I have lost count of the number of jobs I have applied for since October. I could go back through the wee notebook I’ve been keeping and count them all (after the sheet the dole office gave me was filled up in about a week) but I’m not really inclined to. I have come across every way of applying for positions you can think of. I have emailed CVs, handed CVs in to actual people, done online and paper applications, even just chatted to a charming pub landlady by means of applying for a bar job. I could write a detailed analysis of the process of applying for jobs, and if anyone feels like employing me to do such a thing I will certainly oblige.
One things I have noticed is the increased use of ‘personality tests’ when applying for jobs online. So far I’ve only come across them when applying for jobs in the financial sector, but these things have a tendency of spreading like bird flu so it probably won’t be long before McDonalds want to know if you’re a fire type or a water type and family run solicitors are making you do those inkblot tests.
They’re clearly based on some pseudo-scientific bullshit. They ask you to describe yourself in ways which are just, frankly, odd. You have to click on statements on a computer screen and, usually, rank them in some sort of order. The statements used are usually sweeping and either complete common sense (I am a good worker) or make no sense at all (I would rather write a letter with crayon than eat soup with a fork). This is clearly to stop people sussing them out and just lying to try and get the job. Usually they group qualities together in such a way that it’s impossible to work out which one they value the most highly. Are you organised or motivated? Er, can’t I be both? There’s some algorithm at work there that I just can’t crack.
It also must be a pretty flimsy way of getting to know someone. Selecting from a pre-thought up list of qualities must be extremely limiting. It also offers no opportunity for explanation, but you have to get through this crap to be able to properly talk about yourself. You don’t even get to fill out an online application before you go through this lot. Some computer sits there and appears to randomly allocate you a personality and, if you are deemed worthy, you can talk to an actual person and this actual person can see if you’re actually going to be any good at the actual job.
They also don’t work. By that I mean they can’t tell who is going to be good at a job and who isn’t. I know this for a fact because I used to work for a building society. I applied through their website and failed their personality test. A few months later I was offered an interview through an agency and, because once I was looking at a real person and could explain my skills and relevant previous experience they decided I might be able to do the job, I was offered it. I then went on not just to work in the customer service role I’d applied online for but to specialise in ISAs and Bonds which are considerably more complicated. The digital personality test didn’t know anything about me, let alone how shit hot I was when it came to advising people on tax free savings.
So they’re demoralising, confusing, infuriating and they don’t work, so why keep using them? Simple, despite what IDS says about there being thousands of jobs vacancies there just aren’t. There are, however, thousands of job seekers so putting some daft cyber roadblock to eliminate most of them in the early stages probably saves a lot of time for companies. It’s a pretty shitty way to treat people though. Yes, if there are eight thousand people applying for twenty vacancies you’re works cut out for you but at least have the common decency for it to be a person who turns you down, not some low-rate psychobabble squit of software. This is why everyone I know is emigrating to Australia*.
I would absolutely love it if these things disappeared. I'd love it even more if the irritating ones people keep putting up on Facebook disappeared as well. No, I don't care which Scrubs cast member I am (it's always Dr Cox, by the way) and if you need to build up a picture of yourself using a test someone else wrote to kill time you have bigger problems than I can fix.
I can haz job now plz? Kthnxbai
*True story.
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