Disability (Rehabilitation Act)

I applied for a GS-7 Biological Technician job that was open to disabled and other applicants. When I had finished applying I received notice that I would need to take an online adaptive assessment in order to be complete the process. It was explained that the assessment could take up to 3 hours.

The first part was pretty simple mathematical questions. The second part was an endless series of questions that revisited the same topics over and over and over in various slightly different permutations. I should have saved actual examples but they went something like this

Choose the best answer

1) I sometimes help the team work together

2) I enjoy working in teams


Well in many cases, there is no "best" answer, but despite picking one anyway they would come right back with

1) I enjoy working in teams

2) I sometimes work best alone

Again, these are not mutually exclusive so there is no "best" answer.


I answered scores of these maddening and meaningless questions that have nothing to do with performing the duties of a Bio Tech or one's ability to do so. It became evident that what they were really testing was my tolerance for annoyance, and trying to develop some sort of psychological profile of me. With the prospect of 3 hours of this nonsense looming in front of me I decided to give them their answer. I said F&*^ this, and just walked away without finishing.

The real fun thing is that my answers can now be used for any future job that requires this assessment!

Whats this all about and whats the point? Why did a low level technician job have such an assessement in the first place? Was this because it was open to those with disabilities? Were they trying to discover a mental disability? I have applied for hundreds of federal jobs and never encountered something like this.

The question is, why was there this kind of assessment at all for a low level technician position? Nobody seems to have an answer. In the absence of an answer I'm free to make assumptions, and my assumption is that they wanted to pretend the position was open to persons with disabilities but this assessment would easily veliminate just about anyone with mental limitations.