How to Prepare for Integrity Test Questions
Many companies around the world use a computerized integrity test (also called an honesty test) as part of their hiring process. Integrity tests include questions that either inquire about your background or ask about opinions on different subjects to try and detect undesirable character traits.
The challenge in such a test is to figure out what ambiguous and seemingly unrelated questions actually mean and how to answer them in a way that reflects your true values.
This page provides answers to the following questions:
One of the first things you may have noticed is that it is very difficult to determine what this statement attempts to evaluate. You may think this statement is naive and examines the ability to express your opinion directly and honestly and to see the world as it is. However, this statement does not assess honesty or how accurate we are, but our stance on behaviors related to reliability and integrity.
Therefore, the appropriate answer is "agree".
An integrity test is a self-reporting test containing questions about your personality traits, behaviors, opinions, and values on issues related to honesty and reliability such as interpersonal relationships, workplace loyalty, work ethic, working with company money, and more. They can also examine problematic personal backgrounds with questions about criminal records, debts, chronic disease, drug or alcohol abuse, etc.
Integrity tests have a time limit, and every question is accompanied by a stopwatch-like graphic that shows the candidate how much time they have left to answer the question. Some tests will allow candidates to answer after the time runs out, while others will not. Your response time for each question might also be recorded to be later used to evaluate your answers.
The statements below are from real integrity tests. While in a real integrity test, you will be asked to answer whether you agree or disagree with the statement, here we aim to help you understand what each statement tests. This is important because understanding what exactly you’re being asked is the true challenge of reliability tests. As such, we included three different statements, each representing a different candidate quality or trait.
While one could imagine that this statement tests interpersonal skills and management capabilities (since it discusses relations between colleagues and a decision to fire an employee), the principal aspect evaluated by the question is your view of alcohol use in the workplace.
The statement appears to point us to our life experience and our understanding of the proper way to deal with the authorities. This may seem to evaluate system understanding or qualities such as assertiveness or dominance. However, the statement evaluates our basic belief in our ability to realize our rights while acting decently and ethically.
This question is part of a special ranking scale that is intended to evaluate the validity of the test itself. Since the statement describes a behavior considered ‘rude’ or ‘undesirable’, one may imagine that this question evaluates undesirable behavioral traits, such as impulsiveness or aggressiveness. However, the question checks our tendency to change our answers to fit expectations.
Since most people feel the desire to swear sometimes, candidates who answer ‘no’ may be thought of as wanting to please the examiner. Multiple answers of this type may reduce the candidate’s integrity score.
Honesty test questions evaluate your attitude to various illegal or undesirable behavior by either asking directly about your attitudes and past experiences of shady behaviors, or indirectly asking about general preferences and interests in your life.
Accordingly, questions in an honesty test are divided into direct/overt integrity questions and veiled-purpose questions:
Overt Integrity Questions are designed to ask applicants about their attitudes toward specific dishonest actions, particularly theft, and their past involvement in such behavior.
Here is an example of this kind of integrity question as may appear in the test:
*Source - JobTestPrep Integrity Test Practice Pack
Veiled Integrity Questions ask candidates about their attitude towards a range of seemingly unrelated issues. As you can see below, it is often not clear what quality is being evaluated, and what is the expected reliable answer.
Here is an example of a Veiled Purpose question similar to one you could see on an integrity test:
*Source - JobTestPrep Integrity Test Practice Pack
JobTestPrep's Integrity Test Preparation Pack includes 31 practice tests designed to help you:
Integrity tests appear most commonly in the hiring stage, but they are also used when employees are transferred between different positions within the same company.
Integrity tests are commonly given in addition to personality assessments and situational judgment tests. They are specifically common in Insurance and investment companies, banks, and other companies in the financial sphere, as well as in federal positions recruitment and other governmental, public service, and security-related fields.
Employers entrust their employees with the well-being of their business and need to be able to trust them to act honestly and reliably. To make sure employees can be trusted, employers ask to identify potential risks before their employment.
Different integrity tests examine your behavior in a similar way but focus on different types of questions and different aspects of your behavior. For example:
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There are many cases of reliable, trustworthy candidates who cannot pass integrity tests and cannot figure out why. Most often this happens because candidates don't understand what lies behind the questions, answer in a too strict and rational a way, Over-trying to impress the employer, or answer authentically thinking it will express their reliability.
Preparing for integrity tests improves candidates' confidence and their chances of successfully expressing ethical values and opinions.
