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I applied for a software role at FedEx and was asked to take a personality test

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Re: I applied for a software role at FedEx and was asked to take a personality test

#391

Post by mewpmewp2 »

NickC25 wrote: post #34
Maro wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interviews are for weeding out poor candidates; what you have left are the good ones. Weeding out poor candidates is not possible with 10-15 minutes informal chats.

It most certainly IS possible. That's the whole point of resumes and LinkedIn...especially in technical fields. You self-select for the hiring criteria you're looking for. You then speak to the candidate to understand a bit more about their experience as it relates to the job you're seeking a candidate for. That's why it often makes sense for such roles, for technical people to interview other technical people. "Oh,…

Resumes can easily be bsed and 15 min can also be bsed using buzzwords. I know a person IRL who basically switches jobs every 3 months, but is excellent at using tech buzzwords, while not actually being able to code or think algorithmically, they know all the frontend tooling. More than usual frontend eng would know. So they appear stronger than an actual frontend eng. They can talk about webpack config and plugins, but they can't build anything.

They can make a thing that would take a day of work sound like some sort of fantastical world changing undertaking.

Re: I applied for a software role at FedEx and was asked to take a personality test

#393

Post by [deleted] »

lmm wrote: post #370
yvan-eht-nioj wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose it depends if you believe in principle over pragmatism. Personally, for me the amount is irrelevant; action and intent is what matters, so in some contexts $0.02 would absolutely matter to me.

If getting on with your job when a customer has left $0.02 on the counter would be such a severe violation of your principles, you're likely unsuitable for jobs.

[deleted]

Re: I applied for a software role at FedEx and was asked to take a personality test

#394

Post by yvan-eht-nioj »

lmm wrote: post #370
yvan-eht-nioj wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose it depends if you believe in principle over pragmatism. Personally, for me the amount is irrelevant; action and intent is what matters, so in some contexts $0.02 would absolutely matter to me.

If getting on with your job when a customer has left $0.02 on the counter would be such a severe violation of your principles, you're likely unsuitable for jobs.

The question is hypothetical rather than practical, and in many roles (civil service, accountancy, law) demonstrated principles are a fundamental requirement.

The premise of the manager's hypothetical question was to determine whether someone is dishonest, which is flawed.

Re: I applied for a software role at FedEx and was asked to take a personality test

#395

Post by curtisblaine »

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #387
bloqs wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personality tests are screening principally if you are Conscientious and Agreeable. The hack is: Suggest you answer every question to imply you are orderly, hardworking, calm, stable and cooperative with others.

Weren't disagreeable people more successful though?

For themselves, not the organization they work in.

Re: I applied for a software role at FedEx and was asked to take a personality test

#397

Post by tonyarkles »

transitorykris wrote: post #335
Clubber wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"what's the coolest project you've worked on?" This is the first question I ask followed by, "What's the worst project you've worked on?" The answers are pretty insightful.

A huge amount of information can be uncover with “tell me about the highest performing team you’ve been on? Lowest performing?”

“Ok, so the schema control tool we were using generated XML that SVN had a hard time merging correctly. We ended up with so many broken commits that we invented the Lock Rock. It was a rock that I picked up in the parking lot and you were only allowed to commit schema changes if you were in possession of the rock.”

Re: I applied for a software role at FedEx and was asked to take a personality test

#398

Post by Maro »

NickC25 wrote: post #34
Maro wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interviews are for weeding out poor candidates; what you have left are the good ones. Weeding out poor candidates is not possible with 10-15 minutes informal chats.

It most certainly IS possible. That's the whole point of resumes and LinkedIn...especially in technical fields. You self-select for the hiring criteria you're looking for. You then speak to the candidate to understand a bit more about their experience as it relates to the job you're seeking a candidate for. That's why it often makes sense for such roles, for technical people to interview other technical people. "Oh,…

Great is God's Zoo.

The candidate may embellish and fuzz thing (both on the CV and verbally), mixing what they did with what the team did, color things to make themselves look better, etc. In certain parts of the world, that's just the normal behaviour in interview loops, and the loop takes it into account. Sometimes you remove the extra "marketing layer" and still have a good candidate --- sometimes not.

If you're Google or similar, you can afford to throw such candidates out even at the recruiter screening stage. But in other companies, probably even in the 3rd quartile, you may need to fish in these waters.

Example: does "shipped" mean it went into production and users were using it, or, does it mean you gave the source code to the client and then you have no clue what happened to it? Does "Airflow" on the CV mean you once played with it for a blog post, or you used it in production for 5 years? Does "Manager" mean you were managing the people and accountable for delivery, or you were in a lot of meetings?

You can weed out _some_ of the poor candidates in 15 minutes, but not _all_ of them, not even close. But the point of the interview loop is to weed out _most_ of poor candidates.

The fact that a somebody once got a job after a 15 minute interview is completely irrelevant.

Re: I applied for a software role at FedEx and was asked to take a personality test

#399

Post by apwheele »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #362
tick_tock_tick wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personality tests are stupid but I don't know if I'd be willing to join a company that didn't do any-kind of whiteboarding/live coding exercise. I've interviewed way too many people who can't write a for loop. Fizzbuzz is supposed to be a joke not something people legitimately fail but it happens all the time.

It's still such a weird contrast where I hear of talented, very experienced engineers who will still be ghosted by 90% of jobs, but then there's also experiences like this. Like, how is this sub-fizzbuzz programmer getting interviews but someone with 10+ years experience gets trapped in the HR filter?

My area (data science) there is a problem with resume embellishment and HR/tech-recruiters not having a clue (I presume similar across different tech areas).

It has gotten to the point where people straight up lie about tech experience on resumes, so the HR filter may be worse than random (it filters for liars, not legit related experience).

Re: I applied for a software role at FedEx and was asked to take a personality test

#400

Post by thechao »

tonyarkles wrote: post #397
transitorykris wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A huge amount of information can be uncover with “tell me about the highest performing team you’ve been on? Lowest performing?”

“Ok, so the schema control tool we were using generated XML that SVN had a hard time merging correctly. We ended up with so many broken commits that we invented the Lock Rock. It was a rock that I picked up in the parking lot and you were only allowed to commit schema changes if you were in possession of the rock.”

I'm trying to install a webhook in TeamCity to send a notification to Slack whenever anyone across 16 time zones commits to specific paths in a Perforce depot.

I'll happily trade for your rock.

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