I detest pre-employment personality tests... [View all]

[Ron Obvious]

First of all, I'm supposed to react anywhere from "agree strongly" to "disagree strongly" to a series of statements which mostly make me feel completely indifferent. Personally, I wouldn't hire the kind of neurotic who fills in nothing but strong agreements or disagreements, but what I think is irrelevant.

Then there's the "have you stopped beating your wife" type of questions:

"In previous jobs I had trouble coming to work on time, but that problem is behind me now". Agree or disagree?

Next, let's screen out all the honest and reasonable people and make sure we only hire liars and good little corporate soldiers:

"John comes home and finds out that he still has 17 cents in his pocket that belong to his employer. He decides not to worry about it. John is a thief".

"Ralph has a single beer with lunch even though he has to work in the evening driving his employer's truck. Ralph is behaving irresponsibly and should be fired."

Or are they trying to screen out the sort of officious blighters who would strongly agree with those?

"Mary's till comes up 3 cents short. After spending 5 hours of her own time rechecking everything, she finds the missing 3 cents. She has wasted her time."

Get a sodding life, Mary! You need therapy for your OCD!

I was hoping the final question was going to be:

"I think this test is a load of pop-psychology nonsense which reveals nothing whatsoever about my personality": Agree Strongly!