How to succeed in personality tests?

I'm doing a lot of job interviews these days. I'm applying for software development posts. I've recently earned my B.Sc. in CS, and this is my first serious job hunt ever. What sorts of questions are asked in a Personality Test? I'd appreciate any tips that can help me pass such a test successfully.


If you're looking to prepare for your Personality Assessment test, JobTestPrep has everything you need to know, including a myriad of questions with thoroughly explained answers.


 

Every firm looks for something different, so there really is no way to prepare... Unless they ask a question such as the one I was asked a few weeks ago, "Would you say that you are mature or immature?"

I was dinged from a F500 because I showed to much aggressiveness in wanting to succeed and had a strong desire to be a team leader. HR basically said that they wanted someone who would just be a robot and do as they are told.

Now other firms, they want people who are never content and are determined to move up the latter. So, the point is to just be yourself cus if they dont like it, you probably wouldnt like them.

 

Although each firm is indeed different, it's probably a good idea to (if given a straight up choice) pick the pro-teamwork answer over the pro-individual answer. For whatever reason the emphasis on "team" (read: collective) by corporate and financial HR departments seems to be particularly acute these days.

 

I'd just be as honest as possible. Your employer may value that above what some silly personality test says. I'll bet the personality test is just to weed out those who may have MAJOR incompatibility problems with people, so as long as you don't have a known history of social problems, I think you'll do fine.

....................... Personality Testing

 
Best Response

TLDR VERSION:

Next time you're going to take one of these tests, hit the gym that morning, beat the shit out of the punching bag, eat eggs+ham/bacon for breakfast, and then have half a pint of Guinness (I'd say a pint, but alcohol will go into your system very quickly in the morning and you want to be aggressive...not sloppy)

Your results will be different.

FULL VERSION:

All these tests measure is how you scored, on that set of questions, in that state of mind, on that day. THEY ARE NOT ABSOLUTE. All they do is give the tools in HR some way to quantify their barely qualified decisions.....not unlike grades are used by school adcoms.

I'm an actual psych major who once planned to be a psychiatrist, and I can tell you that the function of these tests is to get a feel for where you are. But they do not define you in permanent terms at all. They indicate general mood/attitude/preferences at that point in your life. That's all. Just to illustrate, when I was a child, I tested for INTP. As a teenager I tested for INFJ. My guess is that will change again, given I've spent the last ten years in client facing roles (bartending, then small business owner, now sales).

Social science is very accurate when you take into account that context is everything. The asperger's crowd congregates around the notion of engineering being superior to all because mathematical abstractions do not require any integration of social cues and abstract contexts that can be interpreted differently over time. They often chalk up applied social sciences to "being an art" because they do not have the ability or desire to pay close attention to human nature. My point? These tests very accurately measure your current mindset, but do not define you as a person. The gov't, employers (and apparently the European academic establishment) would love to try to define people so that they can further their control by "assigning people a role".

But this is bullshit. The human mind is incredibly plastic and changing the context of a person's experience will yeild totally different results. The military can teach average folks to be brutal killers. College can civilize working class brutes. Giving money to a desperate person can make them honest. Subjecting a decent person to abuse and deprivation will likely turn them into a criminal.

There are basic biological reflexes as well, and they tend to dominate our psychology. The one that I find most immediately useful is cognitive dissonance. Understanding the CONTEXT of a person/people and the underlying mechanisms of the brain will make human behavior very predictable, quantifiable, and understandable. What makes this different than engineering is that both conext and people change over time, and it may not be clear at the time of one's perception. These tests get closer to pinpointing a person's "state" than many other metrics, but again....they do not define you.

Unless of course, you choose to let them.

Get busy living
 
UFOinsider:

TLDR VERSION:

All these tests measure is how you scored, on that set of questions, in that state of mind, on that day. THEY ARE NOT ABSOLUTE. All they do is give the tools in HR some way to quantify their barely qualified decisions.....not unlike grades are used by school adcoms.

I absolutely agree, great way to put it.

I suppose the real question is how much emphasis HR/employers place on the results and whether this is country specific (mostly US v Europe v Asia). I was surprised that the non-HR interviewer brought up his color as a justification for...anything.

 

Most places in the US really don't care at all about personality tests. Given you can drug yourself or get a good night sleep and test differently based on one day's different state of mind causes people to not rely on them too much.

Get busy living
 

I once had to take an aptitude test to see if my skills naturally lent themselves to finance. It took 2 days and 8 hours. It was extremely strange.

Tests included: 1 -being told to write down as many things I could make with a needle, string, and a biscuit 2 - hearing tones and then ranking them in order of pitch 3 - seeing a random shape for 3 seconds and then trying to re-draw it perfectly 4 - getting a bunch of information tossed at me for 30 minutes that no one would ever know and then taking a test. 5 - trying to pick up metal pins with tweasers and put them in holes and fast as possible 6 - a bunch of other tests.

Sorry to not answer your question, but this post triggered that memory and I never forgot how weird it was.

"They are all former investment bankers that were laid off in the economic collapse that Nancy Pelosi caused. They have no marketable skills, but by God they work hard."
 

I failed in the KPMG personal test two years ago. And i don't know what I did wrong. :(

bigblue3908:
why are you worried about a personality test? The one I did was called wonderlic (same thing as the nfl players do I think?).
 
goalieman688:
It is essentially a psychology test to determine what characteristics you exhibit and how well these match up with what they are looking for. I do not have much information on the actual tests sorry.

Wow, really fucking helpful.

spinner - I have a strong feeling it will be an MBTI or MBTI-type test. You've probably taken one before but if you haven't, you should read about it. The critical thinking is probably going to be a few industry-specific cases... I wouldn't stress on it too much, especially if you're warmed up.

 

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