Behavioral Testing To Gain Employment

Effective Persuasive Writing Com/110

Carmen Jones

Western International University

Behavioral Testing to Gain Employment

Effective Persuasive Writing Com/110

Behavioral Testing to Gain Employment

Behavioral tests should only be used as a guide in the hiring process and

should not be used to determine if an applicant gets the interview or not. Since

they are usually the first step in the hiring process they often lead to the unfair

elimination of candidates. Imagine being eliminated before you even get the

chance to let them get to know who you are. You’re an excellent employee, you

work hard, you have made companies money, but because you did not answer

the questions in a manner that fits the mold you’re eliminated. Just like that your

out of the running no second chances, wow!

Where did it all begin?

Physiological testing began in the 19th century, as society became interested

in what makes people tic. Some large companies adopted the idea of testing

their employees early on. They thought it would be a great to see if the people

they were hiring had the right stuff. Salesmen and public transportation workers

were among the first employees to take the test. These tests were used in World

War I and World War II to test soldiers to see which ones were apt to panic on

the battle field. These test over time evolved from describing what you see on an

ink blot to the more standardized questions and rating scales; which are still

being used in many modern tests today. (Robert Kamen p10) According to

Annie Murphy Paul, Author of Cult of Personality, there are approximately 2500

Personality tests a today a $400 million dollar a year business (p. 5).

Why Interview or review applications?

Interviewing and reviewing applications is still an important and vital part of

the hiring process. This is the time where the employer can get know the

applicants by asking trigger questions, noting responses and body language.

Reviewing the application and calling work references gives you a good idea of

what type of employee the applicant is. Hilda Camargo states that behavioral

testing should only be used as one third of the hiring process. The problem is

that employers are using these tests to determine if the applicant should get the

interview. The misuse of behavioral tests results in an unfair elimination of

potential employees and breaking privacy laws.

Some employees have complained to civil rights groups. Worrying that

supervisor’s and managers will use the information from these tests to justify

lower pay raises and poor reviews. The Civil Liberties Union has questioned the

pysclogical testing in the interview process. They say those employers who are

using these test are treading on thin ice of privacy laws (Robin Kamen). The US

Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled test that measuring a job

applicant’s personality traits, which could be used to identify psychiatric disorders

are prohibited under the American with disabilities Act (ADA) (Presser, Quillen

p1, 2).

“Employers could easily break the law,” says Lewis Maltby director of the

Work Place Rights Office for the Americans Civil Liberties Union. “Besides you

do not need to understand the inner workings of the soul to determine whether

someone is going to be good at job or not. Why not just talk to their previous

employer?”

How do they measure up?

The majority of employers use true/false tests because they’re cheaper and it

takes only minuets to complete. Some of these tests are taken at home online or

on paper. Which makes me wonder if you can complete them at home, how do

you know that it’s really your applicant that’s taking the test? To really get to

know the personality of a person the testing is going to need to be more

extensive. Jung, whose research is the basis for the Myers Briggs test, does not

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