Aspies For Freedom

I applied to an entry level position that I am over qualified for.  They replied two weeks later asking me to do an on-line personality profile test http://www.profilesontheweb.com    
Does anyone have any experience doing these?  I want to make my husband do the test.  The worst part about it is that I can not get the results until I go to the job interview.  Are many companies doing this?  

What should I do?

I don't know.  If you complete the profile and they reject you on the grounds of a personality test, you might be able to claim discrimination on the grounds of disability or something.  But would they admit they were rejecting you because of your personality?  They'd probably just say lots of good candidates blah blah very competitive blah blah others more qualified blah blah more experience blah blah.

Maybe you could try phoning the NAS helpline, or... there's that project called Prospects, for auties, funded by NAS/Department for Employment... they might be able to advise you what to do.

Well, I live in Canada.  I am going to be phoning the local human rights commision to try to get some information and advice.  

My husband told me that all the big companies are using these personality tests.  But usually they are given AFTER one is hired as an aid to management.  Some employers also only call references after you have had a trial work period and if the work performance is good they will disregard any negative comments from references.  This current trend of pre-selection testings and phoning references before interviewing is preventing me from getting any employment at all, except maybe for small companies that do not use these tests.    

I have had some interviewer tell me that they were looking for "someone who fits in" and "I did not look like I would fit in" as a reason for not employing me.  It definitely is personality.  But I am sure that these personality tests would show if someone has AS or autism or some personality disorder.   If so, that is discrimination.

My husband, who I have not told that I have AS, is telling me that I just have a bad attitude.  I am afraid to talk to him and usually do not discuss my job search with him.  He only found out about this because he reads my e-mail.  When I get upset or frustrated he does not become supportive but just angry at me.  I am afraid he will stop loving me if he finds out that I have AS.  Then my options will be a homeless shelter or living with my parents who do not know that I have AS either.

I applied for a job and had to take detailed personality, IQ, and numeracy skills test. They told me I scored very highly on the IQ test, and numeracy, and the job was for a cashier at a bank, and I was already working as a cashier, but I never heard back from them, and never got the job.

All I can assume is that I failed the personality test, and/or the interview.

Here are the two tests that I will be required to take and their definitions.  My question is:  Will these tests indicate that I have AS or any "personality problem" ?

"The ProfileXT
Assesses the individual's Thinking and Reasoning, Occupational Interests, and Behavioral Traits relative to a particular position . . . the Total Person."

"Profiles Performance Indicator
Measures five key personality factors (Productivity, Quality of Work, Initiative, Teamwork, and Problem Solving) and their impact on seven critically important aspects of success in business. This report helps you understand how an individual is effectively understood, motivated, and managed."

As behavioural traits are part of AS, such as special interests, routines, executive functioning, the first test looks like it could show the differences in AS, but it may show them in a positive sense, not negative, depending on what was needed for the job.

If it was a job that needed great focus on computers, and your test showed that you could focus strongly on special interests, and that one of the interests was computers, it would be positive.
But I wouldn't really want to trust the test, as it could easily show various traits as negative too.

Why employers use these tests.

"Hiring and Employee Development Tools – Why Test?

No one can find out everything about a candidate in the interview. Even the most skilled interviewers cannot uncover the depth of a candidate’s attitudes towards certain acceptable work place and job specific behaviors. Testing helps an interviewer see below the surface of the resume, the past performance, and the face-to-face impression. How much does it cost you to hire a mistake?

You CAN’T always make the right promotion decisions. How many of us have promoted the best person in the job to a management position…and they failed??? Good assessment tools help you prevent those costly MISTAKES…costly to you, the organization, and the employee.

Managers aren’t always good at their people coaching and development skills. Good tools help provide managers with valuable information to formulate development plans for an employee. It’s not enough to say "you’re doing good" or "you should try harder". Employees need concrete assessments of their performance and relevant information to create a development path. Good tools make it easy for any manager to provide that information and work with the employees to develop their potential.

If you were hiring a secretary, you’d the applicant a skills typing test, right? Wouldn’t you also want to know how organized the applicant was? If a candidate can type 120 WPM but needs a high level of management direction and hand holding, but you need someone who can keep it all together on their own, what good is that candidate? How do you find this out in the interview?

If you were hiring a computer programmer, you would give a test in the program application your company uses, right? Wouldn’t you also want to know if that candidate could work well under the pressure of deadlines or could handle many hours working on their own in a small workspace? Any applicant could tell you in the interview that he/she LOVES pressure and NEVER socializes at work. How do you know that’s REALLY the applicant’s personality and work style?

That’s why we use assessment and testing tools to help uncover what we DON’T see on the surface during the interview and what we may not have observed about ideal management behaviors BEFORE we hire or promote someone…and it’s a mistake! "

Of course, I do not want a job that I will hate.  Usually, I like the work but I hate having to interact with other workers too much.   Maybe welfare should test people and know why some people can not get work because of these tests.

I have never got around to reading any but I have seen books at the library telling people how to pass these sorts of tests. Many of the people that pass will not have done so by being honest :? .  It's hard to say if an employer could take action against someone for being different from his or her profile.

So far I have been up front with potential employers about Asperger's, but I am having help from Prospects (NAS) so its easier.

I have only briefly looked over the site and found that it is not the main outlet for this company. I would check out: http://www.profilesinternational.com which seems to be the web site for employers. know what your up against :!:

More persificaly check out: http://www.profilesinternational.com/com...sment.aspx

When I logged on the first three questions asked were sex, age and RACE.  I am feeling even more apprehensive about these tests now.

The e-mail this person sent me asking me to do these tests starts off with "thank you for sending your resume".  The e-mail also included my covering letter and resume that I sent.  Then the person asks me to "Could you also e-mail me a copy of your resume."  - No question mark.  So why are they asking me to e-mail my resume when they already have it and even sent me a copy of it?  I wonder if this person passed the tests?

The problem with these tests is that they are created with HR people in mind.   They're a tool for HR people to use to make their own roles look more scientific and important   :roll:

I mean, really, what's in it?  HR people, generally, just do the shortlisting on the basis of ticking off essential criteria and desirable criteria against a list, they usually haven't done the job that they're shortlisting and interviewing for, so at best, it's a lot of guesswork.

Implementing and administering some pseudoscientific personality tests makes it look like their decisions are based on something that can be empirically measured, covering up their guesswork.

I've read comments about this testing on other fora, where some of the members were asking about them, and some people replied saying that they were responsible for hiring for their department, but that the HR department carried out these tests for candidates, and sometimes the person who the personality tests say is a good candidate turns out not to be the right person for the job, and another person said that they overrode the results and hired someone who - according to their test results - they shouldn't have hired, but they'd clicked at the interview, and the hirer went with their gut feeling, and the person turned out to be ideal for the job and remained in the post for years.

Thank you for reminding me what half assed HR people are like.

My husband tells me to have a good attitude and play along with the interviewer's "games".   If the interviewer does not like me then I won't get the job.   - period.  So if they hate my race, don't like my hair etc.  But I can not honestly figure out why they ask those questions they do.  Really now, does it have something to do with having less empathy and having "mind blindness"?    Often they will try to trick me into saying something that makes me look bad.  I do not understand their motives in asking me certain questions.  

Why would someone ask "Tell me about your weaknesses."  I have been told that one should say something but turn it into a good thing ???????   I have tried saying things like "my biggest weakness is for chocolate."  But when they insist, I just feel that if they wanted to hire me then, they would not ask questions like that.  

"Are you a team player?"  "Or do you like team sports?" just means "do you do the work of lazy workers who can manipulate you into doing their share?"  I do not mind helping out when someone is sick.  But when someone tells me that I should do their work for them because they are fasting for Ramadan, they can go to hell.  Yes, I can be considerate of other workers such as putting away shared equipment or cooperating in scheduling shared equipment.  
But I am not interesting in sitting at lunch with them to listen to their conversations about stupid television programmes and such.  

"Are you good at multi-tasking?"  or "Are you well organized?" means that the last person with this job left because their work load was too great.  If you take this job you will be doing the work of two or three people and when you leave, two or three people will be hired to replace you.  

I was actually asked "How are your time management skills?" for a job that was just filing all day, JUST FILING.   So really, how would I manage my time while filing, then making sure I had more time to file and after lunch file some more.  Ridiculous.

I usually ask why the position is being filled.  Did the person before leave for personal reasons, get promoted, fired; is it a newly created position?  What answer is given is often useful in knowing how bad the job will really be.  

My sil gets jobs by reading up the subject on the internet.  After about one year they figure out she does not really know what she is doing.  She gets jobs like coporate trainer, vp of training and makes $70,000 -$100,000.  Mostly she writes training manuals or "change management" policies.  She has an English degree and a post grad diploma in adult education.  She has a high empathy score and extreme bullshit score.  She even got one job by borrowing a text book of mine on organizational behaviour.  I can not stand her but then the brother she is married to is not my favourite either.  

The government is the only employer I know that hires on ability only.  The problem is that you have to know someone there to know when the job competitions are posted.  You can not just put in a general application for any job.  You need to specifically apply for one position.  Sometimes they will just hire on contract as well.  But once you are in, they can not just fire you for any reason other than not doing your job.

Maybe if you all do not know, applying for jobs and gathering information about personalityt testing seems to be my current "interest".  

I did complete the on-line tests.  One was similar to the "big five test"  and the other had several parts:  mathematical reasoning and word logic and some questions like Myers-briggs.  I enjoyed the math part.  I actually printed out all the questions from the Profile XT test if anyone would like some samples.  The only thing is that the site does not supply the person being tested with the results.  If I had known that, I would not have bothered.  I decided that I am not going for an interview anyway because the job will take me 1.5 hours to get there travelling on public transit and they manufacture solvents which make me sick anyway.  I just feel like they would not hire me anyway.  I had phoned the company and asked if they hired people with disabilities and the person said "I don't know."  That did not impress me.

The problem is that most of the time, I do not know what answer I should pick to fool them.  I once asked at the government job help if they could teach me how to fool the tests.  The person just looked at me and asked my why I would want to do that?  And why would I want to get a job that I really did not like?   I wanted to say "because I want to make some money."  I have actually had very few jobs that I like.

I think some personality tests can show that someone has autism.  People do not gernerally want to hire someone with autism.

Being a "team player" does not mean someone who can work without supervision.  It means someone that "fits in" with other employees either by personality, race, culture etc and work in groups.   It is really a way of discriminating against certain people.  

Maybe you should ask your mother how many people with autism she has hired?

Posted: Sat Oct 22, 2005 11:33 am    Post subject:    

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"Thank you for reminding me what half assed HR people are like.

My husband tells me to have a good attitude and play along with the interviewer's "games". If the interviewer does not like me then I won't get the job. - period. So if they hate my race, don't like my hair etc. But I can not honestly figure out why they ask those questions they do. Really now, does it have something to do with having less empathy and having "mind blindness"? Often they will try to trick me into saying something that makes me look bad. I do not understand their motives in asking me certain questions.

Why would someone ask "Tell me about your weaknesses." I have been told that one should say something but turn it into a good thing ??????? I have tried saying things like "my biggest weakness is for chocolate." But when they insist, I just feel that if they wanted to hire me then, they would not ask questions like that.

"Are you a team player?" "Or do you like team sports?" just means "do you do the work of lazy workers who can manipulate you into doing their share?" I do not mind helping out when someone is sick.

Yes, I can be considerate of other workers such as putting away shared equipment or cooperating in scheduling shared equipment.
But I am not interesting in sitting at lunch with them to listen to their conversations about stupid television programmes and such.

"Are you good at multi-tasking?" or "Are you well organized?" means that the last person with this job left because their work load was too great. If you take this job you will be doing the work of two or three people and when you leave, two or three people will be hired to replace you."

I wondered about some of these things myself. It's terrible that anyone would say you have a "bad attititude" if you don't play along with games where the rules change all the time.