Hufflepuff13

Account Executive

Increase in Academic/Personality Assessments in Job Interviews

Has anyone noticed an increase in academic and personality assessments as part of the hiring process? I've recently interviewed for a few roles and roughly half required me to take a personality and/or academic test to even be considered for an interview.

What do you think about them? Do you feel they are fair or do they open the opportunity to discriminate? Are they more of a positive or a negative? Curious what everyone's experience and/or opinion on them is.

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16 comments

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Pachacuti

Politicker

They call me Daddy, Sales Daddy

I hate those assessments. HR people LOVE them. Which is why I hate HR people (always as a whole and often individually).

punishedlad

Tycoon

Business Development Team Lead

Definitely a negative, IMO. Usually pretty annoying, and yes, I think it can open the door for discrimination. If you really need to do a personality test to decide if I'm a "culture fit" then you're doing a poor job uncovering what you want to know during the interview process.

Hufflepuff13

Contributor

Account Executive

I kind of agree with you. It's a lot to ask a candidate to commit to an hour long assessment prior to even being considered for an interview. And Personality tests are hardly science. How can you know if someone will be a good fit for your team based off questions they can easily fake the answers to?

Diablo

Politicker

Sr. AE

Woh I hate it, too time consuming plus I don’t know what value it’s add though I am sure there is some value add 😂

TennisandSales

Politicker

Head Of Sales

red flag for sure.

I HATE those personality assessments.
for my first Saas AE role i had to take one of those things and the results came back and said I would not be good at closing or prospecting.......which was WILD since I had been closing for 5 years and then was an SDR.

the hiring manager agreed it was weird and i took it again and passed.

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

I haven't been job hunting for a while, but I am definitely not a fan of these "assessments". Junk science is junk science and a total waste of time.

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

Not to mention you can totally game these.

HVACexpert

Politicker

sales engineer

Not a new thing, I interviewed for inside sales roles over 10 years ago where they did this.

GDO

Politicker

BDM

Those are just stupid. They have 0 empirical evidence

PandaBar

Politicker

SDR

What are the official names of the tests you're seeing? Curious if we're coming across the same ones

MileHighSolo

Personal Narrative

SVP of Sales

I have seen Caliper Profile Test and Wonderlic tests recently. Caliper has personality and IQ test-type questions. Personality testing is more to see if you'll jive with your direct manager. IQ test just tells them is you are good at IQ tests. Not necessarily if you can sell well. I've met so many great salespeople that never graduated college and/or wouldn't have scored well on a SAT.

RelationshipMaker

Opinionated

Head of Sales

They're normally at the pointy end of the process, you know, after 2-3 rounds and you've being shortlisted. Doing one before you've even met someone from the organisation seems a little bold.

SalesinSeattle

Valued Contributor

Account Executive

My experience is that this is "old school" thinking and that most organizations are moving away from it. It's been clearly demonstrated that it doesn't really help with "fit" as it's highly unscientific and can weed out potential high performers who don't fit the mold of what you "expect" them to look like.

DUTheRightThing

AM (Account Manager)

I agree that these assessments are not great interview tools. But, I have found the enneagram assessment useful for interpersonal relationships within the work place. Upon meeting the market development manager I work with, she told me she was an enneagram 8 and that helped me know to not be offended by her brusque-ness. By the way, this is my first comment in the Bravado community. Ive been reading comments for weeks and I get the sense that this is a male-dominated community, based on comments. Are there any females in this community??

lajefa

Good Citizen

Enterprise Account Executive

Yes Female here. And personality tests are stupid to use in the hiring process. They can be useful in team building exercises when used properly.

DUTheRightThing

AM (Account Manager)

hi! @lajefathanks for your response.

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Hufflepuff13

Increase in Academic/Personality Assessments in Job Interviews

16 comments

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