8.When I was young, there were times when I felt like leaving home.9.This is the point at which you might reasonably ask yourself, What’s going on here? What couldany of that possibly have to do with my ability to analyze stocks (or sell pharmaceuticals, or writecomputer code, or manage a restaurant)?10.The answer: everything. As the class of 2015 heads out into the workforce this summer, they aregoing to have their heads examined by the companies they hope to work for. Convinced by thegurus of Big Data that a perfect workforce can be achieved by analyzing the psyche and runningthe results through computers, hundreds of employers now insist that job candidates submit topersonality tests. The phenomenon spans the pay scale from burger flipping to high finance. Andthe questions range from the intrusive (“I dislike the high taxes we pay in this country”) to thepositively bizarre (“Sometimes I’m not sure what I really believe”).11.Employers—and the $ 2 billion industry that provides many of the evaluations—say the tests are acritical tool in fighting employee turnover, increasing productivity and raising customersatisfaction. By gaining insight into job seekers’personalities, they say, it’s now possible to identifythe workers who will be the happiest and the most successful in the roles they have on offer. Andthe hiring process is just the start. Once on board, many of these companies continue to track andcrunch data about workers’personality traits to help find candidates for promotions, transfersand—at times—termination.12.Want to work at a hedge fund or in private equity? Your employer might want to know how youmeasure up in terms of Cattell’s 16 personality factors, the Hogan Personality Inventory’s sevenscales or the Caliper Profile’s more than 22 traits—tests that can take anywhere from 20 minutes toseveral hours, according to some frustrated job seekers. Interested in becoming a nurse? You mightface questions from the Prophecy Behavioral Personality Assessment or Pegged Software, a startupfounded by a former White House economist that administers tests to 3 million job applicants inhealth care annually. One of the most popular tests, Gallup’s StrengthsFinder, is now used by 457of theFortune500 companies as a way to communicate with workers, according to the Wall StreetJournal.
