested in scores on a sheet of paper than what you've actually done and learned on the job.

...into the light of a dark black night.

Last edited by Moogs : 2004-06-04 at 16:13.
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Naderfan
Queen of Confrontation
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Ohio
 
2004-06-04, 16:04

ahhh, if only I had known this before. Although I've had a couple other jobs do these tests as well. My working plan at this point is that if I don't hear anything by the end of Monday, I'll call the guy myself and talk to him. Hopefully that'll show my assertiveness. And if not, I'll tell him what he can do with that damn test.
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Moogs
Hates the Infotainment
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: NSA Archives
 
2004-06-04, 16:14

That's the spirit.

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alcimedes
I shot the sherrif.
 
Join Date: May 2004
Send a message via ICQ to alcimedes  
2004-06-04, 17:51

ask yourself how i'd answer.

believe me, aggressiveness won't be a problem.

(i know her in the real world, so that answer makes sense)
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Windswept
On Pacific time
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Moderator's Pub
 
2004-06-04, 18:53

I've mentioned this before on a thread at the other place, but I'll mention it again.

When I first got out of college, I just had a degree in English (with a minor in Russian). I interviewed for everything in the world - for months! Sometimes two interviews per day. It was very discouraging, and was a huge smack in the face, courtesy of "the real world". A degree in English qualifies one for so many things, or for hardly anything, depending on how you want to look at it.

Anyway, one of my interviews was with the phone company for the position of service representative. Like you, I took the tests - reading comprehension, spelling, math. After they got my scores, the interviewer called me in and said that I was "as smart as a whip", and she had just one question for me:

"A neighbor sees a phone repairman leaving the house where he has made a service call. The neighbor says to him, since you are already here, could you look at my phone and not charge me for a service call?"

The interviewer asked me how I would respond if I were the repairman. I replied that in the interests of good will for the phone company, I would take a quick look at the neighbor's phone to see what the problem was. Turns out that was the wrong answer. I guess consulting psychologists had been hired to set up screening in the interview process to weed out "nice" people, who might become disgruntled with phone company policy after the co. had spent a lot of money training them. That question was the one they came up with to weed out people who were too "soft".

So, I think a company - in order to manage resources efficiently - must be concerned about reducing the costs of personnel turnover, especially when a lot of expensive training is involved that might be wasted if the person quits or is fired for attitude reasons.

Personality tests are ideal for this. I personally know that I would hate to sell stuff. I am emotionally averse to twisting people's arms to get them to part with their money. Some people are not bothered by this and would be perfect for the job. So, in the long run, it's to everyone's best interests to have the right people hired for the job. If the job suits someone's personality, he'll be happy in his work and will do well. Good for the company AND the employee.

I finally took a job as a secretary for a guy who was monitoring the building of an exclusive new resort hotel. I took the job, and then at night went back to school and got certified to teach English. Started interviewing in March of spring semester, and had five job offers before I did my student-teaching that summer. But I learned a LOT from those horrible months of rejection.
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Naderfan
Queen of Confrontation
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Ohio
 
2004-06-04, 20:46

I can understand from the business point of not wanting to waste time/money on training. However, I just think there has to be a better way. This insurance job that i'm interviewing for tomorrow has it set up so that your third interview (which is what I'm on) is spending two hours on the phone calling people. This way, not only does the company see how you handle yourself in the real situation, you also get an idea of how you would do in this job. I think that's a better way then asking 50 true/false questions. But I'm not a business major.
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Argento
I puked at work.
Because I'm a pussy.
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Head in a trash can.
 
2004-06-05, 07:20

Kick down his office door and strike him with a dead fish, if that doesn't change his mind....well at least you hit him with a dead fish.
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