You might be interested in the [Big Five] model of personality, which seems to be a rough scientific consensus, and is better empirically supported than other models. In particular, measures of conscientiousness have a relatively strong predictive value for things like grades, unemployment, crime, income, etc. Myers-Briggs-style tests that sort people into buckets (“You’re an extrovert! You’re an introvert!”) are more common but don’t seem to have a much predictive value except insofar as they reduce to something like the Big Five model.
However, from what I remember of applying to crappy jobs, you may not have taken a real test. I remember normal sounding items like, “I prefer large groups to small groups”, mixed in with “trick” questions like, “If I saw my best friend stealing from the cash register, I would report him/her”. I assume you got those right. Either way, you’re expected to just lie and say you’d be the perfect, most hard-working employee ever and that cleaning toilets/selling shoes/washing cars is what you’ve dreamed of doing since you were five.
You might be interested in the [Big Five] model of personality, which seems to be a rough scientific consensus, and is better empirically supported than other models. In particular, measures of conscientiousness have a relatively strong predictive value for things like grades, unemployment, crime, income, etc. Myers-Briggs-style tests that sort people into buckets (“You’re an extrovert! You’re an introvert!”) are more common but don’t seem to have a much predictive value except insofar as they reduce to something like the Big Five model.
However, from what I remember of applying to crappy jobs, you may not have taken a real test. I remember normal sounding items like, “I prefer large groups to small groups”, mixed in with “trick” questions like, “If I saw my best friend stealing from the cash register, I would report him/her”. I assume you got those right. Either way, you’re expected to just lie and say you’d be the perfect, most hard-working employee ever and that cleaning toilets/selling shoes/washing cars is what you’ve dreamed of doing since you were five.