Imagine grinding LeetCode, sending 100s of resumes, only to face a personality test featuring literal blue aliens. Reddit's dev community is roasting this HR madness.
Sending out hundreds of resumes and surviving LeetCode grinding is exhausting enough. But have you ever made it through the initial screens only to be hit with a psychedelic personality test featuring literal blue aliens?
A fellow dev on Reddit blasted through 100+ applications only to hit a bizarre wall. Not a nasty System Design interview that eats up your weekend, but a weird personality assessment filled with blue, alien-looking avatars.
The prompt? A picture of a gray/blue dude with a red nose, asking: "Others see me as cold." The OP was literally crying in the post, asking what the hell this even evaluates and how it helps the employer find a good coder.
The dev community didn't hold back in the comments. Here are the main vibes from the discussion:
1. The anti-neurodivergent filter theory The top comment nailed a dark truth: "They really just hate neurodivergent people." Another user replied that if it weren't illegal, these companies would just straight-up ask if you're autistic instead of playing games with alien pictures.
2. The complete lack of logic One user completely deconstructed the "cold blue dude" image and proved how dumb it is: "He’s literally just focusing on his work! Coworkers brought him cake because he was too busy to join in! You can interpret these stupid pictures in so many ways." Imagine failing an interview because you thought the blue guy was just trying to fix a production bug.
3. The dark humor of the job market Regarding the question “Are you sad?”, user Brahminmeat hit back with the ultimate dev sarcasm: "No, I’m stoked about nearly being homeless." Gotta love the current state of the tech job market.
4. The speedrun strat People are fed up and demanding a "master answer key" to bypass this garbage. Someone even shared a hilarious story where a company accidentally pushed the "correct" answers into the job description.
Instead of using actual ai tools to screen technical skills or reading a portfolio, HR departments love buying these pseudo-science filters to weed out candidates automatically. Real life is nuanced; it isn't a black-and-white multiple-choice question.
Pro tip: If you encounter this BS and you really need the job, you have to "fake it till you make it." Give the most vanilla, corporate-friendly, bootlicking answers possible to game the system.
But if you have options? Close the tab. If a company relies on alien astrology to hire software engineers, imagine what their codebase and management look like. It’s a red flag waving vigorously in the wind. Run!
Source: Reddit - After 100s of applications I finally got hit with the weird alien people
