I work in IT consulting and I got around 12years of experience managing complicated projects. When looking for new gigs there are a few things that repel me instantly:
- personality/logic/other cognitive tests – those tests are often checking your basic cognitive skills or basic logic – they are easy to ace once you have done a few in past, but I draw a line here and usually just tell them that I want to be out of the process. Cognitive tests or character tests usually mean that they want a certain kind of people and diversity will be almost non-existent.
- Similarly, logic tests or math tests (for IT delivery positions…) will check the skills that you would never use at work. Again they are easy enough, but utterly useless in the grand scheme of things, and a waste of time in the process.
- Basic language skills – They aren't necessarily useless. However, doing a basic English test when I have worked in London for 10 years where I was drafting legal contracts is a bit insulting, especially after already going through the first wave of interviews (often being more fluent than the interviewers).
- Long Case studies / preparing along with presentation for an interview – if they want me to work 10+ hours on a case study I want to be paid my hourly rate. I am more than happy to be given a case study in an interview and solve it during the actual interview.
Over years I have compiled a whole list of things that would be a “red line” for me when applying for a job and so far I've stuck to them. Did any of you have to deal with similar bullshit when applying?