Assessing Students BEYOND the Classroom: Businesses are Assessing Future Employees!
The online application process typically has a “Personality/Employment Assessment” included as part of the application process. This is for screening purposes, serving as another tool that helps match a specific position and a person who fulfills the criteria for the position. There are indeed right and wrong answers that relate to specific job criteria. Typically, you have four options to choose from, when asked whether a statement applies to you or not. In most cases the correct answer is always “Strongly Agree” or “Strongly Disagree”:
- Strongly Disagree
- Disagree
- Agree
- Strongly Agree
If you get enough right answers, you go in the “interview” pile and you may be called in for an interview. If you get too many wrong answers, you go in the “no interview” pile and the store will be unable to proceed with the hiring process. Some businesses allow a wait time before you can retake the test to be reconsidered for employment.
The general idea of the test is to try to make sure that you are honest and hard-working but not too ambitious. You must be cheerful at all times and enjoy being around people all day. The answers are mostly straightforward. The only surprising answers are that they think it is good if you think that “You are somewhat a of a thrill-seeker” and that it is bad if you think “Many people cannot be trusted.”
Here are a few commonly used questions and answers:
| Question | Answer |
| Any trouble you have is your own fault | SA |
| It is easy for you to feel what others are feeling | SA |
| It is fun to go to events with big crowds | SA |
| It is maddening when the court lets guilty criminals go free | SA |
| When someone treats you badly, you ignore it | SA |
| When you are done with your work, you look for more to do | SA |
| When you go someplace, you are never late | SA |
| When your friends need help, they call you first | SA |
| You agree with people more often than you argue | SA |
| You always try not to hurt people’s feelings | SA |
| You are a friendly person | SA |
| You are always cheerful | SA |
| You are careful not to offend people | SA |
| You are proud of the work you do at school or on a job. | SA |
| You are somewhat a of a thrill-seeker | SA |
| You avoid arguments as much as possible | SA |
| You can wait patiently for a long time | SA |
| You chat with people you don’t know | SA |
| You could describe yourself as ‘tidy’ | SA |
| You do not fake being polite | SA |
| You do things carefully so you don’t make mistakes | SA |
| You finish your work no matter what | SA |
| You give direct criticism when you need to | SA |
| You got mostly good grades in high school | SA |
| You hate to give up if you can’t solve a hard problem | SA |
| You have always had good behavior in school or work | SA |
| You have confidence in yourself | SA |
| You have no big regrets about your past | SA |
| You have no big worries | SA |
| You ignore people’s small mistakes | SA |
| You keep calm when under stress | SA |
| You know when someone is in a bad mood, even if they don’t show it | SA |
| You like to be in the middle of a big crowd | SA |
| You like to plan things before you do them. | SA |
| You like to talk a lot | SA |
| You love to be with People. | SA |
| You love to listen to people talk about themselves | SA |
| You make more sensible choices than careless ones | SA |
| You rarely act without thinking | SA |
| You think of yourself as being very sensible | SA |
| You try to sense what others are thinking and feeling | SA |
| You were absent very few days from high school | SA |
| You work best at a slow but steady speed | SA |
| You would rather work on a team than by yourself | SA |
| Your friends and family approve of the things you do | SA |
| Your moods are steady from day to day | SA |
| It bothers you a long time when someone is unfair to you | SD |
| It bothers you when you have to obey a lot of rules | SD |
| It is hard to really care about work when the job is boring | SD |
| Many people cannot be trusted | SD |
| Other people’s feelings are their own business | SD |
| People are often mean to you | SD |
| People do a lot of annoying things | SD |
| People do a lot of things that make you angry | SD |
| People who talk all the time are annoying | SD |
| People’s feelings are sometimes hurt by what you say | SD |
| Right now, you care more about having fun than being serious at school or work | SD |
| Slow people make you impatient | SD |
| There are some people you really can’t stand | SD |
| There’s no use having close friends; they always let you down | SD |
| When people make mistakes, you correct them | SD |
| When you are annoyed with something, you say so | SD |
| When you need to, you take it easy at work | SD |
| You are a fairly private person | SD |
| You are more relaxed than strict about finishing things on time | SD |
| You are not afraid to tell someone off | SD |
| You are not interested in your friends’ problems | SD |
| You are unsure of what to say when you meet someone | SD |
| You are unsure of yourself with new people | SD |
| You change from felling happy to sad without any reason | SD |
| You could not deal with difficult people all day | SD |
| You criticize people when they deserve it | SD |
| You do not like small talk | SD |
| You do not like to meet new people | SD |
| You do not like to take orders | SD |
| You do some things that upset people | SD |
| You do what you want, no matter what others think | SD |
| You don’t act polite when you don’t want to | SD |
| You don’t believe a lot of what people say | SD |
| You don’t care if you offend people | SD |
| You don’t care what people think of you | SD |
| you don’t work hard because it doesn’t pay off anyway | SD |
| You don’t worry about making a good impression | SD |
| You get angry more often that nervous | SD |
| You get mad at yourself when you make mistakes | SD |
| You have friends, but don’t like them to be too close | SD |
| You have to give up on some things that you start | SD |
| You ignore people you don’t like | SD |
| You like to be alone | SD |
| You like to take frequent breaks when working on something difficult | SD |
| You look back and feel bad about things you’ve done | SD |
| You say whatever is on your mind | SD |
| You show it when you are in a bad mood | SD |
| You sometimes thought seriously about quitting highschool | SD |
| You swear when you argue | SD |
| You would rather not get involved in other people’s problems | SD |
| You’d rather not compete very much | SD |
| You’ve done your share of troublemaking | SD |
| Your stuff is often kind of messy | SD |
nathalie031 • May 7, 2015 at 1:57 pm
In my opinion these tests are SO annoying. They make the application very long and tiring. I think that they should eliminate these tests completly and actually give chances to the applicants that are going to benifit their companies. I believe that they could ask some of these questions during the interview but not in the application process.