Personality Tests on the Job Search

Personality Tests on the Job SearchPersonality Tests on the Job SearchPut to the test? Follow these tips from recruiters whove used pre-employment assessments as a factor in the hiring process.When you are being considered for a job, your potential employer evaluates myriad factors your education, your experience and your successes, to name just a few. How about your personality?Increasingly, organizations are turning to personality assessments to hire more effectively and avoid expensive and potentially embarrassing hiring errors, especially at the executive level.Testing is the application of science to the prediction of fit and success to the job, said John Fennig, a licensed psychologist and managing freund of DRI Consulting, a management and organization consulting firm that administers pre- and post-hire testing. There are two issues Is the person the best fit, ideally, to the pool of other candidates - and how likely are they going to succeed at the job?Fennig said that in to days tight job market, job seekers can expect closer scrutiny in the form of personality testing, as well as behavioral and cognitive testing. Especially with the pools being bigger - its a buyers market, not a sellers market, right now - job seekers are going to see more scrutiny, and they have to be cool with that.Tony Deblauwe, a workplace expert and founder of consulting firm HR4Change, said there are certain types of positions that lend themselves to personality testing, including sales jobs and customer-service jobs - jobs that tend to draw on personality as well as a certain skill set. Companies often administer personality tests for positions that require strategic thinking and complex decision-making.According to experts interviewed for this article, some of the fruchtwein commonly used tests on the hiring side of the house are the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF) Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, Conscientiousness (DISC) Caliper Profile and California Psy chological Inventory. (See Top Personality Tests on Page 3.) Myers-Briggs, one of the most well-known personality tests, is rarely used by hiring professionals, they said.The overall point of performing these tests and others like them, Deblauwe said, is to go deeper than any job interview ever could. If I can map exactly what I know is the gold standard for the position and what this company needs to have done against where you the candidate naturally lean, its another point in the decision-making process.And few if any rely solely on psychological tests to survey a job applicant. It is just one of several data points used to make a hiring decision.Testing should never weigh more than a third in the hiring process - it is being mis-used if it is pass/fail, Fennig said. What you ( the job hunter) have control over is two-thirds of the process - namely, your resume, your work history, your interviewing skills and the performance skills the interviewing panel may put you through to show your stuff.Gaming the testsUp against stiff competition for a position, job seekers may be tempted to try and beat the test to optimize their results.Thats the wrong thing to do, according to the experts interviewed for this story.Theres really no way to beat the test, or any of these tests, said Justin Tobin, a psychotherapist in private practice in Chicago. You just have to be yourself. Its not just one question thats going to figure out who you are. There are a lot of questions and a lot of information embedded in these questions. So you may not even be picking up on what the question is trying to get at.Theres actually very little people can do before taking a validated, reliable assessment, said Connie Kernen, business development manager at recruiting and research firm JMJ Phillip.The best advice is, and always has been, to simply answer the questions as candidly and as openly as possible, Kernen said. Generally, the first answer which pops into the candidates mind is the best answer. Lying or exaggerating on an assessment can potentially result in two things applicants want to avoid being dropped from consideration or ending up in a job they hate.Many tests are designed to pick up on dishonesty or disingenuousness. And even if you do game a test, youre not necessarily doing yourself any favors.Be honest when youre taking (these tests), said Abby Kohut, president and staffing consultant with Staffing Symphony. If you try to fool the test or to make the test think that youre something other than what you are, youre not going to fool the test because the test is smart. Worse, even if you were able to beat the test and receive a job offer, you might end up in a job for which you arent suited.Know thyself, relax thyselfRecruiters and human-resources managers generally prefer to perform psychological tests early in the selection process, and many are now conducted online, before an initial interview.But no matter where or when you take a test, taking sto ck of yourself before you answer the first question will help you relax and present yourself as honestly and effectively as possible, psychotherapist Tobin said.Before you take one of these tests, the most important thing is to know who you are and to be in touch with your own core values, your own strengths, your own limitations, he said. That can make you feel more comfortable taking the test and more confident to just be in the moment. A lot of these tests take you to hypothetical questions, like, what would you do if someone was yelling at you in the middle of a store? Dont try and overanalyze what you think the answer is supposed to be. Just go with what you would really do in that situation.While experts say that you shouldnt - and really cant - study for a personality test, some recommend using the results from sample tests online or from past testing to add weight and balance to discussions about your strengths and weaknesses.Self-awareness is one of the elements of good l eadership, Fennig said. Take assessments One, (youll) be comfortable with the process of taking assessments and two, more importantly, to know yourself will make people more informed job hunters. Theres probably no downside (to taking a sample test).What type of test to expect?Just as there are many different kinds of tests, regulation of pre-employment testing varies across states and industries. In general, employment law in most states requires that testing be relevant to a position, and must be administered consistently across all candidates. fruchtwein states also require that the test meet professional standards. Unlike background checks, there are no laws entitling a job seeker to view the results of a psychological exam, but some employers and some tests in particular give job seekers access to the results.DRI Consulting, for instance, gives all applicants copies of their results, plus graphed reports, and invites them to comment before the report is sent to the hiring organ ization.Its like a good performance review you get to read and sign off on the accuracy of it, Fennig said. (Candidates) cant change the numbers, but they can add stuff, they can comment, and then we submit that verbatim to the hiring organization. This has been hugely, hugely popular and effective.Fennig added that the testing is seen as informing not just the hiring organization but also the candidate about how and where they fit It helps the job seeker to say, Oh, you know, maybe Im not cut out to manage, and this is a management job. The hope is that the testing informs in both directions.If test results are not supplied to you automatically, as they are with DRI Consulting, its a good idea to ask for them anyway, as it shows you are engaged and proactive every step of the process, Fennig said.The best candidates are clued into the decision path, and they know where they stand at each point, he said. So knowing that is a sign of leadership, a sign of power, a sign of confidence .First refusalCan you refuse to take a personality test? Yes, said Deblauwe, and hes seen it done, but just saying no is not a good idea if you really want the job.The law is different in every state. Generally, however, if the test meets the professional standards defined by the state and is relevant to the job in question, it is permissible to make it a mandatory part of the job application, according to the American Psychological Association.While its not likely to be told that you didnt get a job because you refused to take a test, unless youre really, really good, the last thing recruiters, HR people, etc. want is someone who is going to be creating blocks for them. Good economy, bad economy - play ball, he said.Fennig agreed, adding, Most execs who we work with have come to expect to be tested. They appreciate being tested because they are able to put their better foot forward.

Alliteration Examples in Fiction Writing

Alliteration Examples in Fiction WritingAlliteration Examples in Fiction WritingThe word alliteration is derived from the Latin word latira which means letters of an alphabet. It is a stylistic device that writers use in which a number of words that start with the same first consonant sound are repeated close together in a series. Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers is one famous example. Function of Alliteration Unlike poets, fiction writers rarely discuss the uses of alliteration and how it can be used consciously to create more powerful fiction, but it does play a critical role in fiction as well as in poetry and prose. Alliteration creates a musical effect, creating rhythm, mood and motion while also imbuing sentences with beauty and a certain flow. For example, repeating the s which sounds like a snake can imply danger. Repeating the h sound lends a soft, heavenly air whereas a repetitive b makes for a percussive consonant. A secondary type is calledsymmetrical all iteration which makes use of parallelism the phrase contains a pair of words at the beginning and end of the phrase that starts with the same sound, while the middle words are similar - for example, rust brown blazers rule. Alliteration Examples in Fiction In his lecture, The Sentence Is a Lonely Place, Gary Lutz urges writers, Avail yourself of alliteration... Such repetition can be soothing and stabilizing, especially in a sentence whose content and emotional gusts are anything but. He provides an example from Don DeLillo featuring hs He was here in the howl of the world, and from Christine Schutt He knew the kind of Kleenex crud a crying girl left behind. But alliteration can also play a less subtle role. In Moby Dick, Melville uses alliteration to build character and to help the reader experience the scene on board a whaling ship. The character, Stubb, is described as having rather a peculiar way of talking to them in general, and as saying the fruchtwein terrific things to his crew. Melville uses alliteration to help illustrates unterstellung claims. The devil fetches ye, ye ragamuffin rapscallions, Stubb says. Start her - start her, my silver spoons In this last quote, we not only havealliteration in the repetition of the S sounds, but also an example of assonance in the words start and marling, which is the repetition of a vowel sound. Additional Examples of Alliteration The soul selects her own society. -Emily Dickinson From forth the fatal loins of these two foes A pair of star-crossd lovers take their life. -Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. -The Great Gatsby,F. Scott Fitzgerald My father brought to conversations a cavernous capacity for caring that dismayed strangers. -The Centaur,John Updike His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead. -T he Dead,James Joyce While you may use assonance in more poetic moments of your prose without even being conscious of it, Donald Westlakes alliteration in the beautiful blonde bludgeoned tends to call attention to itself. Unless you intend for this to happen - in order to build character or drama or to create a comic moment - its wise to employ alliteration selectively to maximize the effect without overdoing it.

SES Hiring Blitz in 2017

SES Hiring Blitz in 2017SES Hiring Blitz in 2017SES Hiring Blitz in 2017Despite Jobs Freeze, Feds Are Hiringfor the Senior Executive tafelgeschirr There will be a Senior Executive ServiceHiring Blitz in 2017.By Kathryn Troutman, President, The Resume distributions-mix, Inc.Publisher, Co-Author, The New SES ApplicationFeb. 9, 2017With all the tumult of President Trumps arrival at the White House, it can be difficult to discern where the federal job opportunities will be as the new administration rolls out its inaugural year. But despite the partial, temporary federal hiring freeze imposed by the president during his first week in office, there will be a Senior Executive Service hiring blitz in 2017.THE SENIOR EXECUTIVE SERVICE CORPS EMPLOYS MORE THAN 7,000 EXECUTIVESThe SES employs more than 7,000 executives, some of them political appointees but a much greater number career civil servants. The average age of these seasoned executives was 54 years as of neunter monat des jahres 2014. So in addition to the high attrition among appointees that comes with the White House switching political parties, there are hundreds and hundreds of retirements each year among career members of the SES.Qualified applicants can land a secure, significant career position in the leadership ranks of the federal government. These openings represent many opportunities for subject-matter experts and senior leaders from the military, the private sector and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), as well as current federal employees seeking a transfer or promotion.HUNDREDS OF SES JOB OPENINGS ON USAJOBSThe hundreds of SES job openings listed in late January 2017 on USAJOBs included everything from deputy assistant commandant NS1 for human resources at the Department of Homeland Security, to director of the schreibstube of Research at the Department of Energy, to assistant inspector general for investigations at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Although the majority of SES jobs are in the Washington, D.C., area, other senior executive opportunities are found at federal offices across the country.SES SALARIESSES jobs pay between $124,406 and $187,000, and come with sought-after federal perks such as 26 days of paid leave and good retirement benefits.SES JOB APPLICATION PROCESS IS ARDUOUS 10 PG ECQSThe SES job application process is arduous. It includes developing a 10-page write-up of Executive Core Qualifications (ECQs) that is very demanding to craft and must be polished to perfection. The five ECQs are Leading Change, Leading People, Results Driven, Business Acumen and Building Coalitions. Interested candidates should begin drafting their ECQs now to be ready to apply for vacancies requiring various skills sets at numerous federal agencies.THE TEN PAGE ECQS MUST BE EXACTLY RIGHT FOR OPM REVIEWIn addition to a painstaking review by the hiring agency, SES candidates applications are vetted by the Office of Personnel Managements independent Qualifications Review Boar d. So the application must successfully address two audiences the subject-matter experts within the hiring agency, and a panel of members of the QRB, who are drawn from many different agencies.KATHRYN TROUTMAN, AUTHOR AND SES EXPERT Allow 30 days if you can to write the Ten Page ECQsKathryn Troutman recommends that you allow 30 days to write your SES ECQs. Work ahead of your plans for your SES applications in 2017. The Ten Page ECQs are challenging to write and focus on your BEST leadership accomplishments within the last ten years. Dont wait until the perfect job announcement appears. You cannot write the ECQs in a week THE NEW SES APPLICATION A GREAT REFERENCE FOR ECQ WRITINGDetailed guidance for the complex task of applying to the Senior Executive Service is available in The New SES Application Writing the Traditional ECQs and the New Five-Page Senior Executive Service Federal Resume, by Kathryn TroutmanGET HELP AND QUOTE FOR PROFESSIONAL, EXPERT WRITING WITH YOUR SES ECQS AND FEDERAL RESUME TARGETED TOWARD THESE POSITIONSSee our Sample Federal Resumes Order The New SES Application book or PDFResume Place SES ECQ Writing Staff biosGovernment Agency Training GSA Contract for SES ECQ Writing WorkshopsNeed a quote for a federal resume? Request a quote here