20 ms·

I applied for a software role at FedEx and was asked to take a personality test

• donatj 3y ago
  After I had been at my job for about five years we suddenly all had to do personality tests. A couple months later, turned out we were getting acquired. I don't know that the acquisition was related but I suspect it was.
• billy99k 3y ago
  I once had a SW interview with a job that had a 2-hour long personality test. No tech questions. Just random questions to test my personality. It started out simple, like 'what was the last book you read' to more in-depth situations that had nothing to do with the job. The manager interviewing me (who admit he basically just started managing a month prior) told me he just read a 'great book on management' and wanted to 'try this out'. I passed the first interview, but the second was going to be a 5-hour remote codeshare/whiteboard interview with the team. I declined the second interview. I ended up choosing the job that had no whiteboard interview or personality test. It was just a simple conversation with the tech lead about my previous experience and if I had the experience to work on their current system. It was the best job I ever had and they are still my client almost 5 years later.
  • ejb999 3y ago
    Yep - companies will continue to use these bizarre hiring criteria/tests unless or until enough people refuse to participate; but as long as their is a line of people behind you willing to do 'whatever' for the chance at the job, not much will change.
    • bluefirebrand 3y ago
      Unfortunately companies have found a loophole: They just say "we couldn't find anyone who is acceptable for the role locally so instead we'll hire overseas for a fraction of the cost, darn" Almost like the unnecessarily complex hiring processes are built that way on purpose.
      • neuromanser 3y ago
        Rest assured that a company that'll have domestic candidates jump through ill-advised hoops subjects the off-shore ones to the same bullshit.
        • shitlord 3y ago
          In this thought experiment the domestic candidates aren't putting up with it, which is the only reason why the offshore ones are even candidates.
      • Clubber 3y ago
        "we'll hire overseas for a fraction of the cost, darn" The ones at a fraction of the cost aren't very good. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.
        • bluefirebrand 3y ago
          Maybe, maybe not. I've worked with great offshore teams and terrible ones, I think the great ones were more expensive but still less than a local salary. But the theoretical hiring manager here doesn't care anyways. All they want is to come under budget so they can max their bonus for being so cleverly frugal.
        • zooq_ai 3y ago
          That's a naive argument. Intelligence / Competence more or less has the same distribution curve. With the access of knowledge now widely available, A country with 1.5B people will always have more competent people than countries that have 50 Million in population. And these countries have cheap labor. US has always poo-pooed Japanese, Chinese and Indian workers as low quality. That's only because you didn't filter well
          • Clubber 3y ago
            >That's a naive argument. No, it's an experienced one. >Intelligence / Competence more or less has the same distribution curve. With the access of knowledge now widely available, A country with 1.5B people will always have more competent people than countries that have 50 Million in population. That is only a fraction of what it takes to produce good software developers. You have to include quality of the educational systems, living conditions and all that. Any offshore developer worth their salt gets paid market rates or near market rates. >And these countries have cheap labor. US has always poo-pooed Japanese, Chinese and Indian workers as low quality. That's only because you didn't filter well It's not their nationality, it's the price they are charging for. I bet you can't find a quality US worker for $30K a year either.
    • mihaaly 3y ago
      I did my part: refused a job because of these kind of mandatory weird tests.
  • intelVISA 3y ago
    Every job/client I've acquired has been a 10-15min informal chat with a stakeholder and a technical peer, and then an offer. I don't really see the value in going through hiring gauntlets and opt out of any process that looks like it might waste time like that.
    • Maro 3y ago
      Interviews are for weeding out poor candidates; what you have left are the good ones. Weeding out poor candidates is not possible with 10-15 minutes informal chats.
      • CogitoCogito 3y ago
        > Weeding out poor candidates is not possible with 10-15 minutes informal chats. You do realize you’re replying to a comment showing it _is_ possible right?
        • plugin-baby 3y ago
          The previous comment doesn’t show that - it just shows that there are companies without arduous interview processes.
          • CogitoCogito 3y ago
            It _does_ show that. It’s obvious that /u/intelVISA is presenting this as a success story. If /u/intelVISA decides the candidates were good enough then they were good enough. Who else is there to judge but the one making the hiring decisions? Who are you to second guess someone else’s hiring decisions knowing nothing of the role, the pay, the performance, or really _anything_ at all?
        • recursive 3y ago
          I don't realize that. We know that there was a short chat, and that it resulted in filling a position. We don't know whether it's an effective way to filter out poor candidates. Have you done it? What's your success rate?
  • georgel 3y ago
    This has been my experience as well. The more hoops a company made me jump through the less they were offering to begin with, and the culture was not great. My last gig was great in that aspect. My client found my LinkedIn, we had a quick 15 minute call to discuss the project and I was working for them the next day.
    • frfl 3y ago
      Imagine the tens of thousands of dollars saved if you had a 15 minute (okay 15 is a bit short unless someone vouches for you or you're a well known open source contributor etc, maybe 1 hour or 1.5 hour, hell even 2 hour) technical conversation and the other engineer is like, yeah this person's worth bringing onboard. Might not work in all cases, but really, if you're trying to sniff out a pretender vs someone who can write software, would not having a heavily technical conversation about details, challenges and other things not make it clearly evident after 15-30-45 minutes if this person is who you need? Rest of the time can be spent napkin designing something or peer programming to check off those to be sure. I had a interview in 2021 where I had to do a 1.5 hour timed exercise, that apparently isn't sufficient, so their interview pipeline has 3x1hour additional live coding sessions with engineers. Over 4 hours of coding just to prove I can write code up to their standards. Then another 3+ hours of behavioral interviews, meeting the team. Multiply that by the ~5 candidates you interview per position multiplied by each position you hire for in a given year.
      • UncleOxidant 3y ago
        Indeed, while it might not work in all cases you'd probably save enough time/money to make up for those cases where it didn't work out. I've often seen jobs posted that stay open for 6 months or more because some hiring manager and their team can't make up their minds on who to hire. Meanwhile, the project they want to bring someone in to work on languishes, or people who are already stretched thin burn out and go elsewhere. There's such an emphasis now on hiring the perfect candidate that it's the enemy of actually getting things done.
        • zahllos 3y ago
  • foofie 3y ago
    > I passed the first interview, but the second was going to be a 5-hour remote codeshare/whiteboard interview with the team. I declined the second interview. Last year I interviewed for MongoDB. They proudly boasted that their hiring process consisted of a 7 interview marathon. I asked if that wasn't too many interviews, and the interviewer boasted that they already managed to streamline their process down from 12 interviews. They also proceeded to point out that all FANGs follow the same process, except they really don't. I respectfully dropped from the hiring process there and then. The extremes to which they take their cargo cult mentality is out of this world.
    • ohthatsnotright 3y ago
      > The extremes to which they take their cargo cult mentality is out of this world. Nah, just "webscale" like everything else Mongo.
    • spondylosaurus 3y ago
      Ha, I had a phone interview with MDB for a (contract!) technical writing gig, and they told me the next steps include (1) a one-hour critical thinking test, whatever that means, and (2) a one-hour writing interview. Not a take-home writing assignment, which would be pretty standard, but a live writing interview via Zoom screen share. Very unusual, but I don't have too many other things on the horizon right now, so I'll see where it goes...
      • smcin 3y ago
        Doing the writing assignment live and on-screen is simply to verify you didn't cheat/impersonate/get help/use AI/plagiarize.
        • testless 3y ago
          Contract implies they hire a service, thus should not care how it was created, right?
          • 3y ago
  • awo34oaw4u 3y ago
    I got asked "what was the last book you read" in a SW startup interview once. I told them and then the interviewers started arguing amongst themselves about whether or not they liked the book, based on what I had told them about it, instead of asking me what I thought about it and what I learned from it. That was one of about thirty red flags. I left without completing the interview.
    • yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
      > That was one of about thirty red flags. I left without completing the interview. It sounds like an extremely effective question;)
    • neilv 3y ago
      In imagination-land, it could've been a higher echelon of test. Despite the dynamic in which you were the one being tag-teamed in an interview, would your catalyst presence bring the interview back on track, with subtle grace? At the end of a series of "bad interview loop" tests, you learn that they secretly weren't interviewing you to be a coder, and now you are the next chosen-one CEO of Lego.
      • lukas099 3y ago
        "Sorry, you failed to walk out on us. We don't think you're right for the team."
      • htrp 3y ago
        > Despite the dynamic in which you were the one being tag-teamed in an interview, would your catalyst presence bring the interview back on track, with subtle grace? Said no company ever....
      • drewcoo 3y ago
        In my experience, tag-team or tribunal-style interviews are themselves a red flag. Usually it's a sign that the company doesn't know how to interview or whose opinions to trust, so they're just throwing everyone into the meeting. And any company being so openly dishonest as to set up fake arguments for candidates react to . . . if discovered, that's the mother of all red flags. This is not the case with new interviewers shadowing a single interviewer. That's actually a positive sign, that they know some of their people have skills and are actively trying to train their staff.
  • pimlottc 3y ago
    Good lord, I can’t think of anything I would want to be on a 5 hour remote session for.
  • dookahku 3y ago
    Canonical made me do a personality test. From what I understand, Canonical culture isn't great, either. The whole process sounds a lot like what you are talking about -- just hoops to winnow out people for the sake of winnowing.
    • jaymzjulian 3y ago
      [dead]
    • zen928 3y ago
      After that personality test, they ask you to complete a timed IQ test. After that, you'll reach a behavioral interview after which you get assigned a "take home" technical assessment, which then after submitting you can schedule to have technical interviews (potentially multiple). You can fail at any step along the way. It was one of the more laughably ridiculous interviewing processes I've seen, and thankfully the only one I've seen recently that was so egregious.
    • Macha 3y ago
      Having seen Canonical's personality test, while it's impossible to verify without their marking methodology, it feels explicitly classist (which in the US probably means it produces racist outcomes too)
      • Alupis 3y ago
        > it feels explicitly classist (which in the US probably means it produces racist outcomes too) Please elaborate...
        • shermantanktop 3y ago
          You'll probably get better answers to questions about polo, golf, opera, and croquet on Martha's Vineyard than you will in South Compton.
          • Alupis 3y ago
  • UncleOxidant 3y ago
    > I ended up choosing the job that had no whiteboard interview or personality test. It was just a simple conversation with the tech lead about my previous experience and if I had the experience to work on their current system I miss interviews like this. We need to compile a list of companies that still do this. In fact, getting on that list could really help a company's recruiting efforts - which in turn could influence other companies to adopt this interview style.
    • PsylentKnight 3y ago
      https://github.com/poteto/hiring-without-whiteboards https://github.com/poteto/hiring-without-whiteboards
    • nomel 3y ago
      I think they're gone because, within the limited time of an interview, it's hard to prove competence with chatting, for yourself, and especially in a way that can be communicated to others in the panel. Most places I've worked, firing is a bad bad thing. It means everyone involved with the hire failed, and morale is hurt by everyone that sees the person let go. When I first started interviewing, this was the method I used. It turns out that most people have fanfic for resumes. "Designed a system" or "worked with a system" actually means "played an insignificant part in the design of a system" or "minimally modified some existing code". Getting to a point where this is obvious can take a significant portion of a 45 minute interview, and almost always comes from digging into the nitty gritty of the details, very close to code. Then, worried, you have them try to write some basic code as time runs out, and they completely flop, with that, and whatever small thing triggered your suspicion, being the only useful evidence you can point to for why you're saying no, even though others are saying yes. So, I flipped it. I go for real evidence first, which gives me objective, repeatable, results, then any remaining time is left to talk and go into depth. I give them an easy work related problem, requiring realistic syntax. I've had people that were fantastic with communicating their ideas, and even pseudocode, but didn't know the syntax of a function or simple for loop, in the language of their choice. Take home code/screens can't be trusted, without basically goin through it line by line. Heck, video interviews can barely be trusted these days. I've many had people obviously, and not so obviously, copy paste the top google search result. I've even had people double team an interview, with the second person listening and typing the results on a second screen. That said, I completely agree. My dream interview, either side, is just getting nerdy for an hour and a half with someone. But, especially for less senior roles, I can see why it's not popular, especially if you're stuck with short interviews, or are not the hiring manager, where you don't have to objectively justify things. Interviews are, unfortunately, a fairly adversarial interaction.
  • doublebind 3y ago
    Two years ago, I had a similar experience with Chainlink. I underwent hours of interviews and completed an extensive work assignment, only to be offered the job _after a personality test_. Simultaneously, I interviewed at a startup. There, I spent about an hour discussing my experience and providing feedback on their current system with the person who would become my manager. I chose the startup, and it has been the best job decision I've ever made. Personality tests can disclose a lot of personal information. It's unclear where this data might end up or who might have access to it. I detest this practice and consider it a major red flag. (edit: typos)
    • Beijinger 3y ago
      This reminds me when I tried incredibly hard to get a tiny scholarship to study abroad in country X and got rejected. In fact, there were several rounds and I didn't even make the first one. My Prof. told me to go to country Y and I hesitated because of the immense administrative burden to apply again and since I was de facto not qualified for a postgraduate scholarship. But application was easy, I got it, and they stuffed me with money. I always remember the words of my Professor: "Don't you know that everything where you have to invest a lot (I assume effort, time, money, energy) nothing ever comes out? So if your IT job requires a letter of recommendation from the pope and even if you are able to get the letter, you are unlikely to get the job. :-)
      • jstarfish 3y ago
        Corollary experience: the more effort/time/money/energy you expend in a successful transaction, the more likely it is they'll impose a shitty condition at the end of it, expecting you to be too invested to challenge it.
        • shermantanktop 3y ago
          Weaponizing the sunk cost fallacy, once again. Just like a time-share condo pitch.
      • namaria 3y ago
  • al2o3cr 3y ago
    Just random questions to test my personality. "You're not turning the tortoise over, Billy. Why is that?" :P
    • kmac_ 3y ago
      Short whiteboard interviews have become LeetCode/take-home assignment/one vs whole-team-from-every-department interview marathons. So instead of those funny pictures, we'll have Rorschach tests followed by polygraphs soon.
    • Angostura 3y ago
      "why are you calling me Billy" — Leon
    • justinclift 3y ago
      Because I'm hungry. ;)
  • bonestamp2 3y ago
    > the second was going to be a 5-hour remote codeshare/whiteboard interview with the team I had a similar experience with Cisco. The recruiter, who seemed pretty inexperienced, said she wouldn't reveal the compensation range until after the 5-hour interview. I declined the 5-hour interview day and that was the last time I even considered a job that didn't post the compensation range up front.
  • ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
    That was the way that I interviewed. I never gave a coding test in my life. I never made a technical error, but I think that I did hire a couple of folks, over the years, that didn't integrate into the team that well. Not sure the personality test would have made a difference. Sometimes, the only way that you can tell how someone will do, is start working with them.
    • mistrial9 3y ago
      the first time I saw a pressure-interview for high skill coders was on campus at Apple, and the interviewing team was from Microsoft HQ. The project was audio-related and required excellent coding skills and knowledge of digital sound and associated mathematics. This was in the early 1990s IIR. After complete astonishment at the focus on "performance coding" also known as obey my commands now.. by tech-bros from MSFT, the immediate thought was "this is a new style of engineering management that emphasizes the authority of the interviewer over talent and skill fitting"
      • ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
        Well, when I was younger, I would have been more responsive to that. Not anymore. I've been shipping (as opposed to "writing") software, for my entire adult life. That means start-to-finish, and continuing support, afterwards. In the last dozen years, I've had over 20 apps in the Apple App Store (but I deprecate them, so it's probably only five or six, now), done alone. I can do the stuff, and I can prove it. I have a gigantic library of code, out there, along with a great deal of blog posts, teaching courses, and whatnot. If someone wants to find out about me, they could get a really good idea, in about fifteen minutes of searching. I make it a point, to be public about my work (if possible -the app I just released is not open-source). But it surprises me, that they are more interested in 50-line academic exercises. I've actually been told that "I probably faked" my portfolio.
  • tick_tock_tick 3y ago
    Personality tests are stupid but I don't know if I'd be willing to join a company that didn't do any-kind of whiteboarding/live coding exercise. I've interviewed way too many people who can't write a for loop. Fizzbuzz is supposed to be a joke not something people legitimately fail but it happens all the time.
    • kemayo 3y ago
      I'm fine with a coding test, and okay with whiteboarding / live-coding so long as people are accepting of it just being roughing-out the code rather than expecting to produce something polished... but 5 hours of it? That's ridiculious unless you're paying people for the interview.
    • awskinda 3y ago
      [dead]
    • johnnyanmac 3y ago
      It's still such a weird contrast where I hear of talented, very experienced engineers who will still be ghosted by 90% of jobs, but then there's also experiences like this. Like, how is this sub-fizzbuzz programmer getting interviews but someone with 10+ years experience gets trapped in the HR filter?
      • tylerchurch 3y ago
        When I encountered sub-fizzbuzz programmers I think the job postings were all for junior developers. So the bar was already low-ish, you just had to have the right keywords on your resume and get past HR. So probably a different pool than the 10+ year people.
      • apwheele 3y ago
        My area (data science) there is a problem with resume embellishment and HR/tech-recruiters not having a clue (I presume similar across different tech areas). It has gotten to the point where people straight up lie about tech experience on resumes, so the HR filter may be worse than random (it filters for liars, not legit related experience).
  • dmix 3y ago
    > but the second was going to be a 5-hour remote codeshare/whiteboard interview with the team. I've never understood why large companies do such long gruelling interviews. I always assumed it's because big companies get lots of low quality applicants at high volume but thats just a huge investment for both sides. From my limited experience hiring you can spot the talented ones pretty quickly and the real test comes a few months down the road when you're working together and you see their output and ability to learn and adapt quickly to the team. Work background and experience is usually plenty of information. Not sure what some toy tests in a remote call is going to tell you other than their ability to manage nerves and operate under public pressure.
    • usrusr 3y ago
      Bad experience with too much undetected nepotism might be a reason they decided to start looking for slightly more objective procedures. When those then still get gamed, perhaps even harder, that turns into a slippery slope and in the end you get those systems where only those who memorize the entire secret dance routine ever get a position.
      • dmix 3y ago
        Or maybe it's like OP said, the HR guy read a book on hiring and now has a 2hr test because he thinks it will help. While the dev team is struggling to hire good people. The thing I dislike, but not surprised about, is how so many dev teams will engage in this circus. The dev management guy is definitely okaying the 5th toy test thing. Which can probably be summarized by the stereotype of which devs seek management, if they are devs at all. Anyway, I doubt FedEx is doing interesting programming work anyway. They'll get the quality and output they deserve.
        • bglazer 3y ago
          Having worked at FedEx, I can say that there’s actually a decent amount of interesting work to be done. First, the website gets a ton of traffic. Granted, it’s not google scale but it’s still significant enough to be interesting. The more interesting bits are behind the scenes. The operations research challenges are enormous, routing millions of packages across thousands of trucks and airplanes. The sorting hubs are highly automated and frankly terrifying in their scale and speed. I worked in fraud detection and infosec, and I can’t say much detailed about that. Suffice it to say that stealing packages is a sufficiently good motivation for criminals to develop some interesting strategies. All that to say that it’s deeply disappointing that fedex is using dumb shit like this to screen talent.
  • varispeed 3y ago
    I had an interview where I had to sit with one of the developers working at the company and I had to do one of the tickets while being supervised. I have created a bug fix for the issue they had. I saw the developer has committed my code into their repo. Then there was a white board session when I had to present my take on the problem they have described and outline possible ways of resolving it. I saw few team members had lightbulb moments. In the end the whole exercise took whole day. I didn't get the job. I've been thinking if I should have sent them an invoice for that day...
  • philsnow 3y ago
    > what was the last book you read Do they really want to be asking this? People's reading habits are highly personal. There are lots of questions you can't legally / shouldn't ask during an interview, and this is pretty borderline.
  • WalterBright 3y ago
    > what was the last book you read "How To Become the CEO of the Company You Work For"
    • ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
      “Well, the last one was 'How to Parent', but before that was 'The Bible', and before that was 'HR law for dummies', why?”
  • PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
    I basically refuse to work for any company that chooses to employ IQ or personality tests. I once walked into an interview and they presented me with a wunderlich test (the test they give NFL quarterbacks). It's not technically an IQ test but you can back into IQ ranges using the results. For the math part I made sure I got the wrong answer on everything then in the in-person interview that happened immediately after I made sure to tell them I was very bad at math (my degree is in CS & Math). I don't want to work in a place where they think these sorts of tests tell them anything useful.
    • pclmulqdq 3y ago
      The Wonderlic test only seems to work for the NFL because people study for it. I had to take it once for a hedge fund - if your mental math is good it's no big deal, but it definitely helps to practice.
  • ravenstine 3y ago
    > The manager interviewing me (who admit he basically just started managing a month prior) told me he just read a 'great book on management' and wanted to 'try this out'. Did he happen to have pointy hair?
  • elektrontamer 3y ago
    I'm one of those freaks that actually enjoys long technical interviews, especially the hard ones. Maybe I should get a life.
• lebean 3y ago
  Wow, someone got paid to make that.
• mvdtnz 3y ago
  I have never seen "software" abbreviated to SW before. Let's not do that.
  • dgrin91 3y ago
    It's pretty common
  • foolofat00k 3y ago
    It's very common. Kind of fascinating that you've never seen it.
  • Maro 3y ago
    SWE is a common abbreviation for Software Engineer. Others: PM, DE, PE, DS, UX, QA, etc.
    • acheron 3y ago
      > SWE is a common abbreviation for Software Engineer This only started in the past 10 years or so, and I don't think I've ever actually seen it in real life. I don't live in SF though -- I assumed it was something Google did and all the SF types slavishly copied.
      • JohnFen 3y ago
        I think I started seeing it about 25 years ago, and I'm nowhere near SF/SV.
  • icedchai 3y ago
    It's very common. Ever hear of SWE or SWET? Based on the context of this site, what did you think they were applying for?
    • toast0 3y ago
      > Ever hear of SWE or SWET? Yeah, the Society of Women Engineers is a pretty big deal. I'm not too familiar with their org, so I dunno what SWET would be.
• lxe 3y ago
  Nice to see Reboot is back!
• whaleofatw2022 3y ago
  My weirdest experience is still the one where 6 people in a room have me go through my entire education starting with grade school. For a senior SWE role. Even the body shop recruiter was agast.
  • zippergz 3y ago
    I was in an interview process for a job where the next step sounded like something like that, and I went ahead and withdrew before I got to it.
  • jmholla 3y ago
    (Mostly jokingly) Paranoia tells me they were trying to get more of your personal information to crack security questions on your accounts.
    • whaleofatw2022 3y ago
      It was weird enough I wondered the same (or if they were scientologists or something) but it was a multinational over 100 years old at the time... Besides, jokes on them, childhood is repressed from trauma.
  • pierat 3y ago
    "Well, I went to school with [interviewer, one of], and damn can you believe the amount of paste he ate? And he loved eating and flinging boogers. And there was this time when he got..... lice!" Just start making shit up cause there's no fucking way you're going to be there.
• SebFender 3y ago
  Job interviews should be about fit in the team and projects - not tests and ridiculous whiteboards where you start solving their problems for free...
• mypgovroom 3y ago
  Dang. This corporate nonsense at it's best. Personality test are completely bogus. Marston's was a master con and even expressed it in later life.
• claytn 3y ago
  I received a three question geometry quiz inside of a google form as a screening for a backend nodejs a couple weeks ago. Apparently it was critical for the role that I know the relationship between the circumference and the radius of a circle.
  • vundercind 3y ago
    Yikes. I mean, on the one hand that’s literally elementary—as in elementary school, if only just barely—knowledge. On the other, I’ve not needed to find the circumference of a circle given the radius ever in adult life, and I’m quite sure I’ve forgotten more than a handful of “elementary” things due to lack of practice, over the years, especially in math (for which needing to reach for knowledge or techniques beyond about 6th grade is very rare, at least in my life). … I am pretty sure I’d be fine on that particular example, but there are surely others about as “easy” that I’d flub because I’ve not used that knowledge in 20+ years.
• andrewstuart 3y ago
  “I detect you are a type F person….. the type who says no thanks to personality tests” Personality tests in my opinion are what happens when companies want ever more certainty that they are hiring the right person. I don’t think they’re helpful, and throw a spanner in the works of the hiring process.
  • drewcoo 3y ago
    Well when a company has problems with retention, "HR, go fix it!" What can HR do except add stuff like this to the hiring process? They're not allowed to actually fix teams with problems. Or "culture." Or bad execs.
• isawczuk 3y ago
  Glad to see feedback from real users. My company was pitched by Paradox [1] to use their chatbot and this bizarre questionnaire to hire SW. Their solution target mostly McDonalds workers and other bluecollar, where I believe it's "okeish to put human beings thru the mud first". They claim [2] there is science behind it, but me and my partner's feedback was it will never work for IT workers. [1] - https://www.traitify.com/ https://www.traitify.com/ [2] - https://www.traitify.com/science https://www.traitify.com/science
  • neon_electro 3y ago
    What does “putting humans through the mud” achieve?
    • oskarw85 3y ago
      Negative selection
    • jabroni_salad 3y ago
      I took such a test at my first ever job, and it was only two topics repeated 15 times: 1. what is the value of these coins 2. is it ok to steal If you can't count money or think it is ok to steal then you cannot work in retail.
      • Symbiote 3y ago
        I took a more general test at a job agency, as there was warehouse work, cleaning, assembly line and so on available. I argued at the end that I had 100%, since 295 × 3 (or something) could not possibly be the answer given on the answer sheet, as the last digit wasn't 5. They eventually found a calculator and found their answer sheet was wrong. Supposedly, no-one had noticed before, though now I wonder if it's possible it was a test of personality. Probably not, as many people probably would find that question difficult on a test with questions like "Put Smith, Jones and Patel in alphabetical order".
      • robocat 3y ago
        Money is becoming uncommon in New Zealand for payment. Some shops don't accept cash or otherwise make it more difficult to use. Employees can steal other things, but the opportunity to steal money has been significantly reduced.
• gamepsys 3y ago
  It's legal for companies to make hiring decisions based on the results of personality tests. It's legal for them to make other personal decisions, such as promoting, firing, giving raises etc. It's legal to make these kinds of decisions based on personality tests that have poor scientific evidence in their efficiency. It's legal to ignore the tests and not make decisions based on them. Largely companies use this as a cover-your-ass tactic. The employer is buying ammunition for future legal fights over employment. There's really only one set of personality traits (The Big 5) that has a strong scientific backing. Of those only being high in conscientiousness is a signal for being a good employee. Employers screen for that all the time via proxy, such as having a college degree. They don't need to test for it directly. There are however many not-big-5 popular personality tests that are sold to companies. I don't want to call out any specific one, but you should be highly skeptical of their validity. At best these tests are management by covering your ass. At worst these tests are actively filtering against populations that it is illegal to filter for. For example, the IQ test was once given as part of the immigration process for the United States. Considering that the tests were administered in English they were mostly used as legal justification to turn away non-English speakers.
  • 331c8c71 3y ago
    Slavery was also legal one day. And I bet there was also some "science" (if only political) to back it up. Just sayin)
    • gamepsys 3y ago
      I'm confused, I thought I was very critical of these tests in my comment.
      • ziddoap 3y ago
        >I'm confused, I thought I was very critical of these tests in my comment. It wasn't until the last sentence of your 2nd paragraph where you make any negative remark about them. Up until that point, your comment reads like it is justifying the tests because they are legal. At least that's how I read it.
• tennisflyi 3y ago
  I fucking bet. Hiring is broken
  • brink 3y ago
    It's also a very hard thing to solve.
• siliconc0w 3y ago
  It's a big five test which is a real personality test but in the same category to Myers Briggs as far management pseudoscience and ability to predict performance/career outcomes.
• madeofpalk 3y ago
  Bizarre really don't capture how other-worldly (other than the lets-not-be-racist purple people) this test is. Take the fourth image, of the person (or two people) with two emotions on the couch. How are you supposed to identify if that image as a whole is "me" or not? I would be baffled at how to respond to that. Some of the images I can kind of understand (watching TV while you have laundry to fold? LAZY!), but how am I supposed to respond to "generic image of puzzle"?
  • pimlottc 3y ago
    I believe there’s supposed to be a picture at the start of “your character” so you know which one it is when there are multiple people.
  • ooterness 3y ago
    You’re in a desert walking along in the sand when all of the sudden you look down, and you see a tortoise, it’s crawling toward you. You reach down, you flip the tortoise over on its back. The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over, but it can’t, not without your help. But you’re not helping. Why is that?
    • CBarkleyU 3y ago
      What was the question? I'm sorry I wasn't concentrating. I was just wondering how your cigarette looks so unbelievably juicy and tasty. Mind giving me a cig? For real though, why does the cigarette look so...comforting?
    • strictnein 3y ago
      Not sure why, but this scenario and question makes me anxious. Maybe that's the point?
      • robocat 3y ago
        It's a reference to the Voight-Kampff test.
      • 3y ago
• jacamera 3y ago
  The pictures are strange but the OP neglected to notice the captions which make the intent much more clear: https://old.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/1ap1345/i_applied_for_a_software_role_at_fedex_and_was/kq3ep3m/ https://old.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/1ap1345/...
  • JaggedJax 3y ago
    This is great context. Unfortunately I don't think the test taker had the neglect here. The instructions for this test do not mention the captions, and they clearly don't fit on the screen and are hidden by default on their phone! To me the neglect here is on the developers of the test for only half supporting mobile, and on FedEx for using such terribly designed test. This is setting aside whether or not someone thinks personality tests are good or valid tests in the first place.
• 5350-uiop-1130 3y ago
  curious who makes these tests...seems like these hiring manager and dev leads have a deranged god complex i'm convinced 95% of the people giving dev tests (leetcode) wouldn't be able to solve it themselves
• niceice 3y ago
  You can take it here: https://fedexdataworksprod.traitify.com/assessment/31449c4a-2abe-42d1-b96c-38403abc5b23?survey_type=PERSONALITY https://fedexdataworksprod.traitify.com/assessment/31449c4a-... Each one has a title like "Starter Not a Finisher", "Frequently Change My Mind", "Always Wonder Why", "Easily Offended", "Art Isn't My Thing", "Unstoppable", "Make Friends Everywhere", "Good Enough", "Not My Job", "Tend to Feel Sad", "Volunteering", "Believe the Best of People", "Hard to Start a New Task", "Loves the Social Scene", "Chats in Elevators", "Natural Leader", "Sometimes Thoughtless"
  • carabiner 3y ago
    Asking "Are you a good/bad person?" in 10 different ways... Does this test have much value?
  • vundercind 3y ago
    I’m convinced most use of these is actually testing for: 1) bright enough to answer to achieve just about any desired outcome (usually not a high bar), 2) socially/politically aware enough to realize which outcomes will be good, and which will be bad; and, 3) agreeable/compliant enough to go ahead and game the quiz to achieve a good outcome without raising a fuss.
    • bluefirebrand 3y ago
      It seems to me that what you are getting is people who are both decently clever and fairly dishonest. Which is an awful combination to select for, imo
      • Eddy_Viscosity2 3y ago
        Not clever honest people are taken advantage of Not clever dishonest people can do ok sometimes Clever honest people can be moderately successful, but can always be out-maneuvered by the clever dishonest people, thereby limiting how high they can climb, Clever dishonest people rule the world.
• John23832 3y ago
  I had a major vector db startup require a take home leetcode (4 questions in an hour and a half), as well as a in person leetcode (hour and who knows how many questions)... and I thought that was bad because it had nothing to do with the job. This isn't even in the same realm as the job.
• freitzkriesler2 3y ago
  Those pictures remind me of the TV show on cartoon network toonami ReBoot. Talk about a blast from the past.
• throwaway49849 3y ago
  Aside from it being supremely strange, it's just stupid enough that you risk overthinking each image to the point of answering it inaccurately. The person who approved these images has no business assessing personality types if they cannot understand the multiple ambiguous ways that many of these images can be interpreted. You have to try to infer what they probably meant by the image, and discard other valid interpretations. The tragedy is that the test giver's job is communication and handing complex and subtle interactions, and they're already failing at it.
• vandyswa 3y ago
  To be a Regal Cinemas usher (i.e., minimum wage entry level) you have to take this sprawling personality test during your online application. My daughter took a pass on'em.
• syntaxing 3y ago
  I once took an IQ test(?), I think it was called Wonderlic or something. I was desperate and it was my first engineering (unpaid) internship. Somehow I was a “genius” and they kept my test record as an example for the next couple years after my internship. I would probably walk out of an interview if someone handed me one today.
  • dgfitz 3y ago
    This one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonderlic_test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonderlic_test ?
    • syntaxing 3y ago
      Yup, the manager mentioned something about the NFL using it?
      • lizknope 3y ago
        It's an IQ test but does it help evaluate NFL players? Ryan Fitzpatrick went to Harvard and was said to have gotten a perfect socre of 50. It turns out he might have only got 48 which is still really high. He bounced around 9 teams and threw tons of interceptions. He would go from amazing to horrible "Fitz-Magic" to "Fitz-Tragic" In contrast Lamar Jackson is said to have scored a 6 which is laughably bad. He just won his second Most Valuable Player award last week.
        • syntaxing 3y ago
          Yeah, a lot of it is snake oil. Like how does a mental test access how someone does on a physical task like sports?
          • lmz 3y ago
            Surely some part of sports is in your head. Not saying those tests measure it.
    • 3y ago
• devops_palmer 3y ago
  Before Covid I went for an interview at a remote-only company, which was a huge plus. We had the first interview over zoom (or zoom equivalent at the time) and everything went well - Then I get a follow-up email about github access and they send me a huge github repo where they want me to complete an example web application that can do x,y and z based on some of the example models included, and want it done in a week to be eligible for hiring. I kindly declined the offer to code for free - and then was messaged a few months later that they had removed this whole section of the interview process and invited me to re-apply. Needless to say I did not apply agin.
  • codingdave 3y ago
    I find it so rare for a company's leadership to actually listen to feedback and be willing to improve based on it... I'd absolutely talk again to someone who had the wisdom and humility to correct the errors of their ways.
  • pc2slow4webpack 3y ago
    Similar experience with a company this year for a new grad position, they wanted me to come to 30hr unpaid hackathon hosted in the evenings. I'm sure the signal they get is pretty good, but I'm also sure they filter outany candidates that don't want to put up with BS like this.
  • kccqzy 3y ago
    I was once on the other side. The hiring manager told me to design an open-ended take-home exercise for potential candidates. The exercise was to be flexible: you can take an hour to complete the bare minimum, or you can easily take many hours in an attempt to reach perfection. I was so preoccupied in designing the test that I did not stop to think whether we should. In hindsight, it wasn't a good idea because of how open-ended it was: some candidates, we later learned, spent at least 20 hours on it.
• kvonhorn 3y ago
  Maybe we should be giving these tests as part of college admissions. I'd like to know if I can't pass these tests before taking out a six figure loan only to find I have the wrong personality for employment.
• Simon_ORourke 3y ago
  I had one company spring this health screener on my with zero warning, which included such questions as whether I had ever been pregnant or made anyone pregnant, and whether I had ever been depressed and how so. Very weird stuff, so I challenged it and HR responded that it was a required test for health and safety at work. It wasn't, it was some corporate type doing massive overreach into areas where they had no right to even ask.
  • Clubber 3y ago
    I'm pretty sure the pregnant question is illegal in the US. It's an obvious discriminatory question. If we had a regulatory body worth a shit, they would get punished for it.
  • doubled112 3y ago
    That seems insane to me. Making somebody else pregnant doesn't affect my health, so it doesn't make sense that way either. I would be tempted to look for a wedding ring, and answer with "your mother/wife one time, you should ask her about it" accordingly. I probably wouldn't take the job anyway.
    • jldugger 3y ago
      > Making somebody else pregnant doesn't affect my health, so it doesn't make sense that way either But it might affect health insurance claims, and I'm guessing cheaper underwriting is the reason HR went along with it.
      • paledot 3y ago
        Cheaper underwriting, more expensive lawsuits. Pick your poison.
      • doubled112 3y ago
        Is it phrased that way because they can't ask if I have children? I don't completely understand what they intend to find out asking it that way. Impregnating somebody doesn't mean I have a kid, or even that somebody else. Even being pregnant doesn't result in children 100% of the time. Perhaps a history of fertility problems would jack up your insurance plan.
• eschneider 3y ago
  These sorts of Voight-Kampff tests are definitely a red flag. But like leetcode questions, they're just one more think you need to learn the correct answers to for today's interview environment.
• 0xbadcafebee 3y ago
  I'm fine with it. It's their crappy process; if it weeds me out because it's crappy, they're the ones losing out. I'll just go get a job at a different, less crappy place. A lot of the time stupid hiring requirements are due to the company having government (or other) contracts, and those contracts stipulating certain hiring requirements. For example, drug testing is basically mandatory if the company has government contracts.
• yandrypozo 3y ago
  This's the worse way I've seen to do a Big 5 personality test, I highly recommend this real assessment Understand Myself https://www.understandmyself.com/ https://www.understandmyself.com/ the accuracy of it truly helped me to understand my own personality.
• FpUser 3y ago
  I have my own company, have my own products and also develop products for clients. Maybe this explains the difference. Obviously before any clients use my services we have some kind of interview / negotiations. Normally I am being asked what kind of stuff I have developed and how did I solve such and such problems. I do not remember ever being asked to pass any tests. I do know that if they ever do I will simply refuse. I have very good decades spanning portfolio along with references from my client companies. If potential client is not interested in checking my real work and would rather switch to some bullshit test we are better off without each other.
• 0x20cowboy 3y ago
  It’s fine. They are just looking for the A players.
• medion 3y ago
  I had a 1.5hr personality test for a tech job back in 1998 - the only question I remember was “if you were walking on the beach and saw a dead whale, would you cry?”
  • throw310822 3y ago
    Clearly to check whether you're a replicant. It's the Voight-Kampff test. "The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over, but it can't. Not without your help. But you're not helping. Why is that?"
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• getpokedagain 3y ago
  I interviewed for a role at FedEx about two years ago. It was absolutely the most confusing and just junk process although blessedly I did not have to take this personality test. I ended up bailing out of the process mostly in confusion.
• bluGill 3y ago
  Whenever interviews come up here I always ask: What makes your interview technique good? What if instead of whatever you do, you just grabbed a resume at random and hire that person - are you really use that you did better? How about enough better as to be worth however much time you spent. Note that my random resume is easily resistant to all claims of discrimination - you didn't know anything about any candidate until you opened the random envelope, so you clearly didn't discriminate against anyone. When you say your system is better, is it enough better as to be worth the potential discrimination lawsuit if you don't interview or hire a minority? (some interview systems have scores that if you can prove are objective, but many of you are proposing something that doesn't seem to be)
• mihaaly 3y ago
  I completed interviews with my intended manager and HR about work conditions and salary, we had agreement on the particulars including dates, then the organization (multinational corporation purchased a Europan unit I applied to) mandated aptitude test, composed of some sort of mental abilities test and a personality test. "All employee must take the same test and reach a threshold". All from some external party sold their aptitude test services, used by the company for about 2 years as I understood (being a recently researched and perfected technique as I recall). I had a chance to see a practice test before completing the real one. The mental abilities test had generic IQ test like 'complete the sequence' but about half was 'calculate the sales figures of the hypothetical organization based on given situation' kind of tasks, in overall way too much for the allocated time, impossible to complete (testing the endurance against stress, ability to balance accuracy and pace I take, but I only reached about 1/4 being unpracticed in the topic). What?! Engineering position is tested by fast financial calculation? Then came the personality test, similarly with quicker than comfortable pace selecting most relevant answer of the three choices. But all were important depending on the circumstances (which was unspecified) and actually could, and in most cases should coexist (like what is more important to you, choose one: honesty, completing allocated tasks, client satisfaction). I contacted HR saying that this is not a test that could measure me reliablty considering I have no practice in very fast financial calculations (can do slowly, but they emphasized the importance of pace with accuracy) and that I am forced to give random answers in the personality part, depending on what is my mood at the moment (basicaly mad about these idiotic tests). They told I must complete it and this is 'the base of allocating responsibilities and determining advancements in the company'. I chose to withdraw my application instead (despite being without job for some months and the position looked promising). I do not want to work somewhere where they make this kind of across the board uniform and abstract tests the base of my evaluation (even if they just claim they do, since it is very difficult to imagine they could reliably do so).
• bitwize 3y ago
  Personality tests like this are par for the course in domains like retail. They have right/wrong answers, no matter what the test administrators tell you. When given the option, always Strongly Disagree with anything that might worry your boss and Strongly Agree with anything that would make your boss happy. A single wrong answer could mean you're a risky hire; two or more may disqualify you on the spot. Don't mess with Mr. Inbetween; Agree, Disagree, and Not Sure are wrong answers.
• chaosharmonic 3y ago
  I recently withdrew an application for the first time, after a recruiter connected me w Fidelity, bc their initial "interview" was a 1-way video screen that expected me to devote an hour of my time and gave me 24 hours to do that. Normally an interview is supposed to enable you to find out more about how the company operates, but honestly that alone was pretty telling.
  • JohnFen 3y ago
    Yeah, I'd have withdrawn too. Job interviews must go both ways. When I'm the applicant, I'm interviewing the company just as much as the company is interviewing me. If the communication is so one-way that I can't do that, then I have no basis on which I could decide to accept any offer, so going further with the process is just a waste of everyone's time.
• JohnFen 3y ago
  Since I think personality tests are just dangerous snake oil, my personal policy is that I don't take them. Companies that use them are companies that I would not likely fit into, so the policy serves me well and it serves those companies well because I'm not wasting their time.
• huhtenberg 3y ago
  The company behind this nonsense - https://www.paradox.ai https://www.paradox.ai
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• ano-ther 3y ago
  That’s a really weird test in the linked article. When done right though, this can be quite helpful. As a hiring manager I had very good experience with a test that tried to identify behavioural patterns. At that company, we used it to have a discussion with the candidates, not as a hiring criterion —- moderated by an experienced HR colleague who was trained in how to interpret the results. Gave much more insightful discussions than the usual “describe a conflict” type of questions.
• dboreham 3y ago
  As a FedEx stock owner, this alarms me.
  • InCityDreams 3y ago
    Keep us up to date on your losses/gains
• thadt 3y ago
  Coincidentally, was listening to the latest episode of 'You are not so Smart'[1], interviewing Charles Duhigg on his new book. One of the anecdotes brought up was how NASA changed their astronaut interviewing approach in the 80's when they wanted to start vetting candidates to stay on a space station. Turns out that screening for personalities becomes a rather important aspect when you're going to trap people together for an extended period of time, and occasionally put them into high pressure situations. It seems like similar considerations might apply to a number of team based jobs, even if the team isn't locked in a pressurized tube miles above the earth. [1] https://youarenotsosmart.com/2024/02/05/yanss-280-the-science-behind-building-the-skills-required-to-become-a-supercommunicator https://youarenotsosmart.com/2024/02/05/yanss-280-the-scienc...
• bhk 3y ago
  It appears they want to know whether the applicant identifies as someone with blue hair.
• vidarh 3y ago
  Not had to deal with the crap in these images, but got a personality test sent over for a position last time I applied for a job. Already was unsure if the company was for me, got two questioned in before I sent the recruiter an e-mail to point that 1) it was bullshit, not based in any science, 2) I could not possibly answer the questions honestly because the multiple-choice contained answers with more than one assertion per choice and none of the combinations applied, 3) I had no interest in the position if I had to take the test. Got a message back telling me the tests had been "imposed" by some VP in the US and to disregard it because everyone hated them. In the end the company kept proving me right to be skeptical because while maybe the hiring manager was trying to change thing, he was surrounded by a dystopian accretion disk of the output of worthless management self-help books and 1970's-style management doctrine. Which made me really appreciate how lucky I am to have consistently been in a position to be picky.
• i_am_proteus 3y ago
  (1) When asked for word associations or comments about the world, give the most conventional, run-of-the-mill, pedestrian answer possible (2) To settle on the most beneficial answer to any question, repeat to yourself: a) I loved my father and my mother, but my father a little bit more b) I like this pretty well the way they are c) I never worry much about anything d) I don't care for books or music much e) I love my wife and children f) I don't let them get in the way of company work from William H. Whyte Jr.'s The Organization Man, Appendix: How To Cheat On Personality Tests
• snotrockets 3y ago
  Long ago, when searching for my first swe job, I was invited to this group interview things, when they put us all in a room and asked us to complete tasks like building a spaceship out of LEGOs. After the first task, we were asked "what do you think about the task?". I raised my hand: "it's humiliating", and left the room. I didn't had any other offer at that time, and got a call from them a day later, telling me they'd like to talk with me. Replied that I don't think it'd be a good match. I later learned that role was for the infamous "binary options", a gray market betting website.
  • paledot 3y ago
    Good on you for standing up to this bullshit in your first career job. I'm not sure I would've known better, and I sure wouldn't have had the guts to speak out about it
• marcrosoft 3y ago
  If their latest “REST” API is an indication of their tech you don’t want to work there anyways.
  • JaggedJax 3y ago
    Oh dear, I haven't used any FedEx APIs in a while. but when I did it was XML based (maybe SOAP) and the ordering of some of the fields mattered!! This was of course not documented anywhere. Ahh, here's a great example of the mess it was: https://stackoverflow.com/a/40315400/137695 https://stackoverflow.com/a/40315400/137695
• FigurativeVoid 3y ago
  FedEx has always been really weird for me. When I was first getting into tech, I interviewed at FedEx. The first interview went really well, but I totally bombed the second interview--some remote coding challenge. After my poor performance, I didn't really pursue the position further because I knew I hadn't done well. You win some, you lose some. 8 months later I received an email with an offer letter.
  • aidenn0 3y ago
    > 8 months later I received an email with an offer letter. This has happened to me at other companies too, and it boggles my mind. In sending out offers so late, you are literally filtering for people who either: 1. Weren't able to get a different job in 8 months 2. Will job hop in under 8 months. Granted one of the two times this happened to me, the offer was for a $30k one year contract, so they were kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel anyways there.
  • QuinnyPig 3y ago
    An 8 month delay is surprisingly on point for some of their deliveries.
• renegade-otter 3y ago
  That's the kind of nonsense most non-tech workers need to deal with in large corporations. Welcome to their world.
• devmor 3y ago
  I’ve interviewed for a couple roles recently that had me undergo both a personality test and a general intelligence test. Was a very odd experience to say the least. I especially find the general intelligence tests confusing as my roles over the past decade have all been senior level - I have a hard time imagining someone could have my resume without demonstrating the same problem solving skills that were tested. It makes me wonder what the motive for both types of tests are, and if they are quite different than what us non-HR people would think.
• catchnear4321 3y ago
  certain vc groups love pushing this garbage on their investments. helps identify those that would be a good fit. for the mothership.
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• CodeWriter23 3y ago
  Yeah I’m calling out that “personality assessment” as 100% snake oil because the responses are based on the individual’s interpretation of the images but are scored as the test designer’s interpretation. It might as well be an ink blot test.
• Phiwise_ 3y ago
  Personality testing in applications is hardly a new phenomenon. It was first popularized in the 50s, and has been resurging in lower paying or less technical industries for years to decades. William H Whyte's opus "The Organization Man" (1956) will be very informative to anyone looking to learn about why these tests are appearing in our jobs (especially with the current market), especially I think the fifth section, "The Organization Scientist", which is about research and technical workers interfacing with the broader corporate bureaucracy, even though in the context of the time it focuses on chemical and engineering researchers. This interview summarizes the broad strokes of the book: https://www.thirteen.org/openmind-archive/sociology/the-organization-man/ https://www.thirteen.org/openmind-archive/sociology/the-orga... The Appendix, "How to Cheat on Personality Tests", should also be required reading for anyone entering the career hunt. This is one of its opening paragraphs to see its usefulness: >By and large, however, your safety lies in getting a score between the 40th and 60th percentiles, which is to say, you should try to answer as if you were like everyone else is supposed to be. This is not always too easy to figure out, of course, and this is one of the reasons why I will go into some detail in the following paragraphs on the principal types of questions. When in doubt, however, there are two general rules you can follow: (1) When asked about the world, give the most conventional, run-of-the-mill, pedestrian answer possible. (2) To settle on the most beneficial answer to any question, repeat to yourself: a) I loved my father and my mother, but my father a little more. b) I like things pretty well the way they are. c) I never worry much about anything. d) I don't care for books or music much. e) I love my wife and children. f) I don't let them get in the way of company work. It could be updated a bit for the culture of 70 years later, but the general pattern is clear and easy to follow. Looking at the book and interview again, it's striking just how simultaneously insightful and down-to-earth Whyte was; the universal appeal comes from his investigation being both concretely practical "to the nth" and humanistically aspirational "to the nth". He didn't allow his important work to become either a watered-down compromise or an off-kilter harangue, and was too exacting to be unduly impressed either by the "death-rattle" sloganeering of his time's protestors ("Do not fold, spindle, or mutilate" to "The Ascent of Stan","Love is all you need", etc) or by the benevolent assurances of the time's testers ("The Pipe Line", "The Fight Against Genius", "Society as Hero"). His prose is also excellent. They just don't make social scientists like they used to, and the field is worse off for it. Physics envy and/or the paper mill may have distracted from an old societal good that could be a huge boon today.
• backtoyoujim 3y ago
  maybe they should contact their union rep ... oh its fedex. nevermind.
• squirrel6 3y ago
  These kinds of things that are basically substitutes for an IQ test (versus tests that purport to measure a specific type of specific technical aptitude) should be banned for employment screening, IMO. Where do we draw the line?
  • Rapzid 3y ago
    The dirty little secret nobody wants talk about is pretty much all of IT hiring, and certainly FANG, is filtering for IQ or other intrinsic character traits lol.
• DyslexicAtheist 3y ago
  these MBTI tests are basically astrology for people who think they're too smart for astrology. I recall losing one of my most gifted colleagues once over such a test. they brought in an outside company specializing in "HR solutions" and for some reason the results demanded that there can't be another individual with the same indicator as the CEO. so they sacked him and another guy who also was a poor social fit to the rest. the absolute damage these people do.
• testless 3y ago
  IQ tests are forbidden in Germany during job application processes, afaik. So I am surprised this is legal.
  • FeistySkink 3y ago
    Yet, there are plenty of them barely disguised as personality tests.
• Ancalagon 3y ago
  This is fascinating and terrifying all at once!
• LanceH 3y ago
  I've gone down the interview process on a couple of these just to see where it went. I was fortunate enough to not need a job at the time, so I wasn't worried about it. There was one test with 18 statements and I was asked to sort them from like to dislike or good to bad. It was obvious that the statements were paired up somehow like "Nuclear war is a good thing" and "world wide peace is a good thing" (yes, some of the statements were that extreme). I answered reasonable as possible, with the extreme statements closer to 1 or 18, and the pairings equally distant from the middle. The mild statements also mirroring each other toward the middle. There was another part to that round, but it was more along the lines of that 4 quadrant personality test (can't remember the name for it) -- nothing crazy, or at least it was more mainstream. I did not make it to the next round. There was no way in hell I was going to work for them, but I was still disappointed to miss the chance to look over their brand of craziness a little.
• Oarch 3y ago
  Unrelated but the fact the comments are slightly askew on the mildly infuriating subreddit is hilarious
• Shawnecy 3y ago
  I have strong doubts about working for any company that thinks this is the most efficient way to gleam this information from potential candidates. From looking at the images in the reddit post, I'm not sure how that is supposed to better gather this information than just having a human talk to the candidate. If I encountered this while interviewing; I would politely state that we can stop the interview process here and would gladly tell them why if they were to inquire about my reasoning.
• bloqs 3y ago
  At least it was the Big Five which has some scientific basis. Myers Briggs is still used by mouth breathers in HR departments across the world.
  • keane 3y ago
    It’s been argued that the Meyers-Briggs correlates with 4 of the Big Five and that MBTI terminology functions as a gentler, more socially-acceptable euphemism that avoids the frankness of the Big Five: https://dynomight.net/in-defense-of-myers-briggs.html https://dynomight.net/in-defense-of-myers-briggs.html
• mrinterweb 3y ago
  I don't know if there is some secret agreement across software companies that stipulates that they all need to make the application process as painful as possible for retention reasons. Last time I was applying at companies, I noticed it was taking about 10 hours per company of interviews. It is so grueling that I don't want to go through that again so I stay put. I took a personality test at one company. I hated the interview process so I told them I would not move forward with future interview rounds. If a company thinks processes like this are a good idea, just imagine all the other bad processes and policy you'd have to endure after landing the job.
• saltybytes 3y ago
  At least you got an interview! My last interview was before the holidays 2023, just rejections since (or I get ghosted). Competition is insane at the moment. Here are exaples: ) trying to apply within the first hour the job was posted is usually too late. I find openings claiming, eg. "posted 21 minutes ago, 28 applicants" and within a few hours the number of applicants shoots up to 300 or more. ) The first email I recieve by HR is usually promising, like "we liked your profile, etc can we schedule a short intro call?". After my response it's crickets. Is it just me or is the tech/IT jobmarket on a very bad downswing?
• upupupandaway 3y ago
  Google asked me the same thing.
• hakdbha 3y ago
  [dead]
• torbengee 3y ago
  If they can't tell whether you'll be a good fit after the screening interview, the tech panel interview, and the interview with the hiring manager and who else, then that says more about the company than about you.
• Vinaas 3y ago
  [dead]
• rldjbpin 3y ago
  SAP had a weird personality tests which they made everyone take a day or two after applying. got one when applying for an internship of all the roles there. the system was very quick to send an automated reply rejecting my application (an evening during the weekend in local time). meanwhile IBM asked for a coding test for a data scientist role, while they got dedicated IT/data engineering roles in the same team.
• rgmerk 3y ago
  Last I looked into this there’s very little evidence that personality tests are useful as a hiring tool. Where there were statistically significant correlations with job performance, they were so weak that they have no practical use.
• navjack27 3y ago
  This is psychotic
• hnburnsy 3y ago
  Here is the third party that implements the assessments... https://www.traitify.com/animated-assessments https://www.traitify.com/animated-assessments >The most science backed way to measure personality. The Big 5 assessment measures a person’s Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism in 60 questions. Normally taking nearly 10 minutes, our visual-based assessment takes less than 2 minutes. >Improve and standardize interviews across your organization. Gain a deep understanding of your candidate’s personality and strengths before the scheduled interview. Leverage the candidate’s Big 5 score to shape questions specific to their results to make more informed hiring decisions. >Meet candidates where they are — on their mobile devices. Decrease candidate drop-off and drive conversions with an intuitive, visual-based assessment. By selecting ‘me’ or ‘not me’, candidates quickly navigate through the assessment, and receive a copy of their results. >Research backed, rigorously tested. Over a dozen studies were conducted with 5,000+ participants over 24 month. Convergent Validity and Test Retest Reliability studies conducted and showed significant improvement over Stock Photo assessment. >The characters used throughout the assessment are constructed to be race, age, and gender neutral. More than 71% of test participants saw Ash, the main character throughout, as their own race. >Customize assessment images with brand-specific color and texture changes as well as logo and product inclusion. Paradox will conduct a brief A/B test with candidates to ensure customizations have no impact on expected responses.
• MollyRealized 3y ago
  Traitify: https://www.paradox.ai/products/assessments https://www.paradox.ai/products/assessments
• fennecbutt 3y ago
  Management trying to make themselves feel useful.
• asmr 3y ago
  i don't get why a lot of people in tech want to be more computer than person. it seems people tend to forget that our role as PEOPLE in an organization of PEOPLE is to do deliver solutions for PEOPLE. a little bit of psychological screening to determine someone's' personality to see if they're a good fit for the department/corporate culture is not necessarily "weird" or off-putting or a net negative in many ways. i received a very similar test interviewing for my first "real" job nearly 10 years ago.