Have employers been sold modern snake oil?

[smurasaki]

I'm struck by how many jobs now require applicants to take personality tests, pee in cups to prove they aren't drug users, and have criminal and/or financial backgrounds run on them.  All of those cost the companies money (and annoy the applicants), but do they do any good?  I have serious doubts that they do anything but improve the bottom line of

Comments

[smurasaki]

See, the HR department thing would kind of make sense, but, no... this is all outsourced or tacked on stuff. The companies hire other companies to run the tests. Which means that they're paying someone to filter their potential employees, without, as far as I can tell, any thought as to whether its actually a good use of their money.

Now, maybe they get so many applicants at these minimum wage and barely-above jobs that they'd be swamped if they didn't have someone filter them, but that didn't seem to be a problem at the places I've worked at that didn't hire filtering companies.

American companies are just weird?

[jinnayah]

With credit checks, I almost wonder if companies want employees with bad credit. If you've got bad credit, you can't afford to cause trouble.

As for personality tests, I think they make things worse. They increases the chances that the company will hire liars, and a higher number of liars means a hire number of thieves and what have you.

Frankly, none of this stuff is really any of the company's business. (I might make an exception for a recent criminal conviction in an area that would affect the company directly, but even then that would have to be tempered with other considerations.)

[smurasaki]

As for personality tests, I think they make things worse.

That's what it seemed like at the video store. And why it seems like someone should actually study whether they help, harm, or do nothing. Given that there are books on how to "pass" them, and everyone's advice to me is to lie on them, I'd be very surprised if they were beneficial.

[skjam]

For my job, a credit check and criminal background scan did kind of make sense...given that I work with other people's credit cards. The drug test, not so much. And at least at the time, Target didn't use personality tests.

[smurasaki]

I don't know what kind of job you have, but I'm not quite sure how the credit check applies to your working with other people's credit cards. Unless you're advising them on how to spend their credit? Or you're assuming that bad credit makes people more likely to become criminals, which, again, should be investigated before companies leap to that conclusion. (It could also be as Jinnayah theorized - bad credit = good (desperate) employee.)

Now, if medical bills weren't high on the list of reasons people might have bad credit (they are the leading cause of bankruptcy, after all), I might be more willing to make assumptions about people with bad credit.

[skjam]

The theory is that people who are deeply in debt are more likely to abuse their position of trust with other peoples' money. I know that acquiring massive debt after being hired causes some people to consider (and actually commit) embezzlement and credit card fraud.

[smurasaki]

The thing is - you can have bad credit without having debt. I declared bankruptcy due to medical bills (as many people have). That's terrible for my credit, but means that I have no debt.

Though, if it's just debt they're looking at, rather than the person's credit score, it does make a bit more sense. Provided people don't go and get in debt after being hired, of course.

[smurasaki]

*nods* It's the War on Drugs, of course. America loves going to war on concepts and inanimate objects. We're just nutty that way.

[shininghalf]

Word, pretty much. I guess there is the "help maintain the permanency of the underclass" advantage, but somehow I just don't see them pitching that one overtly (and even if they did, who would sacrifice their own bottom line for it?). I think it plays into prejudices that the management may have, that the problem employee is going to be the drug-using ex-con with a rap-sheet at a rent-a-center (not to say likely urban and melanin-gifted, mind, not at all!), when it could just as easily be the sweet-faced weasel.

[smurasaki]

I think that is part of what the companies that offer these services play on, all right. The companies, particularly the personality test companies, sell an image of a perfect worker to the companies they provide the service for. If you don't match that image, you're pretty much screwed. Regardless of whether the image has anything to do with reality.

I'll admit I probably genuinely don't match that image. I think too much and question too much and have a really strong sense of fairness - all of which can cause me problems at a job. On the other hand, I work very hard, care a lot about doing a good job and treating other people well, and would never dream of stealing from even the shittiest of employers.