How to succeed in personality tests?

[berliita]

I'm doing a lot of job interviews these days. I'm applying for software development posts. I've recently earned my B.Sc. in CS, and this is my first serious job hunt ever. What sorts of questions are asked in a Personality Test? I'd appreciate any tips that can help me pass such a test successfully.

[Ireclan]

I'd just be as honest as possible. Your employer may value that above what some silly personality test says. I'll bet the personality test is just to weed out those who may have MAJOR incompatibility problems with people, so as long as you don't have a known history of social problems, I think you'll do fine.

[undine]

A personality test is not the sort of test that you either pass or fail; they are merely meant to provide some clues as to your dispositional makeup. They were originally designed to assist in diagnosis and treatment in a therapeutic setting, and their misapplication in the business world is a very great shame (right up there with the use of polygraph tests).

That said, if you want to 'cheat' these tests and create a more favourable impression, it is not difficult to do. Have a look at the Jung typology test over on humanmetrics.com , you'll see that it isn't hard to exploit the test, since the questions are quite direct. Most personality tests are the same. That's why in the context of a job interview/application, they are not only useless, but also misleading. In therapy, your aim is to get well, and thus you have an incentive to provie the therapist with accurate information so as to enable them to make the correct diagnosis; whereas in a job interview, you are actually motivated to lie, because your only objective is to get the job.

I myself have social anxiety disorder, and if I was really desperate for the job, there's no way in hell that I'd provide any indication of that on a personality test; why would I, or anyone else, sabotage themselves in this way? It's all a lot of nonsense really.

[Kingsley]

Make sure you answer the questions quickly so that the employer doesn't think you're second-guessing yourself or lying.

[Ultra Magnus]

I had to do one of these recently, it was an online one with about 600 questions, you know the typical strongly disagree, disagree, don't know, agree, strongly disagree thing.

Just tell the truth, its likely it'll ask the same questions over and over with slightly different wording so they'll be able to tell if you're lying.

But watch out!... In mine, most of them were just "I like working in a team" or " I condcut myself seriously at work" but after doing this for about an hour and a half on the second to last page there was a question:

"I often think about hurting people!"

Agree Don;t know disagree

It made me laugh but even if you do - put disagree instead!