I (26M) usually don’t make these types of posts, but this was something I haven’t heard a lot of on this subreddit and wanted to share my experience.
Over the past month I have been interviewing consistently and extensively communicating with the potential employer and during my phone interview they seemed to absolutely love me. Every question they asked I had a well crafted and articulate response, they seemed to like me enough to get past phone interviews and into an in-person interview.
Fast forward a couple of days, I travel 2+ hours for my interview, even though the position was local. No big deal, it’ll show initiative. I arrive 30 minutes early, they make a big spectacle of it “oh he’s a good one, he was here so early!” Etc. We sit down for the interview and what was only supposed to be a quick interview turned into 2 hours. They really seemed to like me, again I had well thought out and articulate responses and it seemed like I was just on fire. Like every question was a pitch and I was just knocking them out of the park like batting practice.
Before we knew it it had been 2 hours, the whole time they were mentioning how good of a fit I would be based off my answers to the interview questions, I was personable, big smile, etc. We ended and they started talking about a personality test that they give to all new hires but assured me that the personality test would hold no ground on the decision making process. Peculiar, as this is the first time I’ve ever had an employer use a personality test at all during the hiring process, but figured I’ve got nothing to hide, I think I’ve got the right personality type for the position, and it’s not like it would effect my chances for the position… or so I had thought.
About a week/week and a half passed and they finally respond that my personality test results were not aligned with what they were looking for and decided to go with someone else. I was definitely shocked with this as they said it would hold no weight in the decision making process, but I should have been skeptical anyhow as they swear by this personality test like it’s 100% accurate 100% of the time.
I’m just frustrated because I took sick time off my current job to schedule around them for the interviews, they led me to think that I was their perfect candidate all the way up until just a couple days ago when my personality test results came back, and when asked if they could provide me the results for the test (mostly so I can see if the results even align with my personality) they have just simply ghosted me.
I’m sorry for the long winded post, I haven’t seen much on this subreddit about personality tests or anything and wanted to share my experience to those who have experienced similar to know they’re not alone.
All this to say, you can be perfect both on paper and in person, but something frivolous like a personality test can be the decision maker. Some things are just out of our control.
Thank you if you made it this far, I hope you have a great rest of your day and thanks for letting me vent.