After six interview rounds, the final hurdle was a DISC personality assessment. Is this becoming normal?
I honestly don't know how to feel about it.
Over the past few weeks I went through six interview rounds with a startup. There was the recruiter call, a take-home assignment, a presentation, technical pair programming, engineering interviews and culture-fit conversations.
Some stages were straightforward. Others had me questioning myself for days. I barely slept before the technical presentation, and I was genuinely nervous before the pair-programming sessions. It wasn't easy, but at least I felt like they were assessing my skills, how I think, and how I work with people.
Just when I thought it was the end, then came email.
"Just one last step... please complete this DISC personality assessment."
That completely threw me.
I'm naturally soft-spoken. I don't dominate conversations or try to be the loudest person in the room. I listen first, think things through, and when it's time to make a decision, I have no problem taking ownership. The people I've worked with know that's how I operate.
But I couldn't stop wondering whether a personality assessment would see any of that.
After investing so much time in the interview process, I became paranoid that one questionnaire could outweigh everything I'd already demonstrated.
So I did something I'm not particularly proud of.
I spent hours reading about DISC profiles, what companies look for, and how different answers are interpreted. I adjusted my responses to better match what I believed the role wanted.
Was it completely honest? Probably not.
Do I believe I could adapt my behaviour in that role? Absolutely.
I've worked in different teams, industries and customer environments for years. Adapting how I communicate has always been part of the job. To me, that's different from pretending to be someone I'm not.
What surprised me afterwards was what I found when I started researching personality assessments.
There are hundreds of websites designed for employers. They analyse candidates, rank people, predict performance and generate reports.
But I struggled to find anything that genuinely helps the candidate.
Something that says:
"This is how you're naturally wired. These are your strengths. These are the behaviours you could realistically develop for a particular role without losing who you are."
So I built something for myself.
It's a tool that asks me questions, helps me understand my own personality traits, compares them against the behaviours expected for a target job, and highlights both the strengths I already have and the areas that might hold me back.
More importantly, it separates personality from behaviour. It identifies which behaviours are realistically trainable and gives practical suggestions on what I can start practising at work.
The goal isn't to fake a personality.
It's to become more intentional about how I show up professionally, while still being myself.
Oddly enough, whether I get this job or not almost feels secondary now.
Building the tool has made me much more confident applying elsewhere because I understand myself better. I know what I'm naturally good at, what employers might misunderstand, and what I can realistically improve instead of trying to become a completely different person.
I'm still waiting to hear back from the startup.
But I'm curious...
Has anyone else had to do a DISC or personality assessment after multiple interview rounds?
Did you answer instinctively, or did you find yourself thinking about the "right" answer rather than the truthful one?