Jobseekers made to carry out bogus psychometric tests

[NoXion]

Jobseekers made to carry out bogus psychometric tests - The Guardian

Unemployed people are told they risk losing benefits if they fail to carry out meaningless questionnaire

Link to video: Why is the DWP making jobseekers take sham psychometric tests?

Jobseekers are being made to complete bogus psychometric tests by the Department for Work and Pensions – and told that in some cases they risk losing their benefits if they do not complete the meaningless online questionnaire.

The test called My Strengths, devised by Downing Street's behavioural insights or "nudge" unit, has been exposed by bloggers as a sham with results having no relation to the answers given.

Some of the 48 statements on the DWP test include: "I never go out of my way to visit museums," and: "I have not created anything of beauty in the last year." People are asked to grade their answers from "very much like me" to "very much unlike me".

When those being tested complete the official online questionnaire, they are assigned a set of five positive "strengths" including "love of learning" and "curiosity" and "originality".

However, those taking the supposed psychological survey have found that by clicking on the same answer repeatedly, users will get the same set of personality results as those entering a completely opposite set of answers.

An unemployed single mother, who wanted to be referred to as Maggie, said she received an official DWP letter warning her that her jobseekers' allowance of £71 a week "could be stopped for a period of time" if she did not fill out the questionnaire.

The DWP letter said the test was "scientifically shown to find people's strengths" and instructed her that along with searching for work she must complete the online test within three days. "Failure to comply with this direction may result in loss of benefit," it added.

The mother of two young children, who is in her late 20s, said she was upset when she discovered the test was a sham. "It's a waste of time … I felt really disappointed. I thought, you've made me do this and there's a chance I might lose my benefits if I didn't do it but really, I didn't need to do it," Maggie said.

The government's nudge unit is attempting to implement the findings of the field of behavioural economics or "nudge" theory, which says that human behaviour can be shifted dramatically by small changes in the way people are presented with information.

The unit, which costs just over half a million to run, is championed and overseen by David Cameron himself, and its head, Dr David Halpern, is paid around £100,000 a year to run it. The blogger Steve Walker, who runs the Skwawkbox site, discovered that the website hosting the test was registered to a civil servant based in the Cabinet Office's nudge unit.

Walker criticised the department's use of the test. "In a context where we see regular headlines about people committing suicide out of fear of losing their benefits, it's appalling that the DWP is threatening people with low literacy and computer skills with the loss of their income if they don't complete a meaningless test designed to manipulate them into some kind of positive thinking," he said.

The DWP did not comment on the validity of the test but denied that anyone would be stripped of their benefits for not completing it. A spokesperson said that the exercise was "intended to help jobseekers identify their strengths, and we have had extremely positive feedback from both jobseekers and their advisers – it is right that we use every tool we have to help jobseekers who want to work find a job".

Seriously, take a look at the questions asked. Some of them use what I would call loaded language, while others appear to ask nothing of substance, like "When the topic called for it [sic], I can be a highly rational thinker" - what does that even mean? Yet more ask questions that should be of absolutely no interest to the JobCentre or to potential employers. Still others are have a downright Orwellian whiff to them: "I have taken frequent stands in the face of strong opposition" and "Pain and disappointment often get the better of me" are especially striking in this regard. As for "I can rarely stay on a diet" - isn't that kind of thing meant to be between oneself and a qualified dietician?

This page takes a look at the source code for the questionnaire. I know very little about Javascript, but looking at the source code for the page, it doesn't look at all like it's worth anything near half a million quid a year. Maybe someone more knowledgeable can weigh in?

[Korvan]

For a job I once applied for I had to fill out personality test. After I finished, I realized they could really replace the entire test with one question. "Are you willing to work unpaid overtime?"

[Simon_Jester]

Jobseekers made to carry out bogus psychometric tests - The Guardian

Unemployed people are told they risk losing benefits if they fail to carry out meaningless questionnaire

...
When those being tested complete the official online questionnaire, they are assigned a set of five positive "strengths" including "love of learning" and "curiosity" and "originality".

However, those taking the supposed psychological survey have found that by clicking on the same answer repeatedly, users will get the same set of personality results as those entering a completely opposite set of answers.

I'm a little unclear on this. It sounds like the test has a bug of some kind (say, you can overflow a counter by clicking "I love museums!" eight times), or that the test gives gibberish results if you just click "very much like me" for every answer on the test. Both of which are sort of predictable, especially if this is something coded in a few days/weeks by one or two guys out of an office with a budget of only half a million a year.* Or am I not understanding this?

*Seriously, that is really NOT enough to do more than pay salaries on... what, 10-15 civil servants, tops? Not having a good Web programmer on staff wouldn't surprise me.

An unemployed single mother, who wanted to be referred to as Maggie, said she received an official DWP letter warning her that her jobseekers' allowance of £71 a week "could be stopped for a period of time" if she did not fill out the questionnaire.

The really antisocial thing here, I suspect, is that DWP may well be actively looking for excuses to drop people- and routinely uses the "you might lose your benefits" card to get compliance about basically everything.

The government's nudge unit is attempting to implement the findings of the field of behavioural economics or "nudge" theory, which says that human behaviour can be shifted dramatically by small changes in the way people are presented with information.

There is a fine line between advertising and mind control, since all advertising is an attempt to control minds. I think we're now looking at a PR department which has gone nuts, with encouragement from the government...

Walker criticised the department's use of the test. "In a context where we see regular headlines about people committing suicide out of fear of losing their benefits, it's appalling that the DWP is threatening people with low literacy and computer skills with the loss of their income if they don't complete a meaningless test designed to manipulate them into some kind of positive thinking," he said.

[/quote]That's the really nasty bit- the threats. Which, again, I suspect reflect on the DWP's overall general habits and attitude: they're being pushed from all sides to lower costs by removing people from the welfare rolls, and are very unlikely to be punished for withdrawing the benefits wrongfully.

[NoXion]

I'm a little unclear on this. It sounds like the test has a bug of some kind (say, you can overflow a counter by clicking "I love museums!" eight times), or that the test gives gibberish results if you just click "very much like me" for every answer on the test. Both of which are sort of predictable, especially if this is something coded in a few days/weeks by one or two guys out of an office with a budget of only half a million a year.* Or am I not understanding this?

As far as I can tell, the "test" is complete junk. It doesn't matter what answers you put in because it's not actually a diagnostic tool of any kind. Seriously, try it yourself. I did, answering "honestly" (or at least as near as I could given the some of the stupid questions) on the first go, then answering "very much unlike me" for every question. The results were exactly the same, except mixed up differently.

I honestly think those silly "which Star Wars character are you?" tests display more rigour than this travesty which is being forced on people (even though the DWP deny that!) on pain of income withdrawal.

*Seriously, that is really NOT enough to do more than pay salaries on... what, 10-15 civil servants, tops? Not having a good Web programmer on staff wouldn't surprise me.

10 to 15 civil servants might actually have been able to accomplish something worthwhile. This "nudge unit" is a sham and a waste of money.

The really antisocial thing here, I suspect, is that DWP may well be actively looking for excuses to drop people- and routinely uses the "you might lose your benefits" card to get compliance about basically everything.

...

That's the really nasty bit- the threats. Which, again, I suspect reflect on the DWP's overall general habits and attitude: they're being pushed from all sides to lower costs by removing people from the welfare rolls, and are very unlikely to be punished for withdrawing the benefits wrongfully.

The thing is, out-of-work benefits are but a small part of the overall budget. The motivation behind this kind of behaviour is likely ideological or pathological, possibly both, but it's can't be economical, unless "creating an impoverished and downtrodden underclass to use as a stick against other workers" fall under that.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Sounds like the false economy of closing public loos is back. Hey, let's tell homeless people and the rest of the public to just not shit in the street.

As David Mitchell said, the Victorians could afford this, we're not THAT fucked.

Oh, the topic? I agree. It's bollocks, but no different to the same sort of exercises I've done for actual employers. A multinational scientific research company will use just as much crap as they do on these DWP tests.

[NoXion]

It is different though, because the cost for this bullshit is coming out of the public purse.

[Starglider]

this travesty which is being forced on people (even though the DWP deny that!) on pain of income withdrawal.

So fucking what. Normal employees do whatever bullshit HR asks for in return for getting paid, it's pathetic that wasting 30 minutes on some paperwork is somehow considered an imposition to free money recipients. Too much like actual work? In the next thread over everyone is saying how it's just fine for the government forces questionaires on people with pain of imprisonment and no compensation at all (census).

Obviously the test is worthless public servant busywork, but normally you guys are all for that? Think of it as a stimulus / employment scheme for sociology grads.

[Zaune]

It's not the test itself that bothers me, but the underlying mentality behind it. Constant, heavy-handed threats to kick people off the dole for even the most trivial of reasons on the principle of "less eligibility" might have been marginally defensible six or seven years ago, when anyone who was reasonably physically fit and spoke enough English to comprehend simple instructions could find something in a few weeks. But right now the official unemployment figure, after everything they can possibly get away with doing to fudge the numbers, is about two and a half million. How many job vacancies does the increasingly inaccurately-named Department of Work and Pensions admit to having available? Well, they were touting the figure of "over four hundred thousand" last time I checked, so that doesn't exactly bode well, and I'm sure we've all heard innumerable stories about a handful of vacancies getting a few hundred applications each. What possible purpose is served by trying to whip people into trying harder and harder to apply for vacancies that don't exist anymore? At best it's wrongheaded and counterproductive -a fat lot of taxpayer's money we'll save by locking these people up when they end up stealing so they won't starve!- and at worst it's just out and out bullying.

[NoXion]

So fucking what. Normal employees do whatever bullshit HR asks for in return for getting paid, it's pathetic that wasting 30 minutes on some paperwork is somehow considered an imposition to free money recipients.

Oh dear. Firstly, it's most certainly not "free money" - it has already been paid for through tax and National Insurance contributions.

Secondly, just because private companies can get away with this kind of fuckery on their own dime, doesn't in any way make it acceptable for people to be coerced into jumping through meaningless hoops while they and everyone else who pays tax picks up the bill.

Too much like actual work? In the next thread over everyone is saying how it's just fine for the government forces questionaires on people with pain of imprisonment and no compensation at all (census).

An important difference being that a census actually provides useful information. Pseudo-scientific box-ticking exercises don't do that.

Obviously the test is worthless public servant busywork, but normally you guys are all for that?

I'm certainly not, and if you think the census is "worthless", then you're a whole lot less clever than I thought you were.

Think of it as a stimulus / employment scheme for sociology grads.

Except that if any information-gathering is being done in this instances, it's not being done for the reasons stated, which brings up questions of ulterior motives, perhaps even fraud.

[Admiral Valdemar]

TIL Starglider likes pseudoscience if it makes the poor people strain themselves. And I thought he was anti-government waste. Oh well. And companies doing it = okay for gubmint to do it.

[Alyrium Denryle]

So fucking what. Normal employees do whatever bullshit HR asks for in return for getting paid, it's pathetic that wasting 30 minutes on some paperwork is somehow considered an imposition to free money recipients.

Free money? No. That money has already been paid, often by the large jobless population in the UK, by their own contributions in taxes etc.

Too much like actual work?

How about you fuck yourself? The unemployment rate in the UK is 7.5%, and the underemployment rate is closer to ten. There are not enough positions to go around. So don't start on that bullshit about blaming the jobless for their state.

In the next thread over everyone is saying how it's just fine for the government forces questionaires on people with pain of imprisonment and no compensation at all (census).

The Census is actually USEFUL. This is pseudoscientific bullshit. I know you dont understand the difference, but there is one.

[Marko Dash]

and it seems a ton of places use them. nearly everywhere i've tried to apply resently all have a 60+ page multiple choice test of the same 5-10 questions worded slightly different. there's not much
freedom in the selection of options, ether you're going to sound like a thief or brown nosed boot licker.

[Simon_Jester]

I think that during the mid-20th century, an ideal of loyalty to your employer got expressed very strongly. Companies still want this kind of loyalty, even if they're not able or willing to give similar loyalty back.

I imagine some HR/management tends to be gullible in areas where one of their wish-fulfillment fantasies is activated; having a reliable personality test that assesses whether people will be desperately loyal to the company has to be one of those fantasies.

[Starglider]

Free money? No. That money has already been paid, often by the large jobless population in the UK, by their own contributions in taxes etc.

UK national insurance contributions are proportional to 42k; median earnings (full and part time) are 20k so obviously there is major subsidy from higher to lower earners, from full-time to part-time earners and from people who don't spend years claiming unemployment to people who do. Jobseekers benefit is a tiny fraction of this - most of it is state pension, most of the rest is disability - but even still in most such cases it is not 'their own money'.

Too much like actual work?

How about you fuck yourself? There are not enough positions to go around. So don't start on that bullshit about blaming the jobless for their state.

Strawman, in that the majority of recipients did not claim this was a human rights violation, that they were degraded by being made to do a questionaire etc. I stated that most actual jobs (for large companies) involve putting up with random HR bullshit, so there is no reason why people claiming benefits should expect immunity to it. Anyone who sucked it up and filled it out was fine, whether they complained that it was a waste of time and money or not. Anyone who screamed and wailed about the horror of being forced to do HR bullshit is refusing to do something a normal job would entail and is a worthless parasite.

The Census is actually USEFUL. This is pseudoscientific bullshit. I know you dont understand the difference, but there is one.

I've already stated that this is worthless excretion of bottom-tier sociology grad that wastes time and money. The problem is the hysterical 'human rights' tone of the objections, and the fact that the actual 'waste of money' objection is at odds with this board's usual desire to employ as many civil servants as possible (regardless of what they do).

[Simon_Jester]

Me, I am opposed because it's a stupid waste of money. Also, because it is *always wrong* to threaten people as a punishment, if they fail to do something that you know is a waste of their time. That way, Kafka lies.

[NoXion]

Strawman, in that the majority of recipients did not claim this was a human rights violation, that they were degraded by being made to do a questionaire etc. I stated that most actual jobs (for large companies) involve putting up with random HR bullshit, so there is no reason why people claiming benefits should expect immunity to it.

Yes there is, because wasting public time and money on pseudo-scientific bullshit is something that should be discouraged.

Anyone who sucked it up and filled it out was fine, whether they complained that it was a waste of time and money or not. Anyone who screamed and wailed about the horror of being forced to do HR bullshit is refusing to do something a normal job would entail and is a worthless parasite.

If "normal jobs" require time-wasting bullshit then the problem is with those so-called "normal jobs". I'm not a "worthless parasite" for not wanting to waste my own time and energy (whether as a jobseeker or an employee) on such fucking rubbish - the real parasites are the endless parade of "consultants" who charge exorbitant fees for foisting such pointless crap on people who have better things to do.

I've already stated that this is worthless excretion of bottom-tier sociology grad that wastes time and money. The problem is the hysterical 'human rights' tone of the objections,

I find it really funny that you're objecting to the tone on a forum like this. What's wrong with the idea that people shouldn't be forced to go through pointless motions on pain of income withdrawal? Just because private companies can get away with making their employees eat shit, doesn't make it right to force everyone else to do the same. Wouldn't it be better if nobody had to eat shit?

and the fact that the actual 'waste of money' objection is at odds with this board's usual desire to employ as many civil servants as possible (regardless of what they do).

Maybe it wouldn't seem so strange if you weren't such a strawmandering cunt.

[Admiral Valdemar]

It's all kinda academic now.