I applied for an opening via the Mediaocean website as well as Linkedin. I received an email 24 hours later stating the following "Thank you for your interest and congratulations for making it to the next step in our hiring process! Having reviewed your career history we are pleased to extend you an invitation to complete 2 pre-employment assessments." One was a personality assessment and the other was a cognitive test. I was rather pleased and although I found it strange to ask me to complete an online personality test, I obliged.
I took the two tests online. The personality test required you to choose one of the following answers: "Always," "Almost Always," "Never," and "Almost Never." The questions were ridiculous, such as the following: "If something goes wrong in your life, you only have yourself to blame," and "Other people's opinions of me are always positive," and "I was outgoing and always kept up socially in high school." There were 88 questions similar to those.
48 hours later I received the following email: "Thank you for your time and interest with Mediaocean. After reviewing your resume, your application, and the test results, we have decided to move forward with other candidates."
OK Mediaocean..... You reviewed my resume, you were pleased with it, and as a result you asked me to take two online tests. Somehow, after the two tests, you reviewed my resume AND my test results, and that prompted you to move in another direction? So which is it? Because you clearly stated you were pleased with my resume when you moved me to step two in the process, but then after I presumable "failed" your personality test, you no longer found my resume up to par.
I have to be honest here, I apply for many jobs that I may not exactly be qualified for, but take a chance anyway, and understand if the company wants to go in another direction. However, this job with Mediaocean was right up my alley. I easily met the core qualifications, the minimum requirements, and 100% deserved a chance to interview for this position. I was both saddened and flabbergasted that this company used an online personality test with a computerized algorithm to place me in a specific box and deem me not worthy enough for their company.
This process is demeaning, impersonal, and insulting. I somehow felt personally rejected without even having the opportunity to speak with a real human being. I am disappointed in not having been given a real chance at this job, despite my solid resume and background, and I believe Mediaocean lost a great candidate due to their own foolish methods. To add insult to injury, I also realized their screening process is done by a woman in Chicago, even though the job is located in Manhattan. Impersonal would be an understatement.
Looking for jobs and interviewing over the past 6 months has been an exhausting process, as most people know, and its a full time job looking for a new job...but somehow this short process with Mediaocean has been one of the worst, most demeaning experiences of them all