Controversial Blue Avatar Personality Tests Spark Frustration Among Job Applicants
Step aside, Na’vi version of Sigourney Weaver: A new blue avatar is becoming famous. If you apply to one of several large corporations today, you might see a blue guy that looks like the Walmart version of Disney’s wide-eyed style of animation. No, it’s not a company mascot; it’s actually part of your evaluation.
The blue avatars are part of a long and confusing personality quiz in the hiring process at a handful of big companies. Many applicants find their presence not only bizarre but also a bit insulting.
The blue people are courtesy of Paradox.ai, which boasts several billion-dollar companies as clients, including McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Citizens, and more. It’s worth noting that not all of the clients of Paradox.ai use the personality test feature, as different spokespeople from Citizens, 3M, and CVS Health all confirm. Still, many have taken to social media to express their confusion as to why this extra hoop—a long, bizarre personality test—is being placed in front of applicants considering many of these same companies claim to suffer a staffing shortage.
“Getting a dishwashing job at Olive Garden now requires a personality test from an AI company where you respond to more than 60 slides featuring a blue alien called Ash,” tweets Emanual Maiberg, who first reported on said quiz in a larger piece for 404 Media.
Already strung out and cynical about the state of work, employees and job applicants found these types of assessments to be the final nail in the coffin. Although economists maintain that we’re in a tight job market, the hunt is longer and trickier than it used to be in part because of extraneous quizzes and interviews. Just last year, the average time it took to hire an employee reached a record high of 44 days, per Josh Bersin Company and AMS.
“Companies are quick to fire and then are very slow to hire,” says Dan Schawbel, managing partner at Workplace Intelligence, comparing the current situation to the job market coming out of the 2008 recession.
The long, winding, blue road to an Olive Garden job
Let’s say you decide to apply for a job at Olive Garden. One of the first things you’ll see is an A.I. chatbot named Olivia (named after, and using the likeness of, the Paradox’s founder’s fiancée).
After answering a couple of screening questions, you’ll get a pop-up for the personality assessment, illustrated with weird blue humanoids. The personality quiz itself will tell you there’s “not one right answer,” but to look at the picture and either click “me” or “not me” if the depiction of the blue avatar describes how you might act or feel. You’ll see a bunch of slides like this, featuring the blue avatars in situations like grabbing pizza before others partake or engaging in artistic endeavors. The process culminates with the AI system telling you your Big 5 personality traits. Many have commented on Maiberg’s tweet to discuss how dystopian these tests feel. Some suggest not being honest on the tests, as answers can be used against you.
Part of the whole process is seeing if you’ll be a willing cog in the machine or rage against it. Companies often shirk applicants that aren’t personality fits “because they don’t want this person that they’re hiring to shake things up. They really want someone to fall in line with the status quo,” says Schawbel.
Dr. Heather Myers, chief IO psychologist at Traitify by Paradox (the official name of the personality test), tells Fortune the personality test can be done in under two minutes, claiming the competition rates for their tests are “significantly higher” than other assessments and that turnover has decreased by up to 25% for Paradox’s clients. Myers says Paradox’s goal is to “simplify the hiring process and remove friction for job applicants” and that while it’s not meant to eliminate a company’s human decision-making process, automation can help neutralize dead ends and create a more efficient job system.
But in attempting to alleviate employers’ frustration, Paradox is stirring employee frustration—it’s a bit of a paradox, if you will. The test is a way to filter out applicants, according to Schawbel. Adding that it’s a way of seeing who really wants the gig by “put[ting] individuals through the gauntlet,” he explains it “weeds out a lot of people.”
“Paradox was created entirely because we were frustrated by the experience of finding and getting jobs, too,” Adam Godson, Paradox’s president and chief product officer says. “So, we fully appreciate the job seeker perspective.” He added that there’s been too much friction and obstacles in the hiring process at many companies, and that Traitify is a way to take out those obstacles and conflict.
But if one side