The way we present ourselves when completing a personality questionnaire is subject to the same distortion and manipulations deployed in real life encounters. We all prefer to present ourselves in the best light possible, especially at an interview.

But questionnaires usually include 'impression management scales' to pick up on this and 'validity scales' to identify sabotage or random responding. The best tests also minimise the transparency of the questions, drawing on the rich pool of psychological research to make inferences from less obvious items. In any case, the expertise required for manipulation - 'steering' questionnaire responses to achieve a desired profile - would be considerable and more likely to result in bizarre or undesirable distortions.