Finding a job is hard enough without having to essentially bare your soul to potential employers. That’s exactly what happened to one job seeker who thought they had found the perfect position at a great company. Then, the boss asked them to take a personality test. Unfortunately, the results were anything but flattering, and the new worker was left feeling hugely embarrassed.
One worker wrote into the Ask A Manager advice column for tips on what to do after they took a personality test for their new employer that went very wrong.
“Before I signed on for my new job, I agreed to do a couple of personality tests,” they explained. “My new employer said it was to get a sense of how to work with me and my strengths and weaknesses. They stressed that my hiring wouldn’t depend on the result and did not send the tests through until I signed the offer.”
The worker assumed this would just be a chance for the employer to get to know them better, but they were wrong. “One personality test was what they said it would be, but the second … oh boy, I got a bad feeling when the very first question essentially asked if I had a history of depression (‘Do you feel blue sometimes?’).”
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“It only got worse from there,” they continued. “The results I got basically said that I was lazy and ‘blamed external circumstances,’ that I was ‘neurotic’ and ‘volatile,’ that I was ‘highly likely to lash out’ but also that I’m a doormat. It wasn’t about strengths or weaknesses, it was an objective assessment on my mental stability and work ethic.”
“I know I’m a better person than this test said,” they stated, “and I’ll be (expletive) if I have to prove it right out the starting gate.” Despite the upsetting results, the employee chose to proceed with the job offer “because of personal reasons.” But now they’re really concerned. “I’m dreading this awful result following me around my whole time there,” they shared.
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Allison Green, the manager who replied to this employee’s conundrum, understood exactly why they were so upset. She acknowledged that “it would be unnerving in any context,” but was “particularly awful in an employment situation.”
Green, who also had access to the personality test the employee was required to take, commented on its lack of validity. “I looked at the test they gave you, and it doesn’t mention anything indicating it’s designed for use in employment contexts,” she explained. “It talks about taking it with a friend, family member, or romantic partner. They essentially gave you a Cosmo quiz.”
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Green’s advice was to talk with the employer right before or after starting the job and set some expectations, which should basically be the opposite of what those results showed. Then, the worker has to be ready to demonstrate that those results were, in fact, wrong.
“More broadly: it’s time to get rid of personality tests in hiring and onboarding,” she noted, saying this was especially true before you took a job when there was no trust in the relationship yet.
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Sherrie Hayniethe director of U.S. professional services for The Myers-Briggs Company, wrote about whether or not personality tests are effective hiring tools for Forbes. In her opinion, “Personality assessments can play a helpful, objective role in the hiring process.”
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However, Haynie also emphasized that “in many cases, using a personality assessment for hiring when it wasn’t designed to be used for hiring is unethical.” This certainly seems to have been the case with the test this employee had to take. Getting to know your employees is important, but employers also have to be careful not to take this too far.
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Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.
