[mordechai9000]

Many years ago, barely out of high school, I took a test for a temporary warehouse stock picking job. The test was primarily concerned with the applicants' attitude to authority and violence. Oh, and theft, of course. Many questions were repetitive, and used slight variation in wording or reversed meaning to ask the same things over and over again.

So, on a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you agree with these statements? Sometimes it is ok to hit people. I feel like hitting my boss sometimes. Some people deserve to be punched. Sometimes is is necessary to use violence to solve a problem. Taking pens from work isn't really stealing. Etc.

I suppose they must've managed to screen out at least some of the people who are not very smart and prone to violence and theft.

[al_borland]

This only really screens for people who aren’t aware enough to choose the right answers. It’s an IQ test without being an IQ test.

In reality, sometimes it is necessary to use violence to solve a problem. If someone is trying to kill me, that’s a problem. It is perfectly acceptable to meet that violence with violence to stop it and get away. Will that ever happen in a normal workplace, and will it be my go-to move? Almost certainly not, but the “sometimes” does leave the possibility open to that unlikely event.

[PH95VuimJjqBqy]

> and will it be my go-to move?

speak for yourself, earlier today I punched someone for taking too long to answer my question.

/s

[JR1427]

With these kinds of tests, which have seemingly absurd questions with obvious desirable and undesirable answers, I have always wondered whether what is being analysed is not the face value answer, but something more nuanced.

For example, people answering questions honestly might answer them slightly differently to people who are lying and trying to get the correct answer.

E.g. To the question "how often do you get angry?", the answer "never" would be (potentially) highly desirable, but probably not honest. Whereas "sometimes" would be honest. So maybe some questions are there only to try and gauge honesty of the answers, so other questions can be interpreted with more confidence.

Maybe the designers of these questionnaires have innocuous-sounding questions that are really a test of whether the candidate is answering honestly, e.g. "Have you ever stayed in your pyjamas all day?" (just a silly example, but hopefully you see what I'm getting at).

[kevinventullo]

They’re not. I have found that the dumbest possible interpretation is the correct one in this case.

[kelseyfrog]

That's right. They're what very online people would called HR-pilled.

You: but *sometimes violence is justified, no?

HR: No.

[cool_beanz]

It's like they are screening for people who are most likely to take abuse without pushback.

[BriggyDwiggs42]

Any company using a test like that on applicants deserves to have its pens stolen