Job Applications - Fuck Off with your Online Tests

[TheHateIsNotGood]

Just that really. Been self-employed for many years, 95% wfh. Trade had got a bit slow and I thought I'd like to work in the outside world and have a bit of paye employment T&Cs too.

Seems everyone wants some psychometric, skills and the dreaded 'Situational Judgement' Test.

Some of these I'm quite delighted to thoroughly fail as Office Politics isn't a strength of mine; and yes I'm looking at you Civil Service - there isn't a UK Resident alive who at best knows at least 3 people still waiting for the DVLA to get their arse in gear.

Such a shame so many jobs come under CS remit - delivering a crap public service whilst being more concerned about how your colleagues are 'performing' is not one of my "strengths". Proud to report I'm 14th Percentile at that.

But is it really necessary to complete a similar test for every job going? Even an application for a part-time (8hrs pw) online order picker (nights) required a 'Situational Judgement' Test.

Maybe I'm destined to be forever self-employed......

It’s also the multiple interviews and tests and meet the team. Having interviews with different people to then find out the pay isn’t what was advertised and they are only offering NMW and you have have to give your kidney. Wankers!

Haha - many thanks for hearing that my experiences are not just a phenomenon.

Seems also that a sense of humour is an angle that many of these tests are lacking - and yes I'm looking at you CS, again, as evidenced by the humourless CS employees that proudly declare their status here.

Can you imagine if these psycho-babble tests measured humour as a quality that was sought?

Good night and sweet dreams for now......

@Cocopogo

@Taxwolf and after 20 years are you at the top of the CS command or are these well balanced people jumping through hoops for little more than minimum wage in a job with no prospects of promotion anytime soon?

This^

I also agree with the person who remarked how does the recruiter know the candidate completed the (damn online robot algorhythm) test ? (There's plenty of candidates who have had their job applications completed on their behalf by a friend or relative. Mostly to strong arm the candidate into the resulting interview, but hey.)

Just who or what are they trying to weed out anyway ? Do recruiters i.e. hiring managers not know how to interview anymore ? Frankly it serves them right if they just end up with drones who have sussed how to fill in their stupid one-size-fits-no-one online tests.

Situational awareness. Give me strength ! Management level questions for a rank and file office job. Really ? Yes, I'm speaking from experience looking at you Passport Office.

No they are not on minimum wage in dead end jobs and quite a few are promoted quickly.

The CS had greatly improved in the 20 years since I was was recruited, I believe, because they now manage to select people based on their ability to do the job and get on with their colleagues.

I have also been involved in interviewing recently. Frankly, if people ‘cheat’ in the tests because they can’t get the required mark, they are unlikely to get through the interview.

Plenty of humour in the CS - if you deign to get to an interview, you'll find it starts there....

But seriously, if you're this negative about the entire CS now, why do you want to work there?

Ds worked through 6th form at our local supermarket, went off to Uni and for first 2 years went back during the holidays. When he came home for lockdown he popped into the shop spoke to manager who said we would love you back but you will have to apply online. He failed the test ! Manager said nothing they could do to override it !

Next is good. You get a response immediately. They have lots of jobs.

They're looking for particular types of people and can weed them out through these types of tests. Not everybody thinks in the same way though, so they could be rejecting perfectly suitable people just to suit some algorithm. This effects neuro divergent people who may struggle with all this team focused stuff.

@RedToothBrush

They are bollocks.

You don't even answer honestly. You answer as if you are trying to pass a test and give the answer you think they want.

All it is then, is who can jump through hoops in the correct manner.

It also means you only recruit people who are all the same. It reduces diversity of thought in the workplace which i do think has massive consequences.

The BBC were (don't know if they still are) using them for example.

Agreed - so the whole process is dishonest on both sides. Recruitment has become less fair and works less well in selecting the right people.

@Taxwolf we must work in very different parts of the CS. The people recruited in to my job since we moved over to CS around 7 years ago are infinitely less suited to the role, have no life experience and have simply learnt how to pass stupid online tests and trot out the 'correct answers' in the interview. Lo and behold they are then overwhelmingly crap at the job and/or move in to management very quickly due to knowing how to get through CS interviews. They then become useless managers with no experience and no one respects them!

OP - I was (sort of) you last summer. Self Employment crashed due to combination of Covid and IR35 changes. I just wanted to work and at the time there were lots of jobs advertised at Tesco.
I failed the test.
Came on here to ask about it and I was accused of being superior for thinking I ought to be able to pass it. On the other hand a kind person offered to take it for me.

They are utter shite, in my (evidently not very) humble view.
On the other hand they "saved me" from working in Tescos and I now have a much better paid job with sociable hours which I suppose I might not have got.

One of my brothers works for the CS. He's thoroughly unpleasant.

Those tests are bollocks because obviously you’re going to tell them what you think they want to hear. Yes I am a robot. I never show emotion at work. I take time to explain things to customers. If I have spare time I will definitely ask around for extra work. Hahahaha. No.

Indeed are terrible for this. You apply for a marketing job and you have to take random shit tests about your ‘attention to detail’ or some such.

The tests serve a purpose in that they weed out the worst applicants. By "worst" I don't necessarily mean the ones who are less able to do the job, but the ones that aren't willing to put a bit of effort in. If somebody can't be arsed to do a test when applying, chances are they would have a "can't be arsed" attitude to the job too. It's the same with application forms to an extent, most jobseekers have a CV ready to go but a certain percentage will be put off applying because they actually have to copy and paste their qualifications etc. into a form.

When I was recruiting I didn't use tests or application forms, I preferred to just accept CVs as I felt you got a better feel for the individual that way (like the nutter who sent four CVs to cover his different skill sets, presumably thinking Dwight in the American version of "The Office" was somebody to aspire towards). But, when hundreds of people apply for a single job, they do have a place in removing the worst of the garbage before a human sits down to look at them.

My friend was PA to a boss who would only have hotties for phone sales her job was to bung any applicants over the age of 30 in the bin. That was a strange type of selection, he would then interview the rest. He was over 50 then

Maybe the attitude to the test is part of the test?

I did the ASDA one and never heard back from them. I'm educated to degree level and like to think I have a fair amount of common sense. It never asked anything about qualifications so they don't know that I'm overqualified to stack shelves. Sucks to be completely ignored though.

I often don’t even interview for roles with this requirement, such bullshit

Sorry bit of a rant as we are short staffed because no one can pass the online application.

It's fucking pathetic.

I know people with the relevant qualifications, two references ready to go, good CVs, applying for vacancies in shortage areas, who can't get a bloody interview.

This is from local Asda and B&Q to technical production units and the regional hospital lab.

Something's really not right.

Civil servant. I use those tests to keep the numbers down. Well aware I’m probably missing good candidates as a result but I don’t want to have to sift 200 applications for one job every the time so I’ll do whatever I can to get the numbers down. Happy to help coach you through the tests if it would help.

On one job website the show your results in bands- despite getting top marks in several tests people see me ugly face and hard no me. You have my sympathy OP

A couple of years ago I had to take a maths test for a job. I'm good at maths normally but it was SO HARD. Just as an example, they gave a table of exchange rates with about eight currencies down the side and a range of dates across the top and the questions were like

"If you exchanged £92.45 for Yen on September 17th, then spent 15.46 Yen, then exchanged your remaining money for Pesos on September 30th, then spent half of that before exchanging the remainder for US Dollars on October 18th, how much money would you have left?"

Literally every question was this complicated and you had ONE MINUTE per question. 50 questions total. I nearly hyperventilated I was so stressed out. Apparently the "pass" mark was about 10% because so few people managed to get through it, much less get much of it right. I think it was to weed out people who were "too smart" for the job as much as it was to weed out people who weren't smart enough - apparently that's definitely a consideration in many police departments (people who are too smart won't be comfortable enforcing stupid or unfair laws).

I am late forties and have never had to do one of these tests until recently. I work in a very niche industry that is small and specialised and generally most jobs have been through networking of some sort (linkedin, agents ringing me etc).

I applied for a job recently and had to do this test - they knew and I knew that the test was pretty pointless due to my experience in that exact job in the very niche industry. But as the company was american it was just what they had to do..

Bloody awful - it was things like, if Dave is standing behind Amanda, and Amanda is in front of Josh, but Brian is in front of Ian, which one was picking their nose?

I hate these! I spent hours once rewriting my cv and putting together a cover letter for a job I was perfect for and had years of experience! I was then sent a skills test via indeed which consisted of those pictures of symbols / shapes and you need to select what picture would come next… didn’t have a bloody clue and failed miserably. Application was rejected within minutes, their loss.

@RealhousewifeofBarnardCastle

I often don’t even interview for roles with this requirement, such bullshit

See, it screens people out who can't be arsed