Mrs. Mike says it is a tool that they (her company) uses to find out what kind of person is in the position and over time they can see who or what type of person is successful at that job description...then when they have to hire a new person for x position they know in the past type Z worked in that position and they will most likely hire a z type person...

She also said, fill it out and don’t worry, you got the job.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: MikeinNC,

Not only are these HR types not embarrassed by this shit, they are proud of it. It gets much worse at large corporations. We have diversity % requirements and woe be to the manager who dares suggest we hire based on pure merit. There are upper positions I won't even waste my time applying for because I know there is no chance in hell I will be selected as an old school white guy.

The interview process has become a total joke, with requirements for diversity in the candidates that eliminate some good people even getting an interview. And stupid questions like "how many balloons would fit in this room?" Yes that is an actual question HR asked one of my employees.

See, what Lord V posts is the kind of HR shit that makes everyone think poorly if these tests/tools.

I cannot imagine asking how many balloons would fit in a room. Who the fuck cares. But some of these tools worked at telling me if someone was suited for the job, based on their personality, and the things that motivate them.
Hiring someone for a job as an order selector when they are a “free spirit” and the type that doesn’t care to follow rules, or a chain of command. Someone who feels that collaboration is necessary in most all situations... While they may be great people, they would probably not make great order selectors who would have a monotonous job of picking groceries.

As far as hiring supervisors and managers, the PI or Harrison Assessment wasn’t used to select the people. It was given after the fact so that you can see what types of communication work, if the person is in a stressful situation, what is their probable reaction, etc. it’s just a tool to help.

As a leader you still need to get to know people and you cannot rely solely on some predictive index or assessment. You should have the relationships that are built within a workplace, but this can help you get there a lot quicker. These are tools that can help you get the most from an employee, while also knowing how to make them feel appreciated, and not having to spend a year figuring out the employees personality.

It is especially helpful when you have well North of 100 people who report to supervisors and managers that report up to you. As much as I would like to, I didn’t have time to befriend and learn the personalities of 150 people. I had a business to run. I knew their names, and if there was some serious issues occurring, or productivity issues, I could look at the PI or Assessment and have an idea of how to communicate with someone, and achieve positive results.

I’m not some crazy HR loon that would ask about quantity if balloons in a room, and I never promoted because of gender or choice in sexual partners, or whatever. People were always promoted on merit.

But I guess it doesn’t matter, because I think these types of things are a good tool to have in your toolbox. Reading what some of you have written, I must be a foaming at the mouth madman liberal commie that is full of horseshit, and hires only the gayest flamboyant people available, no matter if they know the job or not.

Beancooker,

I honestly do not mean to attack you. I am just relating my experiences with my companys HR dept.

I have an employee who did very poorly on one of these "personality" tests with HR. He had worked for me for 3 years as a contractor so I knew him well. The personality test said he wouldnt be a good fit for customer service. Yes, he is an introverted guy and doesnt like these types of tests and was extremely nervous during the test so he bombed. But I know the guy, and the customer loves him. He was the perfect fit for the job, because he had actually been doing it for 3 years for us, it was just now we wanted to make him a full time employee.

HR has no idea no what makes a good field rep, or what I need on my team. I know what my team needs, what my customers need. I can teach someone the job, I cant teach attitude. Ill take a rookie I can train over a veteran who is an ass. I wouldnt presume to say I should help pick labratory guys, I am not a chemist, or an IT guy, so why does someone who has never done the job or set foot in a customers facility get to decide what I need or who would be a better fit in my plant?

I dont think you are a commie, liberal, or madman, and yes I am guilty of lumping all HR folks into a bucket, so I apologize for that. I am just relating my experience, with folks who did in fact, ask about baloons in a room. I appreciate that you wouldnt, and I wish you were my HR manager!

Lord V, thanks. While I’m not actually an HR Manager, to an extent it has been part of my career. I think that HR is just like any other job. There are some that suck. There are some that are so stupid, they ask questions like the balloon question. But it’s those people that give a bad rap to all the good ones.
Yes, HR has been a huge PITA for me in the past. I was fortunate enough that I have always held a high enough position in the companies that I work for, that HR has been a support role, but never had the power to dictate rule of law.

There was one point that our HR manager said that any and all terminations had to be approved by her. I said that I agreed that she had a valid point and that most terminations would be discussed with her prior. She questioned the “most” part.
I said if someone is caught stealing, red handed, I would terminate on the spot. She wanted that person suspended and we all could discuss it the next day with the employee and give the employee an opportunity to explain the misunderstanding. I laughed and said we will see. She told me that if I terminate someone without her approval, it would be grounds for termination for me. I smiled and again stated we will see.

Fast forward a month. This situation arose. Kid had packs of cigs in his pocket. Stamped with Stilliguamish Tribal tax stamps. Asked where he bought the cigs, he said at the market down the street. Stilliguamish tribal smoke shops were 150 miles away. I gave the kid the opportunity to return the cigs and no charges would be filed. He returned them, and I fired him on the spot.
The next day the HR lady was losing her mind over this. She reports to the CFO, who told her he didn’t see a problem with my actions, live with it.
She takes her case to the CEO, and she asked me to accompany her. I happily did, while she is just fuming mad. She explains that she laid down the law that no terminations without her approval. She explained that she warned me that it would be grounds for termination if I defied her directions. Our CEO simply stated “know your role” and sent us back to work.

I was fortunate enough to work for a group of really great owners who are good at business and put the BS aside so they can make money. Not everyone is that fortunate.

That said, back to the topic at hand, I think some of these tests are good. They give insight that you may not know, or would take a long time to learn about someone. It gives you the opportunity to understand some character traits about a person when you have far too many employees to get to know them on a level like that. It also goes back to it’s a tool. Not a be all end all solution or a replacement for relationships.

Just as well, if someone said they wanted a specific person on their team, and had valid reasons why this person would do good in that role, I would forgo the tests and just hire that person on. If they worked out, great. If not, find another. Personal recommendations from a supervisor, manager, or team leader would always trump a PI or Assessment.

Tests cannot replace a solid series of interviews.

Unfortunately we have forgotten how to conduct effective face-face interviews that expose potential weaknesses and faults.

quote:

Originally posted by Graniteguy:
Tests cannot replace a solid series of interviews.

Unfortunately we have forgotten how to conduct effective face-face interviews that expose potential weaknesses and faults.

Agreed, when interviewing for a supervisory position or above. When you have 150 employees, PI tests narrow down the pool of applicants.
Just as well, something I should have mentioned a while ago, is when we started using the PI tests to hire order selectors, the people hired that scored high on the PI, on average, were longer tenured employees. This is because we were hiring people who wanted to do that type of work and it fit their personality.


If running a small business with 50 or so people, sure, there would be little to no need for these types of things. Larger companies, yes, it is necessary.

Even fir a small business, if you can get the right person in the right position, faster than you can doing a bunch of face to face interviews, why wouldn’t you use the tools available?

A lot if what I just typed is just repeating myself.
At this point I don’t think there is much more to try to justify or defend to an audience that simply doesn’t care to understand how this could be helpful.

I am certain that if you haven’t actually been in the position of working for a company that employs 500+ people and 150+ are your direct and indirect reports, you just wouldn’t understand.

There are quite a lot of people that have interviewing skills. I doubt the majority of detectives give personality tests to ferret out the guilty ones. I think it is a matter of misplaced belief in technology and cost savings.

Tests to determine arithmetic, reading and typing skills are valuable and have their place.

quote:

Originally posted by Scurvy:
We use something similar at work but we send them out to candidates before we make an offer.

Our system determines you tendencies in a few categries. Are you assertive or passive, are you social or restrained, are you structured or off the cuff etc.

There are no right or wrong answers but we do have a general idea of what tendencies we are looking for for a given position.

Since you already have an offer, my guess is that its going to be used in a 'how do I like to be managed' style.

Not necessarily so. A long time ago I had accepted a written offer, followed by a "withdraw" of the offer by the hiring company after they made me take a personality test. They obviously did things backwards and were wholly at fault. But these days, as crazy as some HR departments can be, I wouldn't put anything past them, including withdrawing their offer or giving you hell because of their political mandates.

quote:

Originally posted by LS1 GTO:
Haha, I used the weaknesses as my goals to strengthen for the next year.

Such as, when I read the results it said I wasn't very outgoing. Why? Because I don't search out those senior to me just to have a conversation about the weather...

Go figure.

Quite some years ago now, I was a line manager in IBM. Periodically, we would get some BS from "personnel like what you describe. Most of us managers took it with a grain of salt and ignored it.

A peer manager had a real problem with one of his employees, She had intentionally destroyed about 5 million dollars worth of product, which stopped the production line for nearly a week.

At our management meeting he asked what to do (she was a minority employee).

I happened to be the first one to answer, and said to fire her. All the others agreed. 2nd, 3rd, 4th line managers all agreed.

Personnel told the firing manager that he could not fire her as she was a minority. It dragged on a few days, then I told the firing manager to tell personnel that he had fired the woman, and if they didn't want her fired, to transfer her to personnel.

He did so, and she was gone that day.

Moral? Line management runs the company, not some BS support function.

Personnel is there to support line management. It's their damned job!

quote:

Originally posted by Elk Hunter:

quote:

Originally posted by LS1 GTO:
Haha, I used the weaknesses as my goals to strengthen for the next year.

Such as, when I read the results it said I wasn't very outgoing. Why? Because I don't search out those senior to me just to have a conversation about the weather...

Go figure.

Quite some years ago now, I was a line manager in IBM. Periodically, we would get some BS from "personnel like what you describe. Most of us managers took it with a grain of salt and ignored it.

A peer manager had a real problem with one of his employees, She had intentionally destroyed about 5 million dollars worth of product, which stopped the production line for nearly a week.

At our management meeting he asked what to do (she was a minority employee).

I happened to be the first one to answer, and said to fire her. All the others agreed. 2nd, 3rd, 4th line managers all agreed.

Personnel told the firing manager that he could not fire her as she was a minority. It dragged on a few days, then I told the firing manager to tell personnel that he had fired the woman, and if they didn't want her fired, to transfer her to personnel.

He did so, and she was gone that day.

Moral? Line management runs the company, not some BS support function.

Personnel is there to support line management. It's their damned job!

Peronnel (HR) does NOT exist to support the line managers. Their purpose is to protect the COMPANY.

quote:

Originally posted by wrightd:
Peronnel (HR) does NOT exist to support the line managers. Their purpose is to protect the COMPANY.

No, HR is there to protect the employee from managers like the one I replaced at one point in my career. He was a dipshit who promoted his friends and drinking buddies. They pranked employees they didn’t like. It was like high school all over again until he was replaced. Truly a nightmare fir his subordinates.

HR is definitely there to protect the company. They protect the company from frivolous complaints of racism, favoritism, sexism, and many other “ism’s”
They are also there to protect against faulty L&I or Workman’s Compensation, or whatever state branded insurance claims a scumbag employee is trying to work, to suck free paychecks from the system.

Being that I came from a company that bridled their HR department, I don’t have many issues with HR. Any that I had, were squashed by the CFO, and CEO, and after that, things were pretty great.

quote:

Originally posted by Beancooker:

quote:

Originally posted by wrightd:
Peronnel (HR) does NOT exist to support the line managers. Their purpose is to protect the COMPANY.

No, HR is there to protect the employee from managers like the one I replaced at one point in my career. He was a dipshit who promoted his friends and drinking buddies. They pranked employees they didn’t like. It was like high school all over again until he was replaced. Truly a nightmare fir his subordinates.

HR is definitely there to protect the company. They protect the company from frivolous complaints of racism, favoritism, sexism, and many other “ism’s”
They are also there to protect against faulty L&I or Workman’s Compensation, or whatever state branded insurance claims a scumbag employee is trying to work, to suck free paychecks from the system.

Being that I came from a company that bridled their HR department, I don’t have many issues with HR. Any that I had, were squashed by the CFO, and CEO, and after that, things were pretty great.

Then you were fortunate the executives were people of common sense, or that an executive didn't use HR as a weapon. Sometmes politics can get so thick that HR can be used as a weapon against competent employees. If you felt the need to blow the whistle, for example, HR could terminate your ass if the executives wanted to prevent you from doing so, particularly if they were the guilty parties involved. HR can be used as a weapon as well as any other department can in Govt. etc., the recent behavior of our own FBI and Justice Departmens in the previous White House admnistration for example. HR is only as good as the people in them and the executives they answer to. When corruption and shit role downhill from the top, HR doesn't have a magic shield to keep them from getting dirty any more so than any other department.

I'm sure the occasional person likes their HOA, too, but on thr whole the poor reputation is well deserved.

quote:

Originally posted by Beancooker:

quote:

Originally posted by wrightd:
Peronnel (HR) does NOT exist to support the line managers. Their purpose is to protect the COMPANY.

No, HR is there to protect the employee from managers like the one I replaced at one point in my career. He was a dipshit who promoted his friends and drinking buddies. They pranked employees they didn’t like. It was like high school all over again until he was replaced. Truly a nightmare fir his subordinates.

HR is definitely there to protect the company. They protect the company from frivolous complaints of racism, favoritism, sexism, and many other “ism’s”
They are also there to protect against faulty L&I or Workman’s Compensation, or whatever state branded insurance claims a scumbag employee is trying to work, to suck free paychecks from the system.

Being that I came from a company that bridled their HR department, I don’t have many issues with HR. Any that I had, were squashed by the CFO, and CEO, and after that, things were pretty great.

I'm an HR Director for a medical campus and can assure you HR is there to protect the COMPANY and advocating for EE's in secondary to that. It is a tough line to walk advocating for employees and protecting the company but in the end we exist to protect the company.

You looked at it as HR protecting employees from a bad manager when in reality it was HR protecting the company from potential litigation caused by a poor manager.

quote:

Originally posted by Chris17404:
Beancooker is correct. These types of assessments can be extremely helpful in developing a great culture within a team or company. I have experienced this type of stuff first hand. The value is entirely determined by how the company uses the information for the betterment of employees and teams. It's not all PC, socialist, LGBTQ, feel good bullshit.

very true,

my Harrison Assessment was spot on as well,

I got a bulk debrief (about 25 of us in seminar type enviroment, going over the process etc followed up with a one on one with one of the adminstrators (a college prof, hired by the company I worked for to run the test)

I was told that overall I was a well rounded individual and I did not google the questions,


now I will admit, I took the test at home on the last day of my vacation, while having my 3rd beer of the day,



funny thing is, as mentioned, the results were good overall, and we had a few folks that got it , as far as how to use the info collected on us,

however over a short period of time all that was for naught, since those folks retired, quit, or whatever, and the folks that took over apparently never had it, or believed any of it, and went right back to the BS ways of the past

that was KRoger by the way, and during that process the business grew exponentially (and not just because of that stuff, other market factors helped) in this area,

change in leadership, lots of us Store Managers were basically ran off, and they are struggling to maintain market share in this area