i'm slightly upset right now and i'm not sure how to handle it, so i came here to see if others have gone through this.
recent college graduate and i have been applying for jobs in social media/marketing/communication areas. i applied for a company that is supposed to be a great place for new graduates and actually pay new hires a living wage. after sending my application, i receive an immediate email to complete a behavioral assessment test and cognitive assessment test that will be sent to the company.
i'm pissed honestly. i have a diagnosed disability that i was never going to disclose until i was officially hired somewhere and needed accommodations. the first was a simple personality trait test, but it psychoanalyzed how i function in the work environment. was it completely accurate? no. did it correctly point out some of my weakness due to my diagnosis? 100% yes. then, i nearly had a breakdown during the cognitive test. answer 50 questions within 12 or so. you aren't expected to answer all the questions, but an accommodation i would receive in school would've been time and a half. i don't want to ask a company, who hasn't even interviewed me yet, to give me an accommodation because i never wanted them to know! the test requires mental math, a play on words, different types of numerical and spatial patterns; the test isn't designed to allow me to go through and answer questions i know i can answer, it makes me answer questions in the order they are given and i can't go back. so, i only end up answering (maybe) 22-24 questions, most of them i couldn't even read properly because i was focused so much on the time, and i'm sure at least 7 of the answers given are wrong.
i feel like these assessments are a more covert method of discrimination in the hiring process. requiring them to be completed before even a phone call to the candidate about a potential interview tells me they are heavily using these results to “filter” candidates. i hate it so much and i feel so pathetic because both of these tests literally reminded me of how i can be discriminated against due to my disability even without it being a visible one or affecting the specific job i apply to. how are these tests even legal? they do not account for ANY demographics. it is literally standardized testing in the workplace.
have you guys ever had to take these tests? do you know if they had any weight in your application process? did you have a fiery hatred towards the cognitive part like i did? or does anyone know if there is anything i or anyone else can do in the future when encountering these assessments?