How flunking a personality test can cost you your dream job
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. You try not to take rejection personally when looking for a job, but that’s tough to do as more companies add personality tests to their hiring screens. Just ask Nick Malik, who’s been given online personality assessments by three prospective employers in recent months while applying, unsuccessfully so far, for senior-level engineering roles.
“I’ve gotten some really weird questions," he says. “I understand the desire to know a little bit about your applicants, but I don’t think running their answers by a bot is very effective." Malik isn’t sure whether his test results, age (he’s 59), or something else is holding him back. But his experience reflects companies’ fixation on “fit"—the biggest buzzword in hiring.
Nick Malik is looking for a senior engineering job and has been given personality tests by three prospective employers. To gauge this nebulous quality, employers are reaching for personality assessments ranging from questionnaires developed by psychologists to ancient methods of divining character traits, such as astrology and handwriting analysis. Many bosses place a higher premium on teams that jell as technology automates more tasks and applicant pools teem with qualified candidates.
Skill matters, of course, but companies can be pickier now than when they were desperate for talent a few years ago. Managers consistently tell me that when hires don’t work out, it’s usually because they turn out to be incompatible, not incapable. Impressions of someone can be off-base or biased—even more so when a lot of interviews are held on Zoom—so businesses are hungry for something better than gut instincts.
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