During the course of your job search, you will be asked to take many different kinds of tests. It can be easy to dismiss these tests as a waste of time. But when you understand how these tests can shape your career, then you learn to take them a bit more seriously. For example,
personality tests taken at regular intervals can be extremely powerful job search tools and they can also be effective at advancing your career.
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Who administers personality tests?
Personality tests have become more popular as screening tests for employment candidates. These are tests that are used by potential employers and recruiting agencies to determine if a particular candidate meets the organisation’s standards.
How do I pass or fail a personality test?
A personality quiz is not graded like a math test. Instead, it is an evaluation that gives the company specific results based on criteria that the company has created. The personality test will indicate your traits and tendencies based on your responses to the questions.
Why do companies give personality tests?
There are several reasons why companies administer personality tests, but the primary reason is to determine if you have the
personality traits for success and tendencies the company is looking for in its employees. In many cases, the results of personality tests are geared towards specific positions and offer the company an insight into how you would work under pressure, how you would respond to authority and whether you would work well with others.
How can personality tests help my career?
Many companies use the initial personality test given during the screening process as a baseline for the rest of your time with the company. You will take more tests, usually at random times, to measure any changes in your personality. These changes can either show a promising development towards a more professional approach, or it could show a regression towards a type of behaviour that the company is not willing to tolerate.
When many companies look to promote employees to positions of more significant responsibility, they use personality tests to choose the employees that seem most prepared for the move.
By working hard and developing your professional attitude, you can show progress on your personality tests and move up the corporate ladder.
What if I get rejected because of a personality test?
It is rare that a company will tell you if your results on a personality quiz were the primary reason behind not hiring you, so you may never know if the personality test cost you a chance at a job. But personality tests are so scientific these days that the results will usually mirror the qualities that the company is looking for. If a company rejects you because of a personality test, then you would not have fit that company’s culture anyways. Remember that personality tests are different for each company. Doing poorly on one company’s personality test does not mean you will score poorly on all of them.
In the course of your job search, it’s likely that you’ll need to take a personality quiz at some point. If this happens, use it to your advantage: leverage the insights from the personality test to understand your strengths and weaknesses and how you might fit into an organisation.
