Don't Get Screened-Out

Bob Weinstein

If you thought old-fashioned face-to-face interviews were scary, get ready for pre-screened computer interviews. They present new perils for those caught unprepared.

Computer prescreening has been around for a few years, but now more companies are using it to save time. The reasoning is simple: Why waste precious time interviewing a slew of candidates when you can weed out the un-qualified ones using comprehensive online interviews? Information services company EDS calls its questionnaire the "first step of our new developmental recruiting process."

EDS has an entire Web site devoted to prescreening potential candidates. Before an interviewer ever shakes your hand, he or she knows all about you: your employment history, your degree and, most important, whether you're a team player, problem-solver or potential fast-tracker.

EDS's online interview is not something you can knock out while watching Friends re-runs either. You need at least 45 minutes to answer a barrage of questions such as:

1. Would you rather have structure or flexibility in your job?
   
2. How often do you forget important details?
   
3. How often do your decisions have unexpected consequences?
   
4. In the past, what approach have you chosen to solve difficult problems?
   
5. How would you react to working without direct supervision, setting your own goals and meeting them?
   
6. In what type of work environment are you most productive?
   
7. In the past, when you have been assigned numerous tasks with little direction, how did you react?

You get the idea. Punch in the wrong information, and you'll never hear from your dream company. But determining so-called wrong and right answers is not so simple, warns Brian Stern, a psychologist and managing director of a consulting company. Most candidates deem a right answer to be what they think a company wants to hear and a wrong answer just the opposite.

But it doesn't work that way, says Stern, who designs hundreds of questionnaires for different jobs that range from shop stewards to CEOs. Stern thinks the pre-assessment technique is the wave of the future, because it "casts a wide net" and hauls in qualified candidates. He estimates about 25 percent of candidates get jobs as a result of this process.

How do you ace these tricky assessment interviews? It's done not by telling companies what they want to hear, but by simply being honest, says Stern.

How would you answer questions like, "In the past, what approach have you chosen to solve difficult problems?"

 

1. I have thoroughly investigated all aspects of the job.
   
2. I have felt overwhelmed and asked someone for help.
   
3. I have requested guidance from my supervisor or professor to find the solution.
   
4. I have given up and moved on to a new task.
   
5. I don't know.

Or, "How do you feel about making unpopular decisions?"

1. I like to make decisions I know will be unpopular.
   
2. I have no problem making unpopular decisions.
   
3. I don't like to make unpopular decisions, but I can if necessary.
   
4. I prefer not to make unpopular decisions.
   
5. I can't make unpopular decisions.
   
6. I have never made an unpopular decision.

I bet you'd pick "1" for the first question and "2" for the second. But you could be making a big mistake. Why? Because "companies are looking for a good fit," Stern explains, "by fitting jobs to people." They identify traits for a particular job, i.e. project manager or systems analyst, and then try to find people with matching traits. In the first question, for example, the job may not require someone who stays with a problem until doomsday, but someone who asks for help and moves to the next problem. In the second one, the company may be looking for a manager who can build rapport. Number "3" might be the answer they're looking for.

"It's important to be candid," Stern advises. "There are trap questions that are designed to see if you are responding in an overly socially responsible manner." In a word, fudging. "The last thing you want to do is paint a picture that's not you," Stern adds.

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