# What the point?



## Vegas_Asian (Nov 2, 2008)

i am applying for a job online and these are some of the questions whose presence i don't understand:
-Do you talk a lot?
-Do you like being in the middle of a big crowd?
-There's no use having close friends, they only let you down
-Do you love to listen to people talk about themselves?
-Many people cannot be trusted?
-It's fun to go out to events with big crowds
-You are not interested in your friend's problems?
-People do a lot of annoying things?
-It is maddening when the court lets guilty criminals go free
-you don't believe a lot of things people say?
-You don't act polite when you don't want to? (i don't understand what they met, esp. with the double negative. Trick question?)
-You've done your share of troublemaking?
-You try to feel what people are thinking and feeling?

It may that they want to minimize the number of interview they have to do by asking these question, but answering with the options: agree, strongly disagree, disagree, or strongly disagree...doesn't do much to display a person's character as much as interview would. This would be one of the downsides of online applications.


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## Angela (Nov 2, 2008)

It looks like a personality test. They may be evaluating the personalities of the applicants to see what type of traits and work ethics a person has. My previous job used personality tests to determine if people were working in the right positions for their personalities. Some people got moved around in the company after that and were much happier in their new positions because they were more suited for the job.


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## robin.goodfellow (Nov 17, 2008)

It sounds like it's part of the Minnesota Multi-Phasic Personality Inventory (MMPI).  A lot of employers use that test to see if their employees are crazy or not (so to speak).  It's really  a cool test, b/c allegedly people who administer the test can tell if the person taking it is not telling the truth just by looking at the answers.  Or, that's what my abnormal psych professor told us when we discussed that test.

Some employers also give it on an annual or a semi-annual basis, but I'm not sure what sort of jobs have that kind of requirement.  Probably ones with a high pschological stress value.

So to answer your question, the point is to see right off the bat if you're crazy.  The good news is that you're probably not crazy if you don't see the point of the questions.

~robin


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## mom133d (aka Liz) (Nov 25, 2008)

I went to an IT interview and I think they asked me 1 IT related question. The rest were silly, "What is your favorite cartoon?" etc. A contact from another IT job I had interviewed for had put in a good word for me, so I figured that they were just talking to me as a favor. Then I got called back for 2nd interview. Odd, I thought. This interview was really no different than the first - basically no job related questions. I did try to steer the interview that way, I asked them IT questions... but I didn't get the job. 

But that was in my favor actually. A friend was temping for my current job and he let me know about the opening.


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## Cat (Nov 10, 2008)

VA said:


> -You don't act polite when you don't want to? (i don't understand what they met, esp. with the double negative. Trick question?)


No, not a trick question, you may just be overwhelmed with all the questions lol.

Read the question this way: If you don't feel like acting polite to someone you don't. 
yes/no, or true/false, or whatever they're having you answer. (Answer no/false/etc. if you want to say that you DO act polite even when you don't want to.)


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## Khabita (Oct 28, 2008)

Yup. Definitely personality screening -- MMPI or something similar. I had to laugh when, many years ago, I applied for a job as a SALES CLERK at Macy's, and was given a similar set of questions. Like, I was going to be Christmas help, for God's sake . . . maybe they just wanted to confirm that I wasn't going to shoot any customers!


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## Teninx (Oct 27, 2008)

Answer that you agree or disagree. Avoid the extremes on both ends.


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## Spiritdancer (Oct 27, 2008)

LOL  They are pretty crazy questions.  It does look like part of a personality inventory.  I had to take one when I was becoming a pastor, and it was from the 1950's or so...had all these anti-communism questions, and since only men were becoming pastors then, it was written for men.  In the True/False section there was a statement...  I like tall women.  Ok...as I woman, I figure I'm in trouble which ever way I answer!  (Not sure what the right answer was for the guys either!)


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## Teninx (Oct 27, 2008)

You know the deck is stacked against you when the statements sound like:

I expect to be a burden on my children as I age.

There's nothing wrong with drinking alone every day.

Sometimes I just want to sit in a dark room and sob.

I think I could survive a 60mph head-on collision.


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## Michael R. Hicks (Oct 29, 2008)

Well, in my case they skipped the usual 400 question (I'm not kidding!) personality test - I was told later by my first boss that (tongue only slightly in cheek) I was hired specifically because I was weird. Go figure...


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Teninx said:


> You know the deck is stacked against you when the statements sound like:
> 
> I expect to be a burden on my children as I age.
> 
> ...


And the ever popular, "Tell me, do you still beat your wife?"


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## chynared21 (Oct 28, 2008)

*Simple answers...nothing more, nothing less.*


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## robin.goodfellow (Nov 17, 2008)

A friend of mine applied for a job with the FBI and had to take what was probably the MMPI.  He came back laughing about it.  One of the questions he had to answer was

"Are you consumed by evil?"

He really felt that question should have been on the essay portion of the test.

~robin


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## Vegas_Asian (Nov 2, 2008)

robin.goodfellow said:


> "Are you consumed by evil?"
> ~robin


Answer: I wouldn't classify my plot to take over the world evil....


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## Mikuto (Oct 30, 2008)

robin.goodfellow said:


> It sounds like it's part of the Minnesota Multi-Phasic Personality Inventory (MMPI). A lot of employers use that test to see if their employees are crazy or not.


That explains why I've never gotten a job after filling one of those out...


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## ScottBooks (Oct 28, 2008)

Teninx said:


> I think I could survive a 60mph head-on collision.


I know I survived one...no bets on another one though.


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## Lotus (Oct 31, 2008)

I've been asked in two interviews what my star sign is. Oddly, I got both jobs and worked at both companies.

I've also taken the Myers-Briggs (sp.?) test, which was interesting, but it's not about whether you're a sociopath or not.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Lotus said:


> I've been asked in two interviews what my star sign is. Oddly, I got both jobs and worked at both companies.


I think I might be a little insulted to get a question like that. It sounds so much like a bad pick up line. I mean, I'm there for a job, right? Not a date. But here's my story:

So, I joined the Navy out of college and was qualified to be an Instructor at the Navy Nuclear Power School in Orlando. All Nuclear Power officers had to be interviewed by Admiral Rickover and his staff. There were, as I recall, 3 or 4 technical interviews where professorial types would stand you in front of a chalk board, hand you a piece of chalk and say something like "derive the quadratic formula, explain as you go." Or "explain what happens when mixing amonia and bleach, show the chemical reactions. . .". Very Intense and Stressful.

The final interview of the day was with the Admiral himself. You sit in a small chair across from him behind his big desk. Behind you there's a table where two other guys (Navy Captains not in uniform, I later learned) sit and take notes. I was asked if I expected to get married and how was math (I was a math major) like being married. He's looking to see if you can keep your cool and think outside the box, and appropriateness didn't enter into it. The final question was "which of those two guys back there is better looking". At first I declined to answer but he said I had to, so I picked one. Then he sent me out in the hall to wait.

A few minutes later he sent the guy I had NOT picked to ask me why I thought the other one was better looking. Mind you, I was just 21 and these guys were in their 40's (plus). Neither one was particularly attractive to me at the time; I'd chosen completely at random. But the guy who came out had a comb over so I told him the other guy had better hair.

I did get the position. . . .got thoroughly drunk that night. . . . .

Ann


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

The Admiral apparently hadn't changed much over the years.  A very good friend of ours, a Naval Academy graduate ("ring knocker") who is in his mid 70s now, interviewed with ADM Rickover sometime around 1959-61, my husband can't quite remember.  Walter flew from San Diego to DC for the interview, waited 3 days for in the outer office (I guess he went home at night, LOL) and then the Admiral told him to come back in 90 days after he lost weight.  ADM Rickover wrote a letter to Walter's wife telling her to put him on the diet.  Walter came back thinner and got the job.

Betsy


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