Most US job applicants face automated personality screening before any human contact

Evidence

By 2014, an estimated 60 to 70 percent of US prospective employees faced online personality tests before they could even be seen or spoken to by a human being. Personality testing dates back at least to the 1930s, but greater data processing power has massively increased the capacity to integrate such testing and the results it produces into the categorization of actual and potential workers. One estimate suggests there might be as many as seventy-five-million assessment tests administered to potential employees each year in the United States. A form of anticipatory management, personality tests can flag any criterion an employer chooses—for example, candidates who are prone to join a labor union, who display potential markers for mental illness, or who are likely to ask for salary increases or, conversely, remain on the job without asking for a raise. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 228

Categorization

• QUESTION: Is there follow-up data on whether these figures persisted or grew past 2014? Worth checking for a more current cite.
• SEED: The fact that personality tests can flag union-prone or salary-asking candidates is a strong angle for an essay on algorithmic labor screening as covert anti-union surveillance.
• SHARE: The 60-70% figure plus the union-flagging specific would land sharply with anyone working on labor organizing or algorithmic management.
• XREF: connects to: Automated personality profiling can threaten well-being, freedom, or even life. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 856; Accurate behavioral reading requires knowing who a person is first; Over half of job applicants fraudulently claimed expertise in a nonexistent device (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Algorithmic discrimination affects real people despite targeting only probabilistic data doubles. #corroborates (0.85) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 408
• Automated personality profiling can threaten well-being, freedom, or even life. #expands (0.82) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 856
• Machines can treat everyday digital traces as psychological test items #expands (0.80) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 2375
• Data-driven targeting achieves an intimate, auto-fitting mould over individual subjects. #expands (0.78) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 402
• Accurate behavioral reading requires knowing who a person is first #corroborates (0.75)
• Over half of job applicants fraudulently claimed expertise in a nonexistent device #qualifies (0.75)
• How race and gender actually affect hiring decisions inside admissions offices remains unknown #qualifies (0.72)