Do you struggle with(failed) or hate personality tests?

No.

I do like the rest of the world and lie through my teeth when taking those work personality tests.

I probably sound like Jesus Christ when I take em X3

 

I'm sorry to hear what happened. I wouldn't know how to scientifically lie to achieve a intended result. I would just fill it out answering the questions honestly. If it was a really social kind of place or a social kind of job, it wouldn't work for me and I wouldn't pass the test. If it was more solitary and analytical work, then I'd probably score ok.

Do you know what sorts of personality traits they were looking for or that the job entailed?

 

Well most of the ones I've taken for jobs have been pretty straight forward

"I am never late to work" - Very not true, Not true, Eh, True, Very True

So you just look at it and go....hmmmm? Then you pick the one where it sounds like you will never ever be late to work.

 

The trick to passing one (snrksnrk) is to pretend briefly that you are a narcissistic psychopath. People think that I am insane, but a narcissistic psychopath always self-enhances. They are like dogs returning to their own feces: they will always inflate themselves, somehow.

Conscientiousness: "I am always on time! I have never missed an appointment in my life! Yes, sir! You can count on me! Yuk-yuk!"

Agreeableness: "Yes, sir! I will go along with you! I'm a nice kind of guy!" He hides the knife behind his back, which he intends for yours. This one is the hardest one for honest people to mimic. Someone who has integrity will always rank low here because they really are so straightforward that they honestly don't realize that there are occasions when you don't want the truth but just their cooperation. If someone ranks low here and high on the others except neuroticism, then that person is trustworthy and a strong candidate for your inner circle but needs a really harsh reality check. Honest people need to learn that sometimes you have to BS, even though it makes you want to die for you to do so.

Neuroticism: "No, I don't have anything wrong with me, sir. I do JUST FINE!"

Openess: This one is the hardest for phonies to fake. The thing is, real psychopaths always rank low on this one because they falsely assume that their fellow man is more shallow, more blind, and more lacking in empathy than he actually is. They assume that you WANT them to come across as closed-minded and conservative. Someone who ranks low on this and high on the others is ALWAYS a narcissistic psychopath at heart. Always, no exceptions. Run.

Extraversion: "Sir...truly, I have many friends. People just love me!"

If you can pretend that you are a narcissistic psychopath on every dimension except openess, then you can nail that sucker if it's based on the Big Five.

 

By the way, I have a somewhat unconventional definition of "psychopath" because of my own negative experiences with people who tell you one thing to your face and yet do otherwise. I do not trust people who are too agreeable. I have had very bad experiences with them. It is just my own self-reported experience. Most scientific studies will tell you that low agreeableness is a bad thing. I disagree. Low agreeableness means you're more likely to find yourself in a conflict with that person. If you have a backbone and exercise a firm hand and respect that person's dignity and intellectual autonomy, a person who has low agreeableness but high openess can always be made to see reason. Most employers, though, want to see high agreeableness, even if you don't have it. Tell them what they want to hear. It's not about accuracy or philosophical truth, but it's about putting food on your table.

 

The best way to learn about oneself is to look at the way one deals with every (new) situation. I'm not a fan of personality tests, but they provide a mean for people to grasp on their own sense of identity.

In all seriousness, any moderately competent HRM department should ban all sort of personality tests altogether. There are better methods out there!

 

Yes. I don't mind taking them for personal knowledge and growth. However, the fact that someone wants to use a more involved psychological one for employment purposes would be off-putting. Unless it's a job where super detailed background checks are necessary, it speaks poorly about the employer.

 

Honestly I just answer what I know they want to hear, there's no reasoning with the corperate model so I just manipulate it instead. Personality tests are easy when you leave your personality out if it and just tell them what they want to hear, it's like sticking it to them by sneaking in and going "HAHA! Suckers! Now you're stuck with my crazy ass!!"

 

This is why I always make sure to speak to the one hiring, and get a feel for them. Because even if I fail a personality test (which I do not do very easily), I'll be labeled approved, for showing a backbone everybody else did not. I did not hide behind a potentially false personality; bonus points, basically.

Personality tests are a breeze for me 'to pass'. I don't answer them cookie-cutter nicely, as this leaves many employers thinking, does this person really think I'm going to fall for this? I answer the key questions -- dealing with money and property as spotless and morally wholesome, as that is what matters. Everything else, like dealing with customers, I pick a more neutral answer, which demonstrates a realistic and balanced personality. This gains trust and a better chance at advancing.

You make an employer believe you will improve their business/reputation, the job is yours. But if you treat them like they're gullible, even if they are, you won't get very far. Knowing which questions to answer like a a saint and which to be a little less formal, is key to them; or so I've discovered in my own experiences.

Personality tests are second nature to me.
Whether that is a good or bad thing, is up for debate... but I make use of it either way.

 

I answer honestly. If I lie and do horribly at my job then that's a double whammy.

 

If your driven to lying to impress someone on the 1st day then you probably are gonna hate working for them anyway. I've never taken one of these but I'm pretty confident I could pass with a mixture of honesty and self idealism

 

I've always just told the truth, including the fact that I'm not a very black and white kind of guy. If there's the traditional five point scale most of my answers will be clustered between 2 and 4. I've never had a problem. The one thing I will say is that I once talked about the personality profile that my firm uses with someone in HR and she confirmed what I had always thought--that the whole just say what you think they want you to say, which will interestingly result in a lot of 1s and 5s (I'm completely honest, I'm never late etc.), doesn't really work because the algorithm actually ranks you down for that because they consider it dishonest.

 

I know that a lot of the ones used by corporations not backed by psychologists, including the famed Myers-Briggs, so I don't lose sleep over it if I "fail".

Companies should stick with behavioral tests measuring (relatively) quantifiable job skills like customer service instincts and ability to memorize/follow rules. Sure, people will still give idealized answers as compared to how they would probably act in real life, but it gives a good indication of how well the person understands good customer service.

One thing you may want to keep in mind is that some corporations - Target is one - pay their test makers to create algorithms that weed out people who are lying or exaggerating their goodness. They'll put some obvious questions like, "Have you ever lied?" to which every single person on the planet would have to answer "yes" and some less obvious ones like, "How often do you think politicians keep their campaign promises?". You don't want to seem like an overly-cynical, anti-authority jerk, so you may be tempted to answer with something like 80%+, but the test makers built that with negative public opinion stats in mind and are using it as a weedout question.

Score high enough on such questions and your test results are dumped.

I think test creators also word some things in alternately positive and negative ways to get you to backpedal on something you've said about yourself. My advice would be to consider whether each new item you read is merely a reworded previous item to check for this and to reread your test once done to make sure your answering is consistent.

 

Huh, I never had to take one for a job, didn't know that was a thing.

On the Meyers-Briggs, an EMPT.

 

Honestly never had to take one for work (since I'm still at school) but I struggle to complete those things truthfully since I'm somewhat of a chronic liar.
But really though does anyone answer those things honestly?

 

I try to, but I'm probably self-enhancing on my agreeableness. I'm really a bit of a disagreeable curmudgeon, but I don't like the idea that I am.

70th percentile on extraversion, which is unrealistically high. I'm really very introverted, but the problem with the "big five" type personality tests is that they encourage self-enhancing. Where introversion is treated as just another type of person, I usually rank as a weak-to-strong introvert.

Self-enhancing also on agreeableness, 94th percentile. Hell, no. I am really pretty combative, but the problem with the "big five" type personality tests is that you're afraid to give an honest answer. By the "big five" way of thinking, a person who has "low agreeableness" is defective, somehow. In real life, I am not deliberately cruel, but I can be peckish and opinionated. That would actually make me valuable to an employer. It means I'm not a "yes-man." The problem with the five-factor tests is that they force me to admit to this dimension of my character in ways that make me sound like an antisocial jerk. I really see myself as just having a sense of "one-upmanship," being slightly combative, and not being reserved in giving my opinions.

Conscientiousness, 84th percentile. I'm probably actually closer to the mid-60's. Here is the thing, anyone who would ranks as a strong "perceiving" personality type on the MBTI will rank a little lower on conscientiousness, although "thinking" types, on the feeling/thinking dimension, can actually rank higher on conscientiousness. I can be slightly wayward and forgetful occasionally, but I do try to keep appointments and keep my promises. I do try to show up to things early.

Neuroticism, 3rd percentile. Close enough. I do have bipolar disorder, but battling depression is so old-hat by now that it's almost dull. I know it's some chemical fluctuations.

Openess, 100th percentile. This is the only dimension that I would say is 100% accurate. I have very strong openess to experience. It corresponds with several things on the MBTI, but it corresponds most strongly with someone being a strong "intuitive" personality type on the intuitive/sensing dimension.

Personality Assessor | IPIP-300 Personality Test

Basically, personality tests stopped meaning anything when they stopped being true inventories. I have read studies comparing the MBTI with the revised NEO-PI, which is the best five-factor personality test, and when it is converted to a numerical score, the MBTI still beats the revised NEO-PI on certain things, even though the MBTI is supposedly not at all scientific. The advantage that the MBTI continues to have is that it works as a true inventory, and the revised NEO-PI simply doesn't.

The people who are making the new supposed inventories ought to be advised that they would catch a lot more flies with honey. I know it has strong advocates in the sciences, but it remains that the "big-five" types of tests are still profoundly wanting.

---------- Post added 2nd Jul 2015 at 02:34 PM ----------

The Temperament and Character Inventory strikes me as slightly more promising in terms of its foundations, by the way. The TCI actually has a neurobiological foundation, and this is a far superior foundation for growth. Also, its results give you terms like "novelty-seeking," which do not necessarily tell you that it means you probably have risk factors for ADHD if you score high in this dimension. It's not necessarily bad to have strong novelty-seeking behavior. The point is, I think that the seven-factor TCI is considerably superior, over the five-factor tests, in how it is conceived.