21 July 2009

Best Buy, Worst Test

I need a job.

I need a job so badly, I'm seriously considering a career in retail. But apparently, Best Buy isn't quite as desperate for employees as I am for a job. This has nothing to do with my qualifications or experience - it has to do with my inability to pass a test.

You see, it's become common for national chains like this one to submit applicants to a long personality survey before they even look at your application. I guess since it's run by a faceless boardroom at an unknown location, a personal touch isn't really necessary if you can weed out perspective employees by asking them ridiculous questions for an extended period of time, and grade them by unknown standards.

Ask anyone who works at Best Buy, they can't tell you the answers to this 25-page survey. Not because they don't know the answers, but because they have NO IDEA how they even passed the thing in the first place. Many of them have taken it a number of times in the hopes of landing a position on the Geek Squad (a position that they probably already held by choosing to sit at a certain table at the cafeteria - they just wanted an embroidered shirt to prove it to those of us who didn't go to High School with them.)

I, myself, have failed this test three times now. I am aware of this not by any e-mail notification, but because I know an employee there. Had it not been for her, I'd still be waiting for my first answer.

The questions aren't right-and-wrong, two-plus-two-equals-five questions; they're the kind that assume a quality about yourself and give you the same four options to choose from every time.

a) Strongly Agree
b) Agree
c) Disagree
d) Strongly Disagree

I'm pretty sure there are only about five questions, worded differently for 25 fucking pages. There are about fifteen alone that can be answered by just asking 'Are you outgoing or shy?'

First, I answered honestly to the questions. Second, I answered in a way that I assumed they wanted me to answer, and third, I did a mix of the two. I am about to embark on a fourth journey into the depths of Bestbuy.com, not because I particularly want this job, but because it pisses me off to no end that I have a college degree and cannot pass a test that high school dropouts would have no problems getting through. This time I'm not reading the questions at all and answering randomly. That's gotta help.

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