I was surprised that I was contacted by the HR staff of the prospective employer where I had the personality test. Maybe this is the time that I should swallow my own words from my previous entry, one of those times when I did not follow the think-before-you-click mantra of responsible bloggers. But no one’s complaining (so far) and I still think that some of my concerns about such personality tests are valid. I won’t specify which ones though… haha!
So I was scheduled for a phone interview, the HR being in another Asian country. I found it difficult at first since the caller’s accent was just too different from mine. Add to that that we were talking over the phone where the sound was a bit muffled and there were no gestures or facial expressions to give additional cues. It also did not help that in my concern that the interviewer hears the ambient noise in my neighborhood – the cawing of the roosters, the gossip of the idle neighbors (as if I wasn’t idle myself!) hammering noises, and all the other cacophony of sounds – I opted to go to the food court of a mall. Okay, call me foolish or stupid or whatever, but I thought it was a better environment for an interview. Well, I earnestly thought it was. I had the unfortunate late-night experience quite recently when I woke up to the sound of neighbors fighting. There was a brief but noisy squabble accompanied by breaking bottles, followed by the sound of a herd of people on a stampede, and then very loud shouts of obscenities, threats and curses. Anyway, I thought it was wise trading the possibility of that happening as I was being interviewed to the noise of people chatting over brunch and the loud whirr of the blender from a nearby stall.
Well, we did manage. The interview lasted an hour, my left ear (the better of the pair) aching slightly afterwards. I found the questions more difficult than the usual interview questions I had been asked. They were situational, almost always starting with ‘Describe a time…” It was a good thing that I have worked for so many companies already, many of them part-time or project-based, and I could choose from so many situations and examples. In fact, the bigger problem for me then was which situation I should talk about. I know that these types of questions are really the best interview questions to ask during recruitment. The historical perspective also gives a more accurate picture of the applicant’s profile; following the philosophy that history would repeat itself. Still, I believe that people do change, especially after such critical situations and it is important in answering these type of questions to state the outcome or how these situations affected one’s own principles and beliefs.
Knowledge of how to answer such questions is one thing but actually answering them is another. After what seemed to be an interminable barrage of situational questions and digging my memory for past experiences and choosing the best among them, we finished the interview. The HR staff then enumerated to me the findings based on the personality test I took. At least the interviewer began by saying that such profiles have a tendency to change depending on the job. Then, the findings were read to me one-by-one and I was given the opportunity to react to each. In the end, I had to concede that the results were fairly accurate. I said fairly because the findings indicated that I liked to be the center of attention. Hmm… an introvert who is also egocentric, narcissistic and a control freak. I don’t know, maybe that was part of my Johari window I was blind to. The results also indicated that I have trust issues and have difficulty meeting people for the first time. Maybe I do have trust issues now but mainly due to the bad experiences I’ve had when I delegated responsibilities to people whom I thought I could trust. I did thought that people are inherently good but such naivete had led me several times to tight spots and difficult situations. I think I have been betrayed too many times already and I had to learn to be wary of people and to take their words always with a grain of salt. I realize of course that the higher up in the organization’s hierarchy, the more that one has to trust his subordinates, does this mean that I am a bad manager or that conscientiousness takes precedence over trust. I’m afraid I painted myself to be a disagreeable manager in the personality test.
Or maybe I have always believed myself to be too trusting and in my haste to shield this quality (I’d like to say unknowingly), I made choices pointing to the opposite pole.
Egocentric. Narcissistic. Of course, the interviewer did not mention these adjectives to me but what else would I think when she said that my personality profile indicated that I like to be the center of attention. I wanted to laugh out loud when I heard that. Maybe I did, but I had to say that the results were not true. I do want to lead, additional proof during my recent stint at the university that I almost always wanted to lead my own group of selected members, but you would not see me in parties or other social ritual. In this case, I only wanted to be the center of attention in my own comfort zones, social gatherings not among them.
The profile also indicated that I was conscientious (did I choose my answers specifically to show that, or am I really?) and analytical (this I can believe as my superiors in two separate companies have made this remark of me and I believe I would not have made it in my job if I weren’t… Hmm… is it pride talking?
To cut the story short, the phone interview ended. I peeled the phone off my left cheek, stretched my left arm, shook the residual tension off, and left for home - back to the cacophony of fighting cocks and neighbors.
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