These days, more than 80% of midsize and large companies use personality and ability assessments for entry and mid-level positions as either pre-employment or new-employee orientation tools, says Scott Erker, a senior vice president at Development Dimensions International, a global human-resources consultancy.

If you are active in the job search market you probably have already experienced companies using some form of pre-employment testing.  You no longer simply send your resume, cover letter and complete an online application.  Now you may be asked to invest 10 minutes to more than an hour to complete the online application form and assessment.  Personally, I like this fact, but you may not.  To me it is more convenient to sit at my desk and complete this type of process to find out if I’m a fit instead of having to go through several rounds of interviews to finally realize that the company, environment or job responsibilities were not a match for me.

Which leads me to the other point from the article:

While you can’t study for a personality assessment, there are some things you can do to get a leg up. First, do your homework to understand the job and the organization, says Mr. Erker. “The criteria used to score the test is linked to the job being filled,” he says. Try to find out which assessment is being used and then research how and why companies use it. That will give you insight into the company and the particulars of the job.

Although the article goes on to caution one not to study or research the assessment being used, my thought is that trying to understand the criteria used to score the test is taking it a bit far.  The point about understanding the job and the organization is great because it will put you into the right frame of mind, but never try to “out-think” the assessment.  The typical results that occur are either:  you land a job that you will be miserable in or you bomb the assessment.

If you use a shared refrigerator, make sure you mark your food with your initials and date. And no matter how hungry you are, never, EVER eat food that a co-worker has brought in - - at least not without asking first!

Eating someone else’s lunch, to me, is just taking it too far and I won’t tolerate it.  In one of my previous manager roles we had someone stealing lunches and we couldn’t figure out who was doing it.  Prior to this lunch theft happening, if you didn’t get there early enough you would have a hard time finding room in the fridge for your lunch.  After a few months of thefts, the fridge started looking like a barren desert with only a few people even using it. 

Then all of a sudden the lunch stealing stopped and for the reminder of my time there, no one had their lunch stolen.  Naturally, I tried to find out what happened. I even went so far as having HR look to see who was no longer with us and cross reference their time worked to see if it matched up to the thefts.  None did and no one I asked seemed to know why it stopped.

A couple years later I moved back to Minnesota and started my career in recruiting.  When I left they gave me a going-away party and at that party I asked if anyone knew what happened.  The room burst out in laughter and this is what they told me - a couple of the employees took it upon themselves to take action.  When it got to the point that only a couple of lunches were in the fridge, they started bringing a lunch that had brownies laced with Exlax in them.  If the lunch didn’t get stolen they would eat the lunch minus the brownies of course. 

What they shared with me was that after a couple of times of the laced lunches getting stolen, the lunch burglar stopped.  So I asked who was that was stealing them, they told me they had no idea.  I started laughing harder.  How could someone actually eat brownies laced with Exlax and hide that fact from their co-workers.  That was just remarkable to me along with the plot by these 2 employees to catch the thief.

Nick Dorado, Account Supervisor, said that the network is looking to expand its daily two-hour broadcast powered by Comcast into a 24-hour job channel.  I have not checked it out yet, but this is definitely a step outside the box and an interesting concept that is worth taking a look at.

If you want more information you can check out Vanessa’s post over at Cheezhead (that’s were I first learned about JSTN).

It is a color-based personality assessment and I just couldn’t leave it alone so I went and took the free assessment.  It only took a few minutes to complete.  The response format seems a bit more subjective than other personality assessments I’ve completed so I was a bit skeptical before reading my results.  After reading through the results, I’m not sure what to make of it . . . maybe my suspicions were correct.  The keywords for me are:

Nonconforming, Impulsive, Expressive, Romantic, Intuitive, Sensitive, and Emotional

Most do not fit into my personality profile as my business partner can verify.  The only keyword that people who know me would say fits is Intuitive.  The report also describes your ideal company environment and occupations.  I wasn’t impressed with the list of occupations for me.

I think there are many better reports to use if you find yourself struggling with what type of career to consider.  Most of the assessment out there cost less than a couple hundred bucks.  So should you go take the color assessment?  Let me close with a quote from Vanessa’s post:

But if you’ve got a few minutes to spare at night before the Ambien kicks in, this colorful application might be worth checking out.

Slydial: If you have someone’s U.S. cell phone number, dial Slydial to leave a voice message and dodge the chit-chat. The service somehow slips into the voicemail systems of wireless carriers and drops a message into a mailbox without ringing their phone. A free MYslydial account can assign four-number PINs to contacts for faster dialing. A premium version cuts out the short ads when making a call.

Pinger: Similar to Slydial. When calling from a mobile phone, Pinger allows a sender to get a voice message to mobile customers in about 20 countries without ringing their cell phone. The service sends a text message to the recipient’s mobile phone. They call the number that’s included in the text message to receive the voice message. Pinger also can send the same message to multiple recipients.

Phonevite: If blasting E-mail invitations seems so last century, send a voice message to as many as 25 friends and relatives. Type the numbers on Phonevite’s site, dictate the message, and Phonevite calls the recipients simultaneously to deliver the recorded memo. Or sign up for an account and use any phone to dictate a message for delivery to a group. Great for last-minute changes to softball practice, recruiting a substitute, or reminding colleagues of a meeting.

ReQall: Think of this as post-it notes for voice, and a lot more. Call ReQall to dictate a to-do or shopping list, meeting reminder, or other item you need to remember. ReQall uses voice recognition software to turn the call into a text that appears in an account you sign up for on its site. It can even post meeting dates to some calendars, including Microsoft Outlook 2007, Apple iCal, and Google Calendar.

YouMail: A free, pumped-up voicemail service for cell phones. Get voicemail messages via the phone, E-mail, or YouMail’s site. The site lists who called and where he or she called from and displays his or her photo (if you’ve uploaded one). Callers can hear greetings customized specifically for them, and a “DitchMail” option hangs up on callers whose messages you don’t want to hear.

1. The interviewer gives you a clear timeline for when a decision is expected, rather than being vague or noncommittal.
2. The interviewer asks about your timeline.
3. The interviewer tries to sell the position or company to you.
4. The interviewer spends a lot of time answering your questions.
5. The interview runs over the allotted time.
6. After you’re done, the interviewer introduces you to others or shows you around the office.
7. You hear from your references that the employer has called them.

If you wonder why any of the 7 are good signs, I recommend that you go read the post as Alison gives good insight into the why.  Now just because you experience one doesn’t mean that you should think that the job is locked up.  Let me provide an example from a recent interview. 

The interview started well, but after a couple of questions I could tell that the owner of the company and the candidate did not click.   The candidate was told to plan on a 60-90 min. interview.  After 30 minutes of questions from the owner, he asked the candidate if he had any questions (remember sign 4).  After answering a couple of the candidate’s questions, I expected the owner to show the candidate out the door.  Instead, he asked the candidate if he would like a tour of the facility.

I have to admit at this point I was bit confused because the owner didn’t show a lot of interest in the candidate during the interview.  After the tour I asked the owner his thoughts about the candidate.  He told me that when he got up to shake the candidate’s hand he noticed that the interview had only lasted 40 minutes and he felt that he should spend a little more time with him.  His reasoning - so the candidate wouldn’t have anything negative to say about his experience.