Intelligent Technical Solutions?

I thought I would share my recent experience with this so called IT solution company! They were running an ad for a support role, and on the surface of it all sounded right with the world. Ok They sent me an email with a test and then recommended I go to Tony Robbins site to do a DISC analysis? Ok I am a tech pro been in the industry for some time, why would I need to do this, but I played devil's advocate with it, so let's dive right in shall we.

The test site loaded up and I was going to use my tablet with pen, oh no you must use a pc or laptop with keyboard the system demanded. Ok no problem, I pulled out my trusty Toshiba core i5 Satellite. Typed in the test link gave it the validation code and we were off

 Ok a bunch of simple math test questions no problem my trusty i-phone calculator and a little common sense and I banged those out. English I speak it fluently and can recognize spelling differences and grammatical errors and what word to put into a sentence. Back of my mind I'm thinking what does this have to do with a tech support role for a guy with over 20 years doing this? But onwards I went.

 Next up was pattern recognition and picking odd patterns and or like patterns. I have a graphical and mostly photographic memory so ok no big deal. Then it was back and forth with more of this stuff for a bit. They even had me try and type up a huge complicated paragraph to test typing speed, again if I have my thoughts composed I type a very great rate.

Then the test got weird on me. Press this key if you see this shape, press this key if you see the other shape. And on and on it went for what seemed an eternity of this mindless drivel.

 It seemed the more I got into this the stranger it got. They threw sequences of patterns at me and expected me to press one or another key. This was beginning to feel more like a video game then a test. At one point I just got fed up with this BS and started to press both keys at the same time. I just wanted to get through this nonsense onto the actual technical questions. Eventually I did get past the nonsense and into the Tech section of questions.

Guess I should have taken notice of the timer counting down and I would have realized that this type of test was more about burning time away than actually testing real tech knowledge. I discerned this once I got to the real test, they didn't allocate anywhere near enough time for any real or sane technical person to get through it. I was able to answer maybe a half dozen tech questions before the timer ran out.

The questions also required deep thought or access to an online source to pull out specific details on some of them. No one unless they are very fresh out of recent Tech certifications or at an instructor level would be able to blow through these fast enough to make a dent. In other words the cards or the deck was stacked in opposition of me and probably 99% of most tech people from the start. They find clever ways of hiding and obfuscating this into what appears to be a test.

I did the Tony Robbins website just for laughs to see what that came up with. Funny how the world thinks guys like this know everything about everyone. The guy sells books and membership with this website, he's out to make money as are most of these self help guys. but ok I sent them my profile.

Then the following day I get the obvious condescending email saying we regret to inform you that you didn't meet the bar. No shit with a bar set into outer space good luck finding 1% of people who can meet this!

Intelligent Technical Solutions not likely!