Job recruitment and Scientology test

dasyad

dasyad

dasyad

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15 Mar 2008
Posts
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I received an email from a recruiter regarding a role that seemed quite interesting so I requested more information from them, such as the full job spec etc.

They later replied with the job spec and informed me that if I would like to apply for the job then the first step is a psychometric test, which again didn't particularly stand out as odd to me; until I read the test. The test contained about 200 questions, some of which were rather odd and they could only be answered with a simple Yes/No/Maybe.

I then had a proper read of the instructions page and found the copyright notice:
© 2001 L. Ron Hubbard Library. All rights reserved.
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Now that really set the alarm bells off so I started searching for the company who administer the test, "MasterTech™". They also called the test "Personnel Potential Analysis™ System". I found out that this company has links to the Church of Scientology and that the test itself is another name for "Oxford Capacity Analysis" which is a test used by Scientologists to recruit more people into their religion.

Has anyone else had a job application where they had to complete a Scientology test? Personally I found the whole thing bizarre and decided not go deeper down the rabbit hole :p

TLDR; A company is using a psychometric test developed by Scientologists to recruit people into their religion as a means of deciding whether an applicant is viable for the job role or not.
 
I had to do a psychometric test for my current job, no idea if the scientologists had anything to do with it.
Although I've been here a year so far and they've not tried to brainwash me.
 
Interestingly in Germany a lot of job forms specifically ask if you have ever been involved with scientology and if so then you might as well tear up your application.
 
I wonder if the test is actually all about whether I tell them to bog off or not, and if I do tell them to bog off I've passed? :p

It is really bizarre, from what I can tell the recruiter has zero links to Scientology and their actual client doesn't immediately appear to have anything to do with them either. I asked the recruiter about it and he said that this test was a request from client and they were using it as the first stage of filtering down candidates, the second stage being a telephone interview before finally the third stage which would be face to face.
 
They could just be using job websites and dangling the carrot of a job to look for suitable new recruits, hire vulnerable candidates and then try to indoctrinate them into the church.

What was the role out of interest?
 
mmj_uk said:
They could just be using job websites and dangling the carrot of a job to look for suitable new recruits, hire vulnerable candidates and then try to indoctrinate them into the church.

What was the role out of interest?
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Looked like a bog standard IT job. The job spec itself is nothing out of the ordinary, it's just like any other job spec you'd find elsewhere. It was the introduction of that frankly bizarre test that made me think that something is not right here.
 
mmj_uk said:
They could just be using job websites and dangling the carrot of a job to look for suitable new recruits, hire vulnerable candidates and then try to indoctrinate them into the church.
Click to expand...

I don't think so. They're just selling their test as a recruitment tool to make money.
 
A lot of religious groups like that make money farming out areas of expertise (I use the term loosely) to use outside of the religious context.

The client in this case may be using what they think is an off the shelf test to evaluate candidates without knowing about the origins of the test.
 
Strife212 said:
I don't think so. They're just selling their test as a recruitment tool to make money.
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Rroff said:
A lot of religious groups like that make money farming out areas of expertise (I use the term loosely) to use outside of the religious context.

The client in this case may be using what they think is an off the shelf test to evaluate candidates without knowing about the origins of the test.
Click to expand...

That sounds sensible. However if you read the questions they are all barking mad IMO. I can understand psychometric tests can be used to test your logical thinking and problem solving etc. but there's nothing in these questions that seem to be testing for anything "normal" I really don't understand how anyone could read through these questions and decide yeah I want to use these as the basis of my recruitment process.

The questions are listed here:
http://www.xenu.net/archive/oca/

However I think some of them have been modified slightly on the test I received.

I don't think it would be fair to name and shame them right now when they're clearly in a recruitment drive. Although I'd be really surprised if people took this test without even batting an eyelid :p
 
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