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from the boss-wants-to-see-how-you-handle-pressure? dept.
I recently applied for a job in Silicon Valley.
The recruiter had me take a battery of tests that measured my verbal, mathematical and visual aptitude. I'd guess it was a mini-IQ test; it wasn't a mini-MMPI. As a result of the tests I was invited to interview onsite.
At the end of the interview the manager declared that he wanted me to take some tests.
His tests were brain teasers he had downloaded from a random website. The brain teasers had nothing to do with the work I was interviewing for. He seemed to ignore the battery of sophisticated tests I had been subjected to, and to believe that he could do better.
What is the REAL purpose of using brain teasers during an employment interview?
Is it just to make the candidate feel stupid? Are any of these people qualified to interpret the results? Are any of them industrial psychologists? Or is this all about power and control?
Please advise.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 06 2018, @04:21PM
It seems to me that those situations where an employee is under pressure are usually those situations where the vision and leadership of their management have failed.
As such, these failures are failures of MANAGEMENT and the focus needs to remain upon the TRUE source of the problem - the self-proclaimed leadership.
Shuffling off responsibility onto the shoulders of the bottom-most rungs of the corporate ladder is an old trick, made easier by the fact that they are all contractors, or indentured servants - I refer to H1Bs, of course.
Having worked with and for good management, competent people, with imagination and mathematical capacities to turn their worst-case scenarios into budgets that built infrastructures that anticipated failure and handled it, so that people did not experience stress - not even support staff - I can say, with confidence, that workplaces that incorporate stress tests in their interviewing process are organizations that plan for failure, instead of success.
They are looking for people who can deal with the stress of being blamed for the mistakes of their superiors.
They are looking for grovellers, in other words! (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/grovel)