
Goldman to use 'personality test' as part of the hiring process - bigato
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-goldman-sachs-hiring-idUSKBN1AP2J7
======
spinchange
Two (sort of) unrelated observations:

Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman, has talked a lot over the years about how
important he thinks it is for young people to try to become really well
rounded with a broad range of interests and experiences. He's talked about how
it makes them more interesting and dynamic individuals which leads to higher
success in business and with all interpersonal relationships, generally.

Wells Fargo (circa late in the housing boom 2005-07, etc) used to use a
personality test developed by Gallup. I heard from more than one higher-level
manager that it basically selected for the exact kind of traits that would
eventually lead to a sales culture where thousands and thousands of employees
were committing fraud.

Goldman needs to be careful what they select for.

~~~
Sleeep
Is the Gallup test proprietary or is there some info on the types of questions
asked?

~~~
pbh101
My guess is that the test referred to is the 'StrengthsFinder' which you need
to buy, but can take online [1]. Probably more info available by Googling that
term.

What frequently happens is companies buy this and then Gallup consults with
the company to design a behavior profile which the company thinks reflects
successful traits in their environment.

[1]
[https://www.gallupstrengthscenter.com/](https://www.gallupstrengthscenter.com/)

------
Overtonwindow
Personality tests are awful. They don't test for the job you'll have, but
rather for the personality they want. That personality they want could be
white, middle class, highly educated male†, and those differences could come
out in a personality test. Additionally the test could help discriminate
against people with mental illness. There has been a lot written on these and
how they do more harm than good.[0]

†Full disclosure: I am one.

[0]. [https://www.wsj.com/articles/are-workplace-personality-
tests...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/are-workplace-personality-tests-
fair-1412044257)
[http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/do_job_personality_te...](http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/do_job_personality_tests_discriminate_eeoc_probes_lawyers_complaint_filed_o)

~~~
ErikVandeWater
> [The] personality they want could be white, middle class, highly educated
> male

This is a horrible misuse of the word personality. Anyone of any race, wealth,
age, sex, etc. can have any personality. Equating personality with race is
unfortunately common these days.

[0] I like how you begin your footnotes count starting at 0. I am stealing
this.

~~~
jbooth
Statistically, a lot of items from the test could be very highly correlated
with demographics.

And it doesn't have to be intentional. Goldman MD with yacht and golf club
membership signs off on test that selects for people like him. "Hey, I like
me, and I succeeded here, right?"

------
nxsynonym
I'm glad they're trying to add something new to the mix. I think it's been
made clear that having a degree/internships/experience on paper doesn't really
correlate with a great candidate. However, I am curious what the specifics of
this personality test are.

I'm also a bit concerned that hiring people with similar personality traits of
"top-performers" will cut down on diversity of thought and different
perspectives. Maybe it doesn't matter as much when dealing with the
analytical/data driven side of finance - but I would assume having a group of
high performing employees with different personalities would be more well
rounded than a lot of one type of employee.

~~~
bigato
They could select for the personalities found on the "top-innovators" group if
they deem innovation important

------
GCA10
There are lots of ways this can go wrong, and the sharp-edged headline prompts
many of us to start thinking about misfires. The actual text of the story,
though, focuses more on a desire to find people who are good at teamwork and
higher-order thinking.

That's not a bad idea. Wall Street attracts plenty of me-me-me people, who can
be very high achievers -- at a price. They grate on clients; they grate on
colleagues, and they seldom contribute to making the overall firm work more
harmoniously.

If Goldman thinks it's got a new way of finding more collegial people, that's
interesting. Personality tests, like coding tests, run the gamut from
ridiculous to somewhat useful. It would be interesting to know whether Goldman
is building its own or using one of the off-the-shelf options.

~~~
mdekkers
* they seldom contribute to making the overall firm work more harmoniously*

Ultimately, the point of hiring people is to make the firm work more
profitably. Banks are not well known for their commitment to a harmonious
workplace.

------
balozi
I guess this would be the opposite of a diversity program since they are going
out to hire a very specific type of employee. It appears that they want a
mono-personality in their halls.

~~~
bigato
> It appears that they want a mono-personality in their halls.

I think it's more precise to say that they are selecting for productivity.
Maybe more than one personality type is productive? It's not necessarily one
single type.

------
Bartweiss
A thing that seems to be missing from the discussion: this has been done
before.

The early days of Meyers-Briggs saw it used at offices nationwide - getting
the right result was a strict requirement for employment. But the test/retest
reliability is terrible, most people exist near the boundaries of the
categories, and the four sections are largely arbitrary. It appears to have
created single-personality workspaces without achieving anything meaningful at
all in corporate terms.

~~~
ashark
Meyers-Briggs is also incredibly easy to game if you know what they're looking
for. Not as bad as those silly "ethics tests" some crappy entry-level jobs
give ("You see a coworker stealing merchandise. Do you a) punch them, b) tell
a manager as soon as possible, c) join them in stealing, d) smoke a joint and
forget about it?") but not much better.

Guessing you'd be able to nail what they wanted for office jobs by just
picking the organized/responsible/social/intellectual options every time you
could, in roughly that order of priority.

~~~
mdekkers
I was once given a "modified" MB test for a CTO position at
$international_firm and had to show up at a "specialist consulting firm" to
take the test (husband/wife team working from their living room) - They were
nice people, we sort-of connected, and I asked them outright what profile the
client was looking for. They happily shared, and said the test cannot be
rigged, we designed it, it is bulletproof. I aced it, and a subsequent two
tests where they asked me to fill for different personalities. Panic all-
round.

I was offered the job, but declined - they put too much stock in this type of
meaningless hocus-pocus, and barely asked me about my technical and
organisational qualifications.

~~~
ashark
All I can figure with this stuff is that they're trying to weed out people too
dumb and/or naive to effectively lie on something like this. Or those who
won't work for a place that asks them to, as with you. They're definitely not
filtering for the nominal target personality, and surely they know that.

------
darioush
Disclaimer is I'm not taking sides, but: I wonder what sort of outrage would
go down if tech companies started a similar thing, where they tested to
determine whether someone is "agreeable" or a "better team player" than
others.

Something about "leadership principles" and "STAR" comes to mind.

~~~
Sleeep
Isn't this being selected for already guised under "culture fit?"

------
Cafey
I wonder if the answers to such a test could later be used against the
employee? Something like "Hey we have proof here on paper that you claimed to
be [random personnality trait] and yet you behave differently, we will have to
let you go." That would be aweful!

------
fiatjaf
Great idea.

It would be better if they could do some analysis over their Facebook profile,
for example.

~~~
cyruscm
I certainly hope not. Social media should not be a measurement of professional
character. Many kids use it without concern for how it will affect their
future because they lack the awareness of it. If everything you've said when
you were a child was on record and reviewed by employees chances are most
people wouldn't have jobs. Additionally, it sets a bar the requires social
media usage. I personally don't use any online accounts that are linked to my
name. This means I would be perceived as a danger to any hiring systems that
utilize social media analysis.

~~~
21
Attitudes will change.

The Army relaxed the "no tatoo" requirement because everyone has one now.

More companies allow a casual dressing code, because candidates keep on
demanding it.

Future employers will relax their attitude towards social media un-
professional behaviours everybody will have such a thing on their profile.

Even Obama admitted having smoked a joint. If he got a pass, a lot of other
people will too.

~~~
ErikVandeWater
> If he got a pass, a lot of other people will too.

1\. I think presidents tend to get a lot of passes other people don't. It
comes with the level of influence they have.

2\. Presidents are selected by the typical American voter. Smoking a joint is
cool these days with plenty of people (esp. younger), but employers are
typically older and more traditional. He didn't get a pass with these people,
they just weren't going to vote for him already for other reasons.

Not to say I disagree with your overall point - America is generally becoming
more progressive.

------
bougiefever
Personality tests are bogus. You can have completely different results on
different days based on your mood, what you've read recently, etc. They should
just go ahead and use psychics. It's probably just as good at predicting who
is going to work out for them.

------
idibidiart
Genetic test is next.

------
muninn_
> "Their answers will be compared with those of current Goldman employees, who
> have already been identified as exhibiting traits that mark high performance
> such as teamwork, analytical thinking and judgment, Jahansouz said."

Awful idea.

~~~
JadeNB
> > "Their answers will be compared with those of current Goldman employees,
> who have already been identified as exhibiting traits that mark high
> performance such as teamwork, analytical thinking and judgment, Jahansouz
> said."

> Awful idea.

No, no, it's a wonderful way to ensure a monoculture and the absence of
innovation!

~~~
curiousgal
Not to mention that one of those employees can easily get all of their friends
and relatives employed if having similar answers is all it takes.

~~~
test1235
> Candidates' results on the test will be just one factor in the final hiring
> decision, which also includes in-person interviews, Jahansouz added.

~~~
ashark
In-person interviews (the traditional, formal type with all your usual
interviewy questions) are already mostly a test of whether you have enough
sense and judgement to tell the right kind of stories with the details tuned
just _so_ , and your ability to tell them convincingly.

------
miguelrochefort
I wonder if they're using MBTI.

I also wonder what MBTI types people here have. I'm guessing a lot of INTPs
and INTJs.

~~~
biofox
I'd also be interested to know what MBTI type other HN readers are.

I keep switching between INTJ and INTP every time I do the test.

------
Zenst
I went for an interview at a company that did one of these tests (company
wrote them) many years ago. Was utter waste of time as they do not cater for
people with aspergers and as such they try and pigeonhole you into somebody
who is proactive or reactive. This ignores somebody who is capable of
excelling at both and even though outlined instances in which I had been both
they seemed to not grasp this and ended up going in circles for 5 whole hours.
Utter waste of my time, for some types of people and they lost out.

~~~
darioush
I seriously miss the time when you'd be asked questions relevant to your job
and have your experience evaluated to get hired.

------
pimmen
Now, this could be because I'm Swedish and here it's taken as self evident
truth that you should have a smörgåsbord of benefits, but if they're having
problems beating the benefits offered in Silicon Valley, their solution is to
invest money into finding people who are equally skilled but don't value
security and work-life benefits as much as money? Shouldn't this instead be a
signal that work-life balance and security is highly sought after among
skilled individuals, and that if the competition can offer it so should they?

You'd think that being economists they would look at their counterparts in
Silicon Valley and the Nordic Countries, especially their outstanding economic
performance, and think "hmmm, maybe we don't have to reinvent the wheel after
all, maybe we should try out these benefit thingies that are proven to work?".
This test looks more like the answer to "can we find other people to validate
our opinion that everything's fine?".

------
dilemma
> He said future job candidates would be given the test before their second
> round of interviews at the bank. Their answers will be compared with those
> of current Goldman employees, who have already been identified as exhibiting
> traits that mark high performance such as teamwork, analytical thinking and
> judgment, Jahansouz said.

In practice, this is nothing more than an IQ test. If you can't figure out
what answers are beneficial to your application, you're not smart enough to
work there. It likely says little about the actual traits of these job
seekers.

~~~
marcoperaza
It depends on the test that they use. The widely used psychological tests are
designed to detect adversarial responses.

~~~
dilemma
Well, I'm not talking about adversarial responses.

~~~
deegles
Isn't trying to figure out which responses to pick is the definition of
adversarial in this context?

~~~
dilemma
Definitely not.

