Online Job Applications With Personality Tests Found Inappropriate For Young Adults

NEW YORK, Sept. 21, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, JobsFirstNYC, a youth workforce intermediary, has released a new report, Online but Disconnected: Young Adults' Experiences with Online Job Applications. The report documents the impact of pre-employment personality assessments on young adult jobseekers.

As applications migrated online, employment and training organizations reported that young jobseekers in New York City were finding it more difficult to be hired. Although pre-employment personality tests are likely to be unreliable, invalid, illegal and ineffective, employers nonetheless use them to screen millions of job applicants each year. These tests have become a major obstacle to employment for young adults.

JobsFirstNYC began an in-depth, five-year investigation documenting the impact of pre-employment personality assessments. Key findings from JobsFirstNYC's original research include:

• Fewer young adults under age 21 are being hired for entry-level retail and hospitality jobs in New York City.
• Many job applications for entry-level retail and hospitality jobs include difficult personality assessments that are inappropriate for young adults.
• Personality assessments are unreliable screening tools.
• Personality assessments used by many New York City retailers and hospitality companies may violate the civil rights of applicants.
• Fairer and more effective screening mechanisms exist.

A minimum wage job with a fast food franchise or a retailer may be short on glamor and pay, but is typically the first rung on the ladder of lifetime employment. National chains now recruit most entry-level workers online, many with applications that include a battery of personality-related questions. This report offers alternative practices for employers to consider when recruiting prospective employees.

JobsFirstNYC is a youth workforce intermediary working to reduce the number of out of school, out of work and underemployed young adults in New York City by building cross-sector partnerships to meet the demands of the economy, increasing local capacity and leveraging community assets, advancing best practices through public policy, and raising consciousness about the economic barriers that young adults face.

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SOURCE JobsFirstNYC