Personality Tests etc...

Has anyone been made to take one of these(or more) that my multiple choice tell the potential employer something about yourself. These things are infuriating, although I believe in Myers Briggs, some of these questions and comparisons are ludicrous. E.g. would you rather gather information or create a piece of art. I even think I took this example from the test. Why do this to potential new hires?


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Actually just had to take one of these for my new position. It had you rank 4 statements from "this is most like me/most what I prefer/most how I work" to "this is least like me." Definitely had to make some judgment calls on statements that I didn't want to rank low but had to. Took maybe 15 minutes. Then I got a ~25 page report that categorized my traits into one of four categories and had a phone call with a consultant to debrief.

It was actually interesting, because I could tell the consultant had been doing this a while and the conversation took on a pseudo-interview tone? She would lead with a test result and ask me to agree or disagree, connect it to the new position/company, and have me elaborate. Not rocket science or groundbreaking, but there were a couple of points she brought up that, if I'm being self-aware, are things that I would benefit from keeping in mind throughout my career.

Why do this for new hires? It shows a certain level of emotional intelligence, and at least in the format mine was in (with the live debrief), it shows if you can be self-reflective rather than defensive when presented with something about yourself you might not be 100% comfortable with. Also, if the firm wants you to take this step of the hiring process seriously and you don't because you think it's stupid, that's a bit of a red flag in and of itself, no?

Anyways, I took the whole thing seriously and had a good conversation with the consultant and got the job, so take that for what you will.

 

Personally, I would run away as fast as possible form any firm administering this kind of test. This is real estate. Success comes in many different forms and there is no "ideal mold." Trying to slot someone into a role based on a personality test is absolutely silly, imo.

 

I had to take a personality test for a couple of jobs when I was recruiting in college, but none of them were RE related.

I will say that these EQ/team synergy/communication things are a huge HR thing right now (I think I've taken 3 or 4 in the last 5 or 6 years). Every single one had some sort of personality test and then everyone got their results and we all had to sit around and talk about what they meant how we could better communicate/work with each other.

So while you might think that the "perfect" type is x or y so you hack your scores to be that way, it is possible that the organization already has too many x and y and is actually looking for i and j to fill in the blanks. In every session, HR will tell you that you need a little bit of all types for a balanced group! gagging sound here

 

Yea, if it was Meyer Briggs, you probably want to be in one of the "corners."

I remember taking one when I interviewed with Marriott (corporate finance role) and one with HSBC (summer internship). I want to say Marriott's was part of the application and HSBC's was after the phone, before the super-day. Either I "passed" both of them or they didn't put as much emphasis on them because I did ended up getting the Marriott interview (didn't get the offer) and got the offer for HSBC (but turned them down that summer for something else).

 

I did one of these for an interview with Cortland Partners. I "passed" it and did a first-round interview after that.

"There are only two opinions in this world: Mine and the wrong one." -Jeremy Clarkson
 

I'm guessing you took the one by Paragon (firm out of ATL). I love that assessment, better for groups than meyers briggs (which I also like)., it's great for team dynamics and quite frankly, I wish we could hire people based on that because personality is a much better determinant of success with a team than someone's resume.

here's a great example. we have a need for sales people and admin/analyst people in any PWM team (like most teams in any business). within admin, we can really only handle one type A person who's essentially the operations manager for our team. beyond that, we need people who are motivated by order, organization, and have a fine attention to detail. a previous admin we had that didn't work out ended up testing very much as someone who ought to be a leader, but since our senior admin was already firmly in that role, it didn't work out.

the real value in those tests is it shows you more about how you ought to communicate with others on your team, what motivates them, and what matters to them. it will enhance your team dynamics and ultimately increase productivity and quality of life at work.

all of that being said, I don't think you can hire on that alone. just because someone tests a certain way doesn't guarantee their success/failure on a team.

 

I don't buy that type A..."stuff". Type A can mean many things but often the people who call themselves that are neurotic ...not the same thing as type "A", in my opinion. If that were truly the case then how would you get a team of Navy SEALS to work together and accomplish a mission, because those guys are all type-a?

I've taken a DiSC test, Predictive Index, Profile XT, and Myers Briggs. I happen to like the MB test, because it doesn't really test fit but how you interact with the world, none of which is wrong. I've seen introverted people be successful salesmen just because they know their product so well from a technical perspective, so you never can really know what you get.

 

Type A was probably poor word choice. essentially this woman's test said that she had an issue following orders and that she's better suited for leadership roles. if we'd known that beforehand, we wouldn't have hired her.

but yeah, you can't hire on this stuff alone, plenty of shitty extroverted salespeople and plenty of successful introverted sales people prove this to be the case.

 
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I interviewed with a big name regional developer during my job hunt. This guy is an absolute rockstar locally and he plays up that persona as much as he can on top of it, so it was a bit like interviewing with a celebrity. I studied up on all of his deals, watched all of his youtube videos, read all of his blog posts and articles, and knew absolutely everything there was to know about him.

Ended up that about 80% of the interview was us talking about animal personality combinations, specifically Lion, Otter, Beaver, Golden Retriever. He taught me about them like the idea was absolute gospel and then gave me a serious of tests and questions to determine what I was. (I'm a Lion/Otter for the record, same as him, so I thought that gave me an in...but it apparently didn't.) He then had me analyze my girlfriend to determine how our relationship would go. (I forget what she was but it was something like she was one of my animals and one of another, which apparently means that our relationship will work well but will be contentious, which is oddly true.) He then let me know that his wife is the complete opposite of him, not a half opposite like my girlfriend, which is why they're perfect together. He then had me analyze my parents, who are divorced, and seemed like their divorce made total sense based on their animals.

It was the absolute strangest interview ever. We barely talked about his deals, his company, my background, my interests, etc. All we confirmed is that I was like him, which I thought was pretty cool personally, but he apparently wanted people not like him, as I never got a serious response back.

Commercial Real Estate Developer
 

Thanks for talking about that animal test. My wife and I tried it last night. Both Lions! Anyways, she and I are different in the way we are lions, it's quite broad. She's the more bossy one.

I did the 16 personalities test at a previous job, that had some more narrowly defined personality types. My wife was a consul and I was entrepreneur. It was pretty neat. I noticed though that some of my coworkers did not openly share their test results.

Another test I helped administer to student volunteers was a test that identified your strengths and weaknesses. Basically it was for people to pick a career that they would be great at.

Have compassion as well as ambition and you’ll go far in life. Check out my blog at MemoryVideo.com
 

I took the Predictive Index test once and another personality test for an insurance company. The PI results were objectively good according to the headhunter and hiring manager but the place was awful. The other test I took was during the actual application and presumably received poor results as I never was asked to come in for the interview. I understand the process of screening people based on personality but RE is extremely diverse

 

I took one with questions just like the one you mentioned. It was for a brokerage role. It seemed to never end and I just kept thinking to myself, all of this BS couldn't have come out of one brain. Then I really hit a new low when I thought about the possibility of a team of people working in some far away office whose only purpose in life was writing this crap. Torture.

 

Back in early 2016 I took one while interviewing with a well known San Diego CRE developer/operator. Job Title was Director of portfolio management. Basically, I would supervise the light industrial leasing team. Me thinking that a firm wouldn't want someone too aggressive, I toned down my answers to be sort of moderate in thinking and style. It backfired, lol. They wanted basically a hustler who knew his stuff and could communicate well. I scored well everywhere except for the hustle...which of course was still high, but they wanted off the charts high.

Answer honestly is what I say.

 

Yes answer honestly. One company I worked for dinged a candidate for scoring under satisfactory in deductive reasoning in one of these tests. Not sure what that means. Well, that candidate is one of the most successful, or going to be most, of my peers. Go figure.

Have compassion as well as ambition and you’ll go far in life. Check out my blog at MemoryVideo.com
 

I've taken at least 4 of these, and yes they are easily hackable once you understand how it works, though that might not help you because like CRE's experience above you can only assume what type of person they want anyway. Due to this, I think these tests are fucking useless. The one I took most recently pegged my desired career path as a singer/stage performer. For fuck's sake. No. Would I rather do that than administrative work? Yes, but we live in the real world and I'll never be Dave Grohl.

For the record, of the 3 times I took these tests in interview processes I always received the offer. 4th time our whole office did it while on the job already.

Array
 

Director level and up. Avg age is probably 35-40. Most people lateral in from brokerage although some come from roles outside of real estate. We don't have dedicated analysts. Directors own most of the process with oversight of a VP, who is ultimately responsible for the P&L.

Point is, it's all about fit. The rainmaker developers want to make sure the help they bring on will augment what they have going not detract from it. No resume in the world will be able to tell you that.

Similarly our hiring process is typically 6+ months long. A lot of time spent getting to know people, reference checking, etc.

I don't think its quite as thorough of a process for support roles, specifically the in person interview. They do, however, require everyone to take strengthsfindee as part of onboarding.

An aside, its very interesting to see how every discipline within the company has people with distinct strengths. For example developers all have similar top 5s but thier strengths are completely different than project managers who also share similar top 5s.

 

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