International differences - getting a job in America

The startup I went to work for in the USA, now rolled up into a company called PreVisor, was in the serious business of selecting employees for Fortune 500 companies of all kinds.

The scale of the USA employment market is massive. Walmart for example, have over a million employees, turning over at an unbelievable rate (because the job sucks!), and over 12m job applicants a year. Most apply on-line, so how do you deal with that many resumes in your in-tray?

ePredix was a genius idea, providing an online, short psychological assessment which scored in real-time a view of the suitability of the person for the job. One key was that it was legally defensible, asking job-relevant questions that truly predicted the likelihood of success in a job.

This test was what we were competing with.

If you can't read the questions, click on the picture and it will open in a new window.

And think about what you'd be prepared to say to get a $6/hr job at a Rent-A-Center branch in Arkansas.