Testing, testing

OK so we've had a letter saying they might, just, not promising anything though, it's only a thought, look I still have my fingers crossed whilst I'm saying this, be interested in you.
For a job.
But first, before they even start actually speaking to you, before they even deign to actually even start to pay you any attention whatsoever, you have to be tested.
Tested.
What with? Needles, samples and involving latex gloves and bend over Mr EoTP, that sort of testing?
No, scarier than that.
Psychometric testing.

You see in the old days you'd get a tap on the shoulder and a 'You're alright, just turn up for the interview more or less on time, try and find the right office, don't dribble too much, pretend you like the boss's wife and the jobs yours'. Then all those HR managers were targeted by recruitment professionals selling their snake oil and, suddenly, an interview with the pre-meeting shoulder tap was no longer good enough. HR had been convinced that some of us could blag our way through interviews without knowing anything about the job, managing people, team building and yet still be a complete and utter power crazed sociopath who would ruin most of the business before moving on. Many of those types found their way to the top I found. The HR team wanted to know more, much more about your psyche, team playing abilities and what your head goblins were saying to you when all was quiet and still.

So they came up with testing.

Now I am the first to admit that relying on an interview alone is a poor way of deciding who should get a job particularly if it is me that hasn't got the job. If I have got the job then it is a first class way of recruiting exactly the right person and don't tell me otherwise.

My first test was handwriting analysis. They asked me to write all the letters of the alphabet as neatly as I could between the lines on a page in a notebook using a pen with a nib and an inkwell. No, false memory there, that was at primary school. Shame I accidentally spilt all that ink over the dress of the little girl sitting next to me. No my first test came, strangely, at the end of an interview process. I was reasonably confident that I'd got the job and 100% confident I wouldn't accept it. However the HR manager remarked, seemingly out of no where, that I should have filled out the initial application form in ink, in my very bestest handwriting, and not have printed it out on a computer. Did he not know how many bleedin' hours I'd spent making sure the print came out in exactly the right places on the application form after lining it up in Word? Well no, he didn't so he made me write it out in longhand like some form of after-school detention. Now I'm left handed and wondered whether all the resultant Rorschach inkblots would count against me and they, too, would be analysed - 'Be careful of this one he thinks he has special yellow friends living on the ceiling.' No a week later he rang up and said, simply, 'You're OK.'
OK?
OK?
Is that all the handwriting analyst could come up with on their professional scale? What was the scale then?
1. The ruthlessness of Genghis Khan
2. The sheer terror of Margret Thatcher
3. The team building skills of Stalin
4. OK
5. The honesty of Blackadder
6. The personality of Eeyore.
7. The intelligence of George W Bush

I turned the job down.

Next job application came with the computerised version. Left alone at a screen and keyboard I was given an hour to complete the test. Twenty minutes later I'd finished and, eventually, the HR person returned and was suitably impressed at my speed. 'That was fast' she said 'Some of those maths questions are very tricky, you did well to do them in your head.' 'Head' I thought 'I used a calculator I had in my pocket.' Well as no one had said not to I decided not to say anything - and took the offered job.

Of course HR are not so easily diverted anymore and the tests have become longer and more involved. I still have the results of several to hand. Let's share:
Actual quotes here.

• 'EoTP is unlikely to be reticent about coming forward.' - er, aggressive?
• 'He doesn't seem to have problems with stage fright in large groups.' Show off?
• 'Naturally curious'. Stop pushing your fingers in that electric socket - that was my Mother.
• 'Strongly creative.' Yes I see that of course I am, but 'don't let him work in finance'.
• Rules - likely to exercise a degree of flexibility.' Yes, I treat them as guidelines.
• 'You should employ him now.' Are you listening?

Here's another one, only 25 pages long this one. My own Mum wouldn't recognise me.

• 'Affable, socially confident.' Lock the drinks cabinet and hide the party food.
• 'Very independent.' Well I think that means very independent what do you mean you disagree, I don't care I'm going to do it anyway.

Should I take any notice of it, should anyone? In some ways they are like horoscopes as they all talk in very positive and flattering terms about someone very important to me i.e. me. Whether they truly make a difference in recruitment when the potential employer finally groks my age and goes 'No we wanted young and cheap, I don't mind if they have the personality and moral scruples of Pol Pot tell the older guy we actually wanted uncreative and totally biddable.'

So I leave you with just one question?

Why?