UNICRU personality test - ick

Monolithic_Dome

A bunch of employers (especially food and retail) use UNICRU to process their online apps, which always includes a 100-question personality test. I know I've done it for Best Buy, Blockbuster, Caribou, I'm sure there are more. The test is supposed to determine your work-worthiness, but all the questions are ambiguous at best and are blatant attempts at encouraging corporate dronery at worst. It's probably the only test in the world where you are supposed to lie.

Anyway, enough of the rant and on to the H/A... I'm surprised that with the power of the internet nobody has hacked this one. I'm always given the same questions - has nobody released the answer key? From what I understand the managers just receive aggregate scores (which is even dumber) but has anyone leaked anything from inside the company? I did a quick google but all it turned up was urban legends

(only answer strongly agree/strongly disagree! never answer strongly agree/ strongly disagree! answer as fast as possible! don't answer too fast!)

ceres

Those tests are the biggest pain in my ass. I've heard all the same "tips", but one that stuck out for me that you didn't mention was "always answer that you would deal in the harshest possible way with rule-breaking."

In other words, if you're asked what you would do if you caught some guy stealing bread to feed his starving family, never give the "slap him on the wrist and send him home" answers. You always want to say that this person must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and if possible have both hands chopped off at the wrist.

I have no idea if that's true or not, and I suppose it makes sense in a way. My problem with these tests is that I am the worst imaginable liar, especially if I know only that I'm supposed to lie and not in which direction. When I try to answer truthfully, I never get called in for the interview.

meatflower

I'd love to hear some answers on these. I took one for BestBuy online about three years ago. Never heard a thing from them after I took it .

One thing I have heard is that they check for consistency by asking similar questions multpile times throughout the test. Give inconsistent answers and you're a dirty liar who is not to be trusted. You know, since differently phrased questions could NEVER elicit different responses from the same person.

Topia

I worked for Futureshop and when I did mine they actually took some questions that were "questionable" and asked me to explain my answer. Being quick on my feet, I managed to keep up and think of a good reason. I really wish I would have remembered some of the questions they asked and the response I gave as to why I answered the way I did.

But yet, consistency is important, and rule-breaking is always bad. "One bad thing leads to another, and then it escalates."

Sliver

always pick strongly agree/disagree. Always pick the answer you think they'll want to hear. They'll throw a couple curve balls at you like "do you work best at a slow but steady pace" but other than that it's a cakewalk.

Monolithic_Dome

Sliver, not that I'm trying to "out" you or anything, but do you have any experience here or are you just guessing along with the rest of us?

Man, if I could just find someone who is the DM/SM at a place that does this. Hack up a script to send in about 1,000 "applications" or so and figure out which ones got the high scores.

Nakatomi2010

Should see it from my end... As a person who can hire for the store I work at I've seen the results, which I'm sure I'm not allowed to talk about, but needless to say that if you do poorly enough management wont even open your app...

Monolithic_Dome

You fucking tease

:P

Sliver

Monolithic_Dome wrote: »

Sliver, not that I'm trying to "out" you or anything, but do you have any experience here or are you just guessing along with the rest of us?

Man, if I could just find someone who is the DM/SM at a place that does this. Hack up a script to send in about 1,000 "applications" or so and figure out which ones got the high scores.

I know it works based on trial and error. I tried stewing over the answers and wouldn't get interviewed. I tried never picking strongly agree/disagree and did horribly. (apparently they used a color coding system of some kind and the manager said I got a red, which is bad) When I tried only picking strongly agree/disagree and tried answering as fast as possible (which is important because these things are timed and if you take too long on a question they think you're trying to cheat.) I knew it must have worked because when I walked in to ask how I did I got interviewed on the spot. The manager also said I did pretty well on the test.

Urian

These tests are bullshit. The 40 page best buy one took me close to 30 min. to complete and I had to go and do stuff in the middle of it so I suppose that screwed over my score, I didn't know they timed it.

Jasconius

The tricky thing about these tests is that "just lying" is not actually the solution.

My mother was a hiring manager of a for a bookstore and they used one of these UNICRU-esque tests to filter employees. I took one on a whim and I did the lying thing, and it actually has a scoring dimension based on honesty.

What it does is it asks you questions like "Do you have friends who smoke pot" which is completely fucking irrelevant to you personally but they use these answers, compare them about answers that actually DO pertain to you, and then basically act as a dumbass lie detector.

The thing about UNICRU that is nice is that even if you fail, your application gets faxed to the target store anyway, it just has a big "THIS GUY IS A HOSER" box printed out on the top of it. When I worked as a manager for Blockbuster, we would read all of them, because we knew the test was bullshit.

Basically, just answer truthfully and if you fail, whatever, any place with a decent management staff knows how worthless that test is and will read every application that comes to them. And those are the people you want to work for anyway.

HadjiQuest

I work at a CVS.

Last summer, I was 19, and had never had a job of any kind. The summer before, I spend a month or two casually applying, and found out almost every store uses unicru these days. I applied to all of them, but slowly and honestly, and always came up as code yellow.

I think that means I'm a pedophile. There was a thread in SE++ about it, hence my title.

These things were the bain of my existence until I got a job at a local super-market (one of the only entry-job places locally that still does paper applications), and was placed in the meat department.

One shift in the meat department sent me into a manic fit; I applied to every other store in the plaza, whether I was qualified for the work or not, and I even put second applications into the stores I had already applied to.

I went home and right to bed, and when I woke up I still had the manic energy to apply rapidly to as many stores as I could.

After two days of this, I got calls from CVS and Toys R Us. Within the next month, almost every place I applied at called me back.

Here are my suggestions:
-Go into it with an "I FUCKING LOVE PEOPLE!" attitude
-Pretend you are a shill who has NO EMOTIONS (on the court releasing a guilty man question, answer not upset)
-Choose the polar answers (the verys) almost every time, except on questions that seem exceptionally irrelevant
-Run through it quickly.

Edit: Out of all the places I applied to two years ago, and CVS where I work now, no one even considers the low and mid marked applications unless they're desperate for help.
Edit 2: I've always been surprised at how much power unicru has. It seems like even the smallest class action by a few pissed off people could topple these online personality quizes; they seem rather unethical.

Brodo Faggins

I fucking hate UNICRU. I applied for a Best Buy in LA, and I was asked four separate times if I was Mexican, where my birthplace was three times, and what state I was from four times. Way to be subtle, jackasses.

Sliver

Jasconius wrote: »

The tricky thing about these tests is that "just lying" is not actually the solution.

My mother was a hiring manager of a for a bookstore and they used one of these UNICRU-esque tests to filter employees. I took one on a whim and I did the lying thing, and it actually has a scoring dimension based on honesty.

What it does is it asks you questions like "Do you have friends who smoke pot" which is completely fucking irrelevant to you personally but they use these answers, compare them about answers that actually DOpertain to you, and then basically act as a dumbass lie detector.

Yeah, that's one of the curve balls I was talking about. That and "Do you know anyone that steals? (or stolen anything) are honestly tests to make sure you aren't lying. Keep an eye out for those.

edit @ HadjiQuest: Yeah it's kindof funny how some managers hire/interview entirely on the basis of how well you did on these tests. Best thing you can do is ask how you did each time and keep tweaking your answers until you've got it nailed.

Shurakai

I passed it my first go and got hired right away..

Im not sure its the greatest of things, but all I know is that 90% of the people I work with are kick ass people, so there must be something to it.

Edit: also one of the people from my high school also attempted to get hired, he is a mangy devious guy who would steal from the store at the drop of a hat. He probably lied the whole way through the test and they told him he got a red flag. I really didnt care if he got hired or not so I didnt say a thing.

Endomatic

Applying for any work is just a big fucking song and dance. It's like dating. I might as well put on some feathers and hop around and see if they like it.

Be as honest as possible I guess would be the best thing. Most of the test is retarded.

Whenever I take those things I always make sure NOT to make myself out to be the slave, because I will never act that way to anyone or any company. If they don't want me because I'm not willing to sacrifice anything they want for 12/hour (or whatever the case may be), then I don't want to work there anyway.

GiantRobo

HadjiQuest wrote: »

I work at a CVS.

Hit upc enter then drag the warning window to the very corner of someone's register. Hilarity will ensue. Maybe. Depends how angry the person gets. Plus, that's just a good trick to leave up so you don't have to keep logging back into the register.

Here are my suggestions:
-Go into it with an "I FUCKING LOVE PEOPLE!" attitude
-Pretend you are a shill who has NO EMOTIONS (on the court releasing a guilty man question, answer not upset)
-Choose the polar answers (the verys) almost every time, except on questions that seem exceptionally irrelevant
-Run through it quickly.

Edit: Out of all the places I applied to two years ago, and CVS where I work now, no one even considers the low and mid marked applications unless they're desperate for help.
Edit 2: I've always been surprised at how much power unicru has. It seems like even the smallest class action by a few pissed off people could topple these online personality quizes; they seem rather unethical.

Don't forget, no matter what, even if it's a homeless ethiopian kid starving about to die, no stealing food or anything for them