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OT- Anyone had to do a PI test for a job interview?

snocat_trf

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Oct 22, 2002
Location
Canton, South Dakota
I applied for an internal position last week and was handed a Predictive Index "test" to take. I guess it tells management how you are going to do in the postion. I dont really buy it, and since it is just a bunch of ajectives, if you knew what the outcome could be, you could tank the test or have it go in your favor.

I asked for the results of it, but I keep getting the runaround from HR.
 
American Express Financial gave me some personality inventory as part of a group interview to weed people out. My sister was actually a department lead at the time and I had just ended 2 years at GE Capital Fleet dealing with internal and external customers.

I failed it. :D

They wanted the most agreeable people known to man, and I will not kiss someones ass.

As yourself this: Do you want to work for a company that does goofy crap like that to find all your coworkers too?

I have no hard feelings for not getting that job. The truth was I was already sick of being at a desk @24.
 
Proctor and Gamble uses a personality test like this. According to the recruiters they don't even see someone's resume or information unless they pass the online test first.
 
Yes.
Initially I never held much faith in them. But as a supervisor, once I got to know people, I would go back to HR and have them re-read the test results to me (including my own). The results (depending on the test) can be more accurate than you might think.

The bad part is, that the results are somewhat open to interpretation by the person who reads the test. If they didn't pay attention well in the class, the results could be suspect. Now however, I am sure that the tabulation of the results is much more computerized and less subjective than it use to be.

There are times when the person doesn't check enough words, or checks too many and you can't get an accurate reading.

The other thing I will say is that my "gut" was usually just as accurate as the test. If the test showed a low "activity level" for example, I could generally detect that in the interview process.

Greg
 
Just my opinion but the tests do work. Individuals who are so stuck on being their own boss (not willing to kiss ass) are difficult to work with. Individauls smart enough to jump the hurddles are moldable or at least know better. Typical management paradigm, HR buys a lot of programs for employee accuistion and training and companies pay huge amounts for those HR people and programs, makes a lot of paperwork and they still hire the same kind of people.
I worked for a large computer company where I was a hiring manager. People who had no idea about how computers would apply for technical support jobs. Two weeks of training was not going to make people without previous interest in computer function capable of helping customers with computer issues (if you have ever called for techinical support, you already know this). These people who didn't pass my grades would interview with a different manager and get hired...sometimes end up working for me. Yeah, that is fun knowing what you just got stuck with. The interview had more personality questions than technical knowledge. At least a pleasant person will not beat you when you point out they don't know what they are doing. Some will even try to adapt. Some manage to sneak in and become general issues until they provide enough to let go.
 
I had to take something similar when I applied for the job I have now. Really if you look at the questions and answers you can figure out what they want to hear so its easy to cheat.

I actually have a copy of my results as well. Not supposed to have them but I do.
 
What the recruiting, management engineer, HR type fail to understand is that wholly tractable predicatable people don't make the best unversal employees. These types are not innovators and few are aggressive. They do not make the pesonality pool from which successful internal promotions can be drawn. Persist in employing only the most easily supervised people and you can count on your organizational strength and vigor to erode.

Strong independent personalities having good team playing characteristics may not score well with these tests but they are the raw material from which vigilent aggressive organizations are constructed. You even need a few rebel types to leaven the mix and instill outside the box thinking. You need such personalities at all levels. Such people may be difficult to "manage" but they are quite easily led given a realistic goal.

My lady's brother is an executive in a company who sells such tests. He's the one the customers call after a few years to complain of the decline in the quality of their work force. Steven has to tell them that the tests his companies sells are intended for assessment purposes and to screen/hire/promote people only by scores alone is defeating the purpose of the test - which is to provide a means of matching personality characteristics to the perceived requirements of the job in question.

Sales requires a different mix of individual characteristic than enginering or accounting although the samre level of educational and prosessional attaniment may be necessary. One individual may be a fine truck drive but fail utterly as a truck dispatcher because different personality traits are required. Another may be an excellent floor supervisor but founder if tasked to supervise an outside staff.

Look at the military for examples of personnel development. While military organizations and commercial organizations have different goals, personnel selection and development, organizational maintenence, response to change, and leadership are similar. Test results are indicative only. You don't really know how an individual will respond to a situation until you pitch him into it. Leadership has much to do with the choice, inspiration, and goal setting of subordinates. It's folly to subvert leadership with an intervening panel of tests from which a limited selection of the "passed" are selected.
 
I agree with previous opinions - The tests can be very informative and accurate, but they require care in interpretation and administration.

Interestingly, I heard from Murf McKinney the Funny Car builder (30+ employees) that he tests applicants with the Myers-Briggs personality assessment, and that there were only 4 categories out of the 16 possible that worked out well in his type of work. I then gave my existing guys and all new interviewees the M-B test. I discovered that the 4 Murf recommended were the 4 that worked out in my shop too. However, every time I take the test myself (benchmarking) I score in a different category! I attribute that to which "hat" I've been wearing the most at that time. Or something...
 
and to screen/hire/promote people only by scores alone is defeating the purpose of the test - which is to provide a means of matching personality characteristics to the perceived requirement of the job.

Sales requires a different mix of individual characteristic than enginering or accounting although the samre level of educational and prosessional attanimnet may be necessary.

Absolutely correct! In our case, the Personality test was only one of the criteria used to determine a persons suitability for the job. Many times we would bring people back in and ask why they answered a particular item the way they did prior to making an offer (or not). And there were a few times that we ignored the results completely and still got a good employee. More often than not though, the test results accurately depicted the personality.
Greg
 
However, every time I take the test myself (benchmarking) I score in a different category! I attribute that to which "hat" I've been wearing the most at that time. Or something...

We found that to be the case as well. People who took the test more than once (myself included) might score somewhat differently each time. We determined that it was due to which "hat" the person was wearing at that point in their career. Can't remember who's test it was, it might have been M-B, kind of sounds familiar.
Greg
 
Tests that don't relate to qualifications for the job are de facto illegal. If the job is for a machinist, and you are asked to show how to use a micrometer, that's probably ok*.

I am of the opinion that pretty much ALL questions, other than subject matter ones, are not predictive and therefore illegal. For example, I'm an engineer and I work at a job (math modeling) in a situation not ideal for extroverts (home office, suburbs, no one else at home during the day). I do ok. But if someone gave me a test, they'd probably say I'm not temperamentally suited to this situation. The thing is, there may be useful psychological questions, but in a room full of "N" psychologists, you will get "N+1" opinions as to what tests are best, which are predictive, etc. etc. A former boss was skeptical about the Meyers-Briggs Personality tests and did some investigation. He actually came to believe that this test was useful (he actually became a Meyers-Briggs instructor). A friend who recently got her PhD in Psychology tells me that most folks in academia doubt that Meyer-Briggs has much merit. If "A" says that the testing method of "B" is no good, and "B" says the method of "C" is no good, and so forth so that "Z" says that the method of "A" is no good, I tend to agree with A through Z: all their methods are probably worthless, or at least indefensible.

The logical inference here is that any HR group administering a non-subject matter test is probably putting their company at severe legal risk.

I mean, the questions these guys ask are laughable: "Have you ever stolen anything?". ("Hmm, yes. I'm disqualified? For stealing my little brother's dessert when I was 6? Really? That relates to the job?")

Companies with lackluster unimaginative managment want clear decision rules that can be administered by idiots. And then complain when the process weeds out high-quality, innovative thinkers.

Sorry for the rant, gang.

Jim
 
Never seen one.

Doo they have them for pullin' tits and balin' hay?

-------

Dad-blamed dumb farmers anyhow!
Ox
 
""Companies with lackluster unimaginative managment want clear decision rules that can be administered by idiots. And then complain when the process weeds out high-quality, innovative thinkers.""


I think that means only asskissers will be in management.
 
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Never seen one.

Doo they have them for pullin' tits and balin' hay?

-------

Dad-blamed dumb farmers anyhow!
Ox


Worse yet a farmer masquerading as a chinist.

My 11 and 13 year old boys were just over castrating pigs at the neighbors. They had a blast. They couldn't believe how many nuts one dog could eat. No kid should miss an experience like that. Probably won't help them pass the test though.

Think spring EH.
 
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Had something like that years ago at a job interview, wrote BOLLOCKS diagonally across the page, passed it back, thanked them for their time and walked.

I just don't know why I couldn't ever get a job? :)
 
The position was for Teamleader for the toolroom, I actually did not want it, but I was "asked" to apply.

The pay increase was only a $1 an hour and you subject yourself to getting called at any given time of the day, night, or weekend, since we run some machines around the clock and over the weekend.

I have enough going on without having to memorize die #'s and part #'s, my storage bank is full of information the way it is from this site.
 
I had a salesman try to sell me on using the PI system when i was working as a mine superintendent.
One of the sales points he used was that it would help protect the company from lawsuits for not hiring minorities, the disabled, or anyone that i did not want to hire.
His sales pitch was that i could change the Personality type i was looking for to ether put a person high up for hiring or eliminate them.

What i tried to do was get the right answers for each personality type so i could post them on the internet.
But they wanted to much money for the system.
as i only hired 1 or 2 people a year and that was by word of mouth.

after what the salesman told me about the PI test system i would walk out of any company that tried to use it.
 








 
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