Psychometrics don't work well with Asians

Perhaps in this global economy and overwhelming exposure to MTV and American sitcoms and hopefully not British ones like Little Britain; we may all be westernized. I mean, there's a huge difference between race and culture. For example, you could be culturally American but Indian (the Asian kind) racially.

The problem with applying psychometric tests like Myers-Briggs, Cubik's PAPI personality tests and the sorts are that the statistical sampling of results are gathered from prepubescent Americans going through freshmen year; and besides making some money as personality test subjects; side income are also derived from donating sperm or ovarian cells. What's scary is that the "base psychological" profile is then used as a yardstick to measure other people. When applied to Asians you can get pretty warped results.

For example, if you ask an Asian whether he'd report his boss to the authorities for soliciting money from vendors. He'd probably answer no; because his boss is potentially his father and the vendor's his uncle.

Secondly, Asians are taught to be meek towards folks who are:-

• Older than they are
  
• Magically in bred among the Sultanates or of Kingly bloodline. In which case, that person is still a demi God
• Children and family members of major conglomorates. The new "aristocrats" of current times; if you may.
  

In which case; assessments on Assertiveness will not be accurate. Another example, if you're culturally Japanese maybe then tests on making decisions will not be clear cut. Being Chinese if there's a test for greed they'd probably score extremely high.

I hence posit that psychometrics should first start with determining your cultural orientation. With questions like:-

1. Which do you prefer; a Dirty Sanchez or getting stroodled?
2. What happens when you puff the dragon?
3. Do you think its way cool to exclaim "mother-Chot!"?
   
4. Do you "Tah Fei Kei" or paint the ceiling?
   
5. Are kelentits are delicacy in South East Asia; and why?

Myers Briggs were Wearing Rose Tinted Glasses...

The problem with all these psychometric tests is that, it assumes that the test taker will answer honestly... and that's like asking a cat to chew cud for a Dark Manager.

Here's the Dark Manager's Version of Myers Briggs test:-

Favourite World

• Extraversion(E) - they bitch all the time about everything to Everyone and its always someone elses fault. (dysmorphic fault myopia syndrom or a dumb fuck management sod). You also hear stuff like "ohhh i use to do that when i was young... i was the best... I was trained in such and such", but you'll never see them actually doing it with a 10 feet pole
  
• Introversion(I) - they bitch all the time about everything to THEMSELVES and looks like they're about to go postal.
  

Information

• Sensing(S)
  The dark manager that uses facts and intimate knowledge of bureaucracy in order not to work.
• Intuition(N)
  Builds extrapolations of the worst possible scenario based on completely irrelevant facts that because dogs eat cat turd, these 2 animals can't get along. Sorta like how operations team takes all the crap from projects
  

Decisions

• Thinking(T)
  Scrawny dark managers with glasses that spends 2 whole months to work out a matrix that says there should be another study just to corroborate this study.
• Feeling(F)
  You're probably a single female, potentially late 30s to 40s. If you're married, you've not been porked for 2 years. If you're male, you're going through male menopause.

Structure

• Judging (J)
  I "love" judgers because they come to conclusions really fast, and they talk fast and never let you finish your sentence cause they're assuming that the everyone sees the world as they do. They are also extremely easy to communicate with because they say that they do understand everything you just said; yet does something completely differently. They also fall in love with you at first sight just because you're tall or have good teeth or speaks with a Caucasoid foreign accent. Typically these are the only people that makes them pause and actually listen. (Asians can go dig a hole and die quietly).
• Perceiving(P)
  You hear phrases like "we will cross the bridge once we get there"; they'd do everything just to meet some dateline which they've shrunk by 50% to please the boss. Probably decides to add 20 more function points on the fly cause it seems cool and then removes 10 of them 2 hours before the dateline.
  

If you haven't read psychometric tests and interviews go here.

Hiring & Psychometric Tests

See also related article on psychometrics:

I’d like to consider hiring as the inclusion of individuals which complement weaknesses and enhance the strengths of the organization. It’s a combination of psychological profiling (attitude), private investigation (background check) and skill fit.

We are also thought that Human Resources should be the strategic partner for each department and possess the know how and execution ability to provide professional career development as well as the creation of an “engaged” workforce. Engaged, as purported in the Gallup Corporation’s Q12 series of questionnaires.

Sadly, I’ve seen many organizations degenerate Human Resources into purely administrative duties that could easily be automated or outsourced away. Simple items like payroll, leaves, recruitment approvals, kpi reporting and training manifests still consume considerable amount of manual processing & tracking. They don’t even know who to promote, what’s the quantum of promotion let alone the skills to differentiate a SAP consultant from an office administrator.

The dumbest thing that I’ve ever heard was during a recent reorganization where HR issued their improvement plans on Recruitment Service Levels (note that previously, we had none):-

“Hiring service level is 6 months; however resignation notification period will still be 3 months”, smugly; as the HR Manager twiddled her pinky figure while adjusting her glasses. The whites of her eyes showing as she struggled to see beyond the horizons of the spectacle’s rim.

Psychological Profile
I guess some of you would have heard of psych profiling tools like Myers-Briggs, PAPI, Enneagram, the Johari window and such. The problem to me is that these tools are used to create prejudices prior to the actual interview.



“Damn, he’s a slacker, look at the score for expediency!” exclaimed the happy recruitment manager. (Till this day, I haven't the faintest idea why people find it amusing to find a slacker through tests that are conducted over a series of inane questions in the league of “what would you do if you see your uncle shagging a sheep?”)

Honestly, I’d recommend that you put aside the assessment results and proceed with an open mind. For the sake of humanity, you should at least greet the person without any predilections as to whether he’ll squeeze your hand, or treat it like a dead fish. It’s like assuming all fat people are lazy and cutting interviews short for ugly people. Seriously! It’s hard enough to cure xenophobia; we don’t need a tool that exacerbates our natural inclination to judge.

A better approach would consist of having the interviewee sit for the test, and hide the results from the interviewer until the interview is over. Go through your own interview questions plus a series of standard ones which walk through the quadrants of the psychometric assessment. Once you’ve gone through the questioning should you then begin to review the actual results for verification; and interview the candidate again for confirmation.

You are not only able to reinforce the line of questioning and gauge whether the guy is a wanker or a whiner (more on that later), you would eventually hone your individual assessment over the assessment provided by the test. Which brings me to the point, its only a machine, formed though statistical correlation of a sizeable interview set and presented to you as mere juxtaposition of the statistical sampling.

One thing that time has thought me about the nature of human character, there’s always exceptions and aberrations, a black swan if you may.

Worst, not only are we not able to feedback whether the coined machine assessment is accurate, some even swears by the tests and target the weak points like an Indonesian wife assaulting her husband over his Chinese mistress. (See what I mean about sounding like a racist)

Then there are the dark organizations that spend an inordinate amount of money on these tools, but fail to train any of the recruiting managers on how to interpret the results. The candidate takes the test, the interviewers look at them, and decide based on a hunch or how good looking and well of a speaker the person is. You staple the results with your assessment and no one gives a hoot about the test in the first place.

Heck, I’d be laughing to the bank if I have HR clients from those companies.
How does this relate to you, a dark manager? Easy, you want a candidate that’s pliable, prone to be stretched beyond his breaking point and brainlessly executing any desire while accepting all the blame for the failures.

A dark manager once told me that, breaking in a new hire is like how mother earth breaks down carbon into diamonds. I don’t know about you, but there’s dumb, and then there’s dark management meeting megalomania -> Disaster waiting to happen.