How to Take a Pre-Employment Personality Test

The good news is, you have an interview...

The bad new is, you have to take a pre-employment personality test.

What's the purpose of a pre-employment personality test? Do you want the real truth, or do you want me to make you feel better?

The real truth is that the purpose of the personality test is to absolve the Human Resource departments of various hiring agencies of making a mistake in hiring someone. Yes, you heard me right. Many HR departments have gone to the issuance of the various forms of these tests in lieu of a human being personally evaluating whether or not you would be a good employee for their company.

At one time, a personal interview was all it took to let a company know if you would be a good fit or not. Along comes the personality test. "I'll tell you if they're good or not."

An applicant can come in and appear to have the perfect personality, friendly,gregarious, and the hiring manager thinks, "I want this person on my team!" Unfortunately, a personality test is required prior to the official hiring. Do you know how many companies are missing out on hiring perfectly acceptable candidates? Far too many.

The truth is that because of our economic crunch, HR departments have been slashed. Most companies rely on pre-employment personality tests to give a good indicator of how well a potential employee will do in your company. Unfortunately, these tests have very little to do with how well an individual will do in any given job.

So, how do you get around these new "facts of life"?

You learn how to take a pre-employment personality test.

Strongly Agree or Strongly Disagree

First, you never, EVER answer "somewhat agree, mildly agree, somewhat disagree"...you always answer either "strongly agree" or "strongly disagree. You need to see these types of questions as True or False. Nothing else! Seriously...any other answer is simply designed to put you in the wrong. And if you answer anything BUT Strongly Agree or Strongly Disagree, the answer is WRONG!

Oh wait! There are no Right or Wrong answers...they said! They lied! If you don't answer the question correctly, you're wrong, and you won't get hired.

It's a total crock when they assure you that there are no right or wrong answers. There sure are!!!

True False

These are easier...sometimes. If there are words like:

"try", or "yell" or "shout" or "attempt" or "hope"...you can be sure that these answers are wrong. You are either right or wrong. If you have to try, or shout, or yell, or attempts, or hope, you WILL NOT GET THE JOB!

Do I Like Crowds and People?

You betcha!

The personality tests want to know if you like, even thrive on chaos, being with a lot of people, the answer is yes, Yes, YES!!! They want to know that you LOVE being with people. They want you to want to be able to do multiple things, while standing on your head, while handling a lot of tasks and people ALL at the same time! Any question that is asking if you like any of these things, the answer is YES!

Honesty Above All, Right?

It would be nice to believe this, but not so. You want the job? You have to learn to take the test. If possible take the test alone, and ask the questions out loud. That will help you to determine what the right answer is. The idea is to present yourself as honestly as possible, but the real truth is that you want...even NEED to get the job. In order to do that, you need to learn to take the test.

Your next personality test, try my suggestions. They'll at least get you the interview. I've worked with a number of people who were PERFECTLY qualified for the position, but failed the test because they answered it HONESTLY! How sad. A personal interview would have vetted them as perfect for the job, but the computer test, designed to filter out the dregs of the applicants, only serves to really level the playing field of the perfect applicants vs. the OMG NO WAY applicants.