Pre-Interview Organization Analysis Design Tests?

miasok asks: "Recently I was deemed unfit for a job I was applying to, even before having an interview. A local software development company expressed an interest in my resume, but first wanted me to take an Organizational Analysis Design (OAD) test. The OAD test is a form with approximately 100 personality attributes and you are supposed to identify if they whether they apply to you, and if they are expected of you in your current job. I completed all fo the questions truthfully, and was surprised at the response: '...the results do not fall within our range of acceptance for the programming position'. Has anyone else had experience with such a test, especially as the sole means of determining a candidate suitable for a job? More information about this test can be found at here."

whiner

[ragnar]

Has anyone else had experience with such a test, especially as the sole means of determining a candidate suitable for a job?

What makes you think this is the sole reason? It is simply a pre-condition, like a degree or exposure to certain technologies or industries. If a company knows that a certain personality from the meyers-briggs (for example) test works best on their team, and they have an abundance of applicants, can you blame them? Talent and skill are important, but if you've worked on a team with the odd guy you know how important team dynamics are. Whether this test can really acertain personality for them is another matter and I'm not really qualified to judge.

Btw, I'm also in the job market, so I feel your pain. It sucks, but for all you know this company did you a favor.

Show me the code

[Darkstorm]

The company I work for relies on something a bit more simplistic...code. The client wanted 8 programmers instead of 2, so we went looking. After about 15 resumes that came close 10 were off the wall, and 5 were worth possibly talking too. Well, since I'm the head person of this project I wanted to see code. Just wanted to make sure they actually knew how to program. I found it amazing that not a one of them had anything to show. I was baffled by this concept, since I probably have 20 or 30 little utility program (most are not finished, but have allot of them) just laying arround.

So I put together a simple set of utitlity type programs that they could create to show they knew something. Ten possibilies, all simple, and they just needed to pick 3 and come up with something. For some reason they all decided it was too much trouble. So we still have 2 programmers.

I'd be curious to see what one of those test would have said about the people who applied. Not that I would ever want something like that as a basis for a programmer working for me, but it would be interesting.

Fortunately I have final say in who my company hires for programming.