I once had an employer that would ask us to perform monthly myers briggs and big 5 tests. I was in a tough financial spot and needed that job. Did my best to roll with it.
One day they wanted to try out an IQ test. 40 questions in 20 minutes. Timer starts when you click a button. I was fed up.
Poked around the testing site and it was an SPA, all JS. Poked through the network calls, saw an odd base64 payload. Decoded it and saw a JS object with "cyphertext", "iv", and some other field I don't recall.
I went looking through the JS sources and found a "decrypt" function. Added a breakpoint before it returned and reloaded the page. Had all the questions without starting the timer.
Took my sweet time going through each question. Compiled all the answers and started the timer. I still got 2 of the 40 questions wrong.
A couple of days later my manager sets up a meeting with me. I assumed they caught wind of what I did. I'm ready to get defensive and say how wrong this is.
My manager starts the meeting congratulating me! My results are within top 2 percentile. That, and a previous big 5 result tells them I have a bright future in the company and they want my input in all big projects going forward.
I went from being the random junior, to everyone in management thinking I'm the next Carmack.
I didn't know how to feel about it. Is it morally wrong?
It taught me a lesson of how biased we are. How much we need to be told how to feel about others. I was the same person, yet a number changed everyone's perception of me.
I don't ever want to take a real IQ test. I don't know how I might start behaving differently if I see a number associated with my "intelligence".
Left that company a few months later and told them about it. They were a bit angry but I hope they learned a lesson in how harmful biased tests can be.
One day they wanted to try out an IQ test. 40 questions in 20 minutes. Timer starts when you click a button. I was fed up.
Poked around the testing site and it was an SPA, all JS. Poked through the network calls, saw an odd base64 payload. Decoded it and saw a JS object with "cyphertext", "iv", and some other field I don't recall.
I went looking through the JS sources and found a "decrypt" function. Added a breakpoint before it returned and reloaded the page. Had all the questions without starting the timer.
Took my sweet time going through each question. Compiled all the answers and started the timer. I still got 2 of the 40 questions wrong.
A couple of days later my manager sets up a meeting with me. I assumed they caught wind of what I did. I'm ready to get defensive and say how wrong this is.
My manager starts the meeting congratulating me! My results are within top 2 percentile. That, and a previous big 5 result tells them I have a bright future in the company and they want my input in all big projects going forward.
I went from being the random junior, to everyone in management thinking I'm the next Carmack.
I didn't know how to feel about it. Is it morally wrong?
It taught me a lesson of how biased we are. How much we need to be told how to feel about others. I was the same person, yet a number changed everyone's perception of me.
I don't ever want to take a real IQ test. I don't know how I might start behaving differently if I see a number associated with my "intelligence".
Left that company a few months later and told them about it. They were a bit angry but I hope they learned a lesson in how harmful biased tests can be.