Yes, of course it is. Working out how to work with people is the core competency of most jobs. In this case, if you've worked out how to give the 'correct' answers on such a test, then you've got a good start on knowing how to navigate the corporate machine - and get your real job done despite corporate garbage (which in my opinion is what makes it ethically ok).

Related to this, often I see a survey question along the lines of say, "which cup do you think would hold more water" with one that looks like it'd hold a lot more than the other. I'm never sure whether to answer with the meta-analysis of the fact that it's a survey question included in my answer.

That is, if I saw the two cups in my example naturally I'd say the obvious one holds more water, but often there'd be no point in putting it as a survey question if the obvious answer was the case. Therefore I'm almost sure the correct answer is the seemingly wrong one.

So I put that as the answer and get it right. But for whoever's running the survey, I'm probably messing up their results by meta-analysing the questions.

I don't know if this question is an example, but people intentionally include "obvious" questions in surveys to check whether people are actually paying attention to the survey. There's a name for these, I just don't recall it at the moment—which shows you I don't have any survey-design experience myself :).

According to a Google search, "Attention check questions" sounds like the right term

Also known as lie scales and have been around since at least the 50's. (Eysenck was first, I believe).

I think it’s perfectly ethical to game the tests, but it can be hard to tell what’s actually being tested.

One or ours was deliberately set up so that prospect hires applying for a leadership position would end up with very, very, little in their empathy score if they chose answers that sound like the “right” ones for a leadership position. It was done to catch people off guard in their next interview, and see how they handled getting shown a result they’d very likely not agree with.

HR departments know these things are bullshit. They know people game the systems, exactly like people practice for the coding interview. The test and the results are often extremely irrelevant to anyone getting hired, it’s how people handle their results that’s important.

Or, perhaps even more cynically, the HR people are just making up Important Tests to look like they’re doing something important, because they too just want to feed the corporate machine enough so they can feed their families.

If you wan my personal opinion I think HR exists solely to come up with reasons for HR to exist. Well minus the administrative part of handling employees payments (including stuff like maternity/sick leave) and the lawyers. But both of those functions could be branched into economy and general legal.

The entire branch of team-building/personality matching/management consulting/management training/management network facilitating is a fat unnecessary cow that enterprise organisations will never get rid of because they are very good at being “people skills” and positioning themselves with top management.

After a year of lockdowns, where they’ve been completely unable to execute their regular function, their absence have left no mark on our organisation though.

I would say yes, but do you want the job at the place that is giving you snake oil?

I want a job at a place where I can noodle around with <my hipster technology of choice> all day, but I'll settle for one that asks me to actually ship stuff, and pays the bills.

Whether or not their HR department is ran by a licensed phrenologist is a distant second concern.

maybe there's a Maslow's hierarchy of hiring needs to be defined somewhere, so after money, benefits comes work/life balance and then at the top of the pyramid comes working on things I like, and finally respecting the company I work for?

Maybe they pay really well

Or they control entire sectors of the economy.

https://www.pgcareers.com/assessment-overviews

Usually there's some correlation here

Is it ethical to give the "right" answer to a regular interview question? An interview might be a stressful situation for some people, who often suffer from a bias of downgrading themselves compared to others. So a calibrated interpretation of the questions may be necessary to provide a faithful result in the first place.