I don't mind the practice of giving hiring tests, but ElkRiverRancher's questions are just too difficult to me... LOL As a Chinese who's born and grows up in Hong Kong, it's just not really possible for me to know so much about American literature... Just like I'm not going to ask "
Which Emperor ordered the unification of writing characters in China?", even though it's pretty common knowledge in the place where I live. (The answer is Qin Shi Huang, by the way.) Even if I did ask, I doubt I was ever going to receive an answer. I'm not really motivated to google something like that just for a job in a game, either, especially when somebody else is probably hired already during the time when I do my research...
As a matter of fact I used to hand out hiring tests too, but it was usually a mathematics question, so basically no information research is required. (And it's not stuff like "what is the square root of 45905 times the sum of 1298 and 4333 minus sin80", just simple stuff like "1+5*9") BUT then one day...
I gave out a math question, say, 1+5*9, by saying "I'll hire the first person who answers 1+5*9=? correctly".
I got a couple of answers saying 54.
I thought, well that's incorrect, but since nobody did get it correctly, so I hired the first person who answered anyway.
We went to my farm, and I started a chat by saying "the correct answer is 46 because in mathematics you should do multiplication and division before addition and subtraction".
And the person I hired replied, "Oh I never knew that.
Never taught this at school."
CULTURAL SHOCK!!! In Hong Kong, "multiplication and division first, addition and subtraction later" is something that's taught in
primary schools...
After this incident, I realize that
handing out hiring test doesn't really work.
FarmTown is an international game. If even mathematics is not universal, I don't know what's a fair hiring test. LOL
By the way, once I also got someone who replied "I played this game for fun, not for doing mathematics". Well, to each their own, but to me, being challenged by single-digit multiplication is pretty lame, unless you are born or hit with some special conditions. And that's actually quite a rude response, too.
After I gave up handing out tests, each time I need to hire someone from the marketplace I simply ask, "Who wants to harvest?" "Who wants to plow?" "I need a person to FIRST harvest my trees and THEN plow. Anyone?" Then I hire the first 1-2 person who responds, depending on the size of the job.
Sometimes it still amazes me that I can get NO response even with such direct questions/offers, though. I'd think, are they not interested in the work I have to offer? (But that not even ONE person shows up is still quite unbelievable) Even if your usual strategy is waiting quietly, it's still pretty clear that under THIS circumstance you have to actually respond to get a job.
If I get no response, I just hit "go home" and go to another marketplace. I don't hire people who are mute because I'm afraid they may not actually be playing at that moment.
The people I hire with this strategy are all satisfactory workers so far, so I'm sticking to it.
