After bombing the tests, she says, she was told her scores prevented her from advancing to the next level of interviews. She was given two to three hours to answer 50 questions, including 50 high school algebra equations. It took her 50 minutes to fail and to have her self esteem crushed. Assessment tests must be strongly tied to job performance, says Rudder. A company must be able to prove their assessments are well researched and test what they say they are testing, she says.
Smaller companies tend to do things their own way.
Once when she was working as a human resources consultant, she recalled, she came across a CEO who wouldn't hire anyone for a sales job who hadn't been captain of his or her basketball or football team. The use of personality tests is on the rise, Rudder says. The most common exams are respondent surveys. Candidates are given statements and asked to fill in boxes indicating the degree to which they agree or disagree with the statements. Increasingly, Rudder says, companies are turning to personality tests not to screen the anti-socials but to predict if a person will be happy and productive in a job.