Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

McDonald's Making Job Applicants Take Weird AI Personality Tests

futurism.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 43 posts

Re: McDonald's Making Job Applicants Take Weird AI Personality Tests

#31

Post by donor20 »

reaperman wrote: post #18
lp0_on_fire wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's bad enough many companies want to run invasive background checks (up to and including pulling your credit) for milquetoast low-paying-entry-level jobs now they want people to take some bastardized version of Myers–Briggs which itself is pseudoscience? I sorta understand a company wanting to do that for some C-level or upper management position, or for a finance person responsible for the books...but for a burger…

The weird thing about the credit checks is that I have horrible credit. Like about every 2 years a credit card gets sent to collections. Some old rent in collections. Etc. But its never, ever affected a hiring decision for $80-130k jobs. So…why are they doing the credit checks??

If it’s credit / criminal the credit part is very cheap vs the criminal and much quicker. It can also help feed the criminal because the credit side has addresses if you do county searches. There is bad credit and then BAD credit

Re: McDonald's Making Job Applicants Take Weird AI Personality Tests

#32

Post by wodenokoto »

senkora wrote: post #7

> Paradox's "Traitify" product, which uses the strange slides to lump applicants into "Big Five" or "OCEAN" personality groups, rating them on how open, conscientious, extraverted, agreeable, and neurotic they are. For the record, the correct answer is always to be low on neuroticism and high on everything else. The role doesn’t matter; that is always the “ideal” personality and any deviation is a defect that will on…

In my experience consistency in your answers is the most important trait.

Re: McDonald's Making Job Applicants Take Weird AI Personality Tests

#33

Post by JR1427 »

mordechai9000 wrote: post #10
senkora wrote: post #7

> Paradox's "Traitify" product, which uses the strange slides to lump applicants into "Big Five" or "OCEAN" personality groups, rating them on how open, conscientious, extraverted, agreeable, and neurotic they are. For the record, the correct answer is always to be low on neuroticism and high on everything else. The role doesn’t matter; that is always the “ideal” personality and any deviation is a defect that will on…

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 statement…

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).

Re: McDonald's Making Job Applicants Take Weird AI Personality Tests

#34

Post by camgunz »

ChrisArchitect wrote: post #13

Just a rewrite of walled 404 piece: Service Jobs Now Require Bizarre Personality Test From AI Company https://www.404media.co/low-paying-jobs-require-bizarre-pers...

Yeah there's a few of these rewrites on Futurism but this is the most blatant one so far (you can see if you search '"404 media"'). Eek.

Re: McDonald's Making Job Applicants Take Weird AI Personality Tests

#35

Post by jhbadger »

ChrisArchitect wrote: post #12

Related recently: I applied for a software role at FedEx and was asked to take a personality test https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39346870

Yes, but that's more expected (if still not really justified). White collar jobs often have personality tests as a "filter" -- even decades ago I remember taking the now generally mocked Myers Briggs test at interviews. Fast food jobs on the other hand are traditionally known for minimal screening and it is odd that McDonald's would start doing it now when there is already a labor shortage for low paying jobs.

Re: McDonald's Making Job Applicants Take Weird AI Personality Tests

#36

Post by tareqak »

jhbadger wrote: post #35
ChrisArchitect wrote: post #12

Related recently: I applied for a software role at FedEx and was asked to take a personality test https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39346870

Yes, but that's more expected (if still not really justified). White collar jobs often have personality tests as a "filter" -- even decades ago I remember taking the now generally mocked Myers Briggs test at interviews. Fast food jobs on the other hand are traditionally known for minimal screening and it is odd that McDonald's would start doing it now when there is already a labor shortage for low paying jobs.

They want to filter out people who would potentially unionize.

Re: McDonald's Making Job Applicants Take Weird AI Personality Tests

#37

Post by maayank »

lmz wrote: post #9
maayank wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know the name of the company/other references about this test?

The company is mentioned in the article. > The aforementioned companies are all contracted with Paradox.ai, a "conversational recruiting software" company ...

I saw it, I thought OP meant another company that others (including paradox) get it from

Re: McDonald's Making Job Applicants Take Weird AI Personality Tests

#38

Post by kevinventullo »

JR1427 wrote: post #33
mordechai9000 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 statement…

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 an…

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

Re: McDonald's Making Job Applicants Take Weird AI Personality Tests

#39

Post by PH95VuimJjqBqy »

al_borland wrote: post #29
mordechai9000 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 statement…

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? A…

> 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

Re: McDonald's Making Job Applicants Take Weird AI Personality Tests

#40

Post by whstl »

reaperman wrote: post #18
lp0_on_fire wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's bad enough many companies want to run invasive background checks (up to and including pulling your credit) for milquetoast low-paying-entry-level jobs now they want people to take some bastardized version of Myers–Briggs which itself is pseudoscience? I sorta understand a company wanting to do that for some C-level or upper management position, or for a finance person responsible for the books...but for a burger…

The weird thing about the credit checks is that I have horrible credit. Like about every 2 years a credit card gets sent to collections. Some old rent in collections. Etc. But its never, ever affected a hiring decision for $80-130k jobs. So…why are they doing the credit checks??

Most companies I know don't really run credit or even criminal checks for jobs that pay that high. It's often a thing for low-paid. IME and YMMV of course.
Post reply on HN