Survey Says...

I'm amazed at how a job search can change in just a few years. The last time I was looking for  job, very few businesses had an "online application" process, and it was a pretty big deal when you applied. Now, everyone has their own online application, some good, some not-so-good. A neat wrinkle for these is the "personality survey" that requires you to rate whether you agree or disagree with a particular statement. ("I think falling asleep and snoring in the  middle of a meeting is a bad thing"-Agree.."I think that tying someone's shoelaces together that has fallen asleep and is snoring in a meeting is morally acceptable"-Agree..) While these surveys can seem silly, they can also be profound..but more on that later. When I was working on a couple of these surveys for a couple companies (You know who you are!) I noticed that a time limit was enforced, which would have been alright, except for the "essay questions" at the end of the survey. These questions weren't the simple kind, either. "Please explain all of your strengths and weaknesses in detail as they would pertain to this job" read one. (And hurry! You only have 6 min to complete the other 10 questions!) And, when the time limit expired, the website would conveniently dump you out to a page informing you that you needed to login and input ALL your personal information again. After a few tries, I felt like I was on the "Survey" edition of that show Wipeout, and could almost hear the announcers: "Ooh..he's making good time through the multiple choice, Bob..But  now he's up against the essay section and it looks like he misspelled 'exponentiation', that's gonna cost him..Ooh! he got resume'd!"
 Now for the profound.. As I was reading the agree/disagree questions, I had an odd epiphany.  I knew that these questions were so that the company could tell if they could use someone of my personality, but after reading my responses, I suddenly saw myself as someone else would! This caused me to be able to say "Wow! I could do this job, even though I wouldn't have immediately thought of doing this!" Now, it seems that a whole spectrum of jobs I never even looked at is suddenly open to me! wow! Imagine the possibilities! (It doesn't make searching on Monster any easier, but I can live with that)