Interview psychometric tests ...

Possibly the part of any interview that make the Crow squirm the most are psychometric tests.

These batteries of tests are designed to reveal your inner character and suitability for a position. Personally I feel they are on a par with those you get on the back page of Cosmopolitan, and just exist as another hurdle between you and a potential job.

Here is an example of one such question the Crow was asked once, and his reply …

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

QUESTION

You are in charge of a drawbridge and you bring your son to work one day.

You hear a horn and looking out you see there is a passenger ship with about 200 people on it heading towards the bridge.

You have to raise the bridge, but you notice your son is playing in the cogs.

Would you pull the switch and save those people, killing your son?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ANSWER

In my understanding, the normal way drawbridges operate is that the ship requests the bridge to open, by either radio or signalling somehow. But the ship has to “give way” to the bridge, meaning it has to slow down and wait for the bridge to raise when it’s ready. The ship can request the bridge be raised, but it only should be raised when the bridge is safe to do so.

The Captain of the ship's primary care is his ship and those onboard. As operator of the bridge, my primary duty of care is to the bridge and the people using. It’s important to state this to make clear that those people on the ship should not be my primary concern, even in such an emergency.

I cannot be expected to raise the bridge at a moment’s notice, and indeed most bridges cannot raise at any kind of great speed – the reason why ships need to wait for them to be raised.

In addition - there may well still be people on the bridge who I am dooming (not just my son) by panicking and opening the bridge before I’ve assessed the situation.

It should be noted, if the ship is so out of control then in all likelihood my opening the bridge will just move it's problems elsewhere, crashing into another ship (killing two lots of 200 people) or into a bank.

Finally, the drawbridge relies on its operation on its gears. Those gears are required to be kept free of obstructions to operate correctly. If I operate the bridge, I will kill my son, but there is no certainty the gears will not jam and fail to operate.

From my point of view for safety's sake I should

• first get a co-worker to remove my son from the gears, with them so unobstructed I can be sure they will operate as expected. If need be I will do this myself.
• I need to then be sure no-one else is on the bridge, it again, for safeties sake, must be clear, or else I cannot be sure it will even raise properly - if there are several lorries on it, the bridge might be above the maximum load at which the bridge can raise.
• I would at all times try and flag down the ship to make them aware of the bridges status.
• I would then try and only then raise the bridge.
  

The bottom line though is that,

• the ship captain is grossly at fault for not keeping a safe speed on approach of a bridge (an immobile object), ensuring bridge status and keeping control of his vessel.
• the bridge company is at fault for not safely enclosing the gear structure to prevent access to people and foreign objects - its' easily sabotaged!
• I am at fault for bringing my son to work and not taking due care an attention to him.

But my primary duty is the bridge and it's customers/users.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

At this point the interviewer (someone from Human Resources) squirmed a little and say “yes, well … a good answer but I’ve got two boxes here, 'Yes' and 'No' ...”.

There you go – the future of this countries employment – just don’t think outside the (tick) boxes …



All material copyrighted as bullsh*t ...