In this job hunt more than once I have encountered the assessment test that comes after you fill out the important parts of the application, meaning the contact information, employment history and "voluntary demographic information". It's purpose is to determine if you're character is suitable enough to be employed at a company and function without incident within it's culture.
It is patterned after a psychological test given to people who perform in occupations that involve high stress, or those where one would be responsible to either save or take another human beings life...typically an EMT or law enforcement officer. I first encountered this examination during my tenure at the Tulsa County Sheriff's Office, where the test was administered to me as I had indicated a desire to move from a jail officer to a law enforcement officer.
The test is about 300 questions and they are simple true or false questions that are restated recurring ones. That is, they ask a simple question like: "I drive a car designed for a family of four and 10-15 questions later it asks the same question in a restated form, such as "I drive a four door care or minivan". These are banal questions unrelated to the actual job, but interlaced with those sort of questions are leading ones like "My parents made me so mad I wanted to kill them sometimes" and 10-15 questions later the question was restated as "The thought of seeing my parents die pleases me".
Since progressing forward in law enforcement from from jail to street takes one from the relative unlikelihood of killing someone to the distinct possibility of killing someone in the course of a tour of duty, such an examination makes sense because you want a level-headed person with that responsibility as opposed to an unstable individual. Oh, there are people who slip through the cracks--it isn't perfect--but by and large it does weed out the people the Sheriff could trust to be handed the responsibility of being his deputy.
As far as I'm aware, I passed the test administered to me when I was desirous of being a law enforcement officer nearly 20 years ago. Meaning I could be trusted to handle the mighty responsibilities of carrying a gun and using it to defend myself and/or defend others from harm in a lawful manner and not to abuse the authority derived from such responsibility for evil or for other unlawful purposes.
Recently, when I filled out an application to work at a large volume department store and taking the accompanying assessment examination, (which was a lot shorter), I was informed by the computer assessor that I was deemed to be unsuitable to handle the mighty responsibilities of telling a clerk to sack groceries on aisle four and restock the bathrooms behind the potting soil.
Needless to say, I was dumbfounded.
I have worked in retail once in my life, from August 1999 to April 2000 I worked for a grocery store and I feel as if I learned the business fairly well. I applied for a managerial position, and having done that for the last 5 years in one capacity or the other I feel I can translate those skills to a retail job. All of those facts taken together had me asking why a computer had the final say as to whether or not I could proceed further in the application process?
When I started in the workforce 24 years ago the application process was that you apply, you get interviewed, and you were either hired or you weren't. It was simple and straightforward.
The point being: human element was involved and it relied on the judgement of those appointed over the candidate to make the hiring decision, NOT how many points a person made on the curve. In the end it's much like fighting city hall because one assumes that the statistics of computer versus a human being are worlds apart in terms accuracy.
What it really does is make a job search already hampered by a horrific economy that much harder to execute, and it just plain sucks ass.
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