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Malcolm Gladwell on Hiring: the Mismatch Problem
11–20 of 34 posts
Re: Malcolm Gladwell on Hiring: the Mismatch Problem
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're missing the point. The point being that people make tradition-based voodoo over numbers-backed science all over the place. This is a hugely disruptive opportunity. For example a software company that hires people differently can propel itself to the very top in a span of just a few short years.
"You're missing the point." Not really, I've been posting about this same idea on news.yc and reddit for years: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=157380 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50581
Alex, I do not see how the content of the links you posted addresses Malcolm Gladwell's contention that good teachers could close the Black-White gap. To refute that idea one would have to get contradictory data on a scale at least as large as Gladwell's.
Re: Malcolm Gladwell on Hiring: the Mismatch Problem
#13Almost everything he says needs a [citation needed] tag at the end of it. I guess that's one problem with public speaking--it's pretty hard to take apart in that manner. One of his comments highlights his overall problem,
...that ineffible, illusive gift, "Being a good teacher"
...in other words, he seems to think that teaching ability is "ineffable" and that therefore the best way to find the good ones is to (???) hire a large number, find the best ones, and fire the rest. Or something like that. One way or the other, objective measures are to be thrown away. That's his overall point, but that is pretty impractical. Ultimately, you have to measure people in some manner. You can't hire uncredentialled people on the chance that they might be good--it just wouldn't work that way.
I don't know why he went on about sports for so long. The "combines" that he talks about are actually the last measure used to weed out prospective hires. The sports agents actually do their most important work watching the kids perform athletics at a high school and college level. Likewise, smart employers of programmers will look at past projects and jobs, and only then subject them to brain-teasers and white-board coding. That's always how it's been.
ADDENDUM: Does it seem like Gladwell waxes a little too long about the physical beauty of the Russian hockey player at the beginning:
http://blogs.msg.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/07/02/cherepa...
...I mean, I may not talk with an aural swish in my voice, but I think I can tell (for instance) a George Clooney from a Slavic Lummox.
Re: Malcolm Gladwell on Hiring: the Mismatch Problem
#14I think Gladwell has a good point that trying to do a job is probably the best predictor of who will be good at it, and as a general principle moving that point up, via apprenticeships, internships, coop programs, and so on would probably be useful. What troubles me is he seems to say that because people do a bad job of objectively identifying predictors of future success, that those predictors simply don't exist, or…
You're being skeptical for the wrong side. We humans have a long, inglorious history of inventing objective metrics that absolutely fail to be useful at predicting the things we want to predict. From the IQ tests to the NHL combine, we're traditionally quite awful at inventing predictive tests of performance.
Which is to say: if you're being intellectually honest, you should be far more skeptical that a test does what it claims to do, than you should be of the opposite argument.
Re: Malcolm Gladwell on Hiring: the Mismatch Problem
#15Almost everything he says needs a [citation needed] tag at the end of it. I guess that's one problem with public speaking--it's pretty hard to take apart in that manner. One of his comments highlights his overall problem, ...that ineffible, illusive gift, "Being a good teacher" ...in other words, he seems to think that teaching ability is "ineffable" and that therefore the best way to find the good ones is to (???) h…
That argument makes no sense. We have to measure people? Really? Why? If his claims are correct, then Gladwell is right -- we're doing worse by screening people according to criteria that are useless, because we're essentially randomly filtering out a large percentage of the people who are good at the job.
You can attack the evidence for his claims, but if the evidence holds, then the conclusion Gladwell reaches is a logical consequence.
Re: Malcolm Gladwell on Hiring: the Mismatch Problem
#16Almost everything he says needs a [citation needed] tag at the end of it. I guess that's one problem with public speaking--it's pretty hard to take apart in that manner. One of his comments highlights his overall problem, ...that ineffible, illusive gift, "Being a good teacher" ...in other words, he seems to think that teaching ability is "ineffable" and that therefore the best way to find the good ones is to (???) h…
That argument makes no sense. We have to measure people? Really? Why? If his claims are correct, then Gladwell is right -- we're doing worse by screening people according to criteria that are useless, because we're essentially randomly filtering out a large percentage of the people who are good at the job. You can attack the evidence for his claims, but if the evidence holds, then the conclusion Gladwell reaches is a…
I'm sympathetic to his claims, as I went to a crap school and got a crap GPA. Okay. I'd love it if people had judged me based upon my winning personality, my good looks, or my tendency to point out everyone's foibles, but I'm not sure those are a superior measure of coding skill... Even if they were, they could be subjected to analysis and so become objective measures themselves.
The practical reality is that lots of jobs have 1000s of aspirants. How many kids want to play in the NBA? MILLIONS. You need something to divide them up, and if one objective measure is genuinely bad, it needs to be replaced by a better objective measure.
Re: Malcolm Gladwell on Hiring: the Mismatch Problem
#17I think Gladwell has a good point that trying to do a job is probably the best predictor of who will be good at it, and as a general principle moving that point up, via apprenticeships, internships, coop programs, and so on would probably be useful. What troubles me is he seems to say that because people do a bad job of objectively identifying predictors of future success, that those predictors simply don't exist, or…
You're being skeptical for the wrong side. We humans have a long, inglorious history of inventing objective metrics that absolutely fail to be useful at predicting the things we want to predict. From the IQ tests to the NHL combine, we're traditionally quite awful at inventing predictive tests of performance. Which is to say: if you're being intellectually honest, you should be far more skeptical that a test does wha…
We should be skeptical that any particular metric does what it claims to do, especially ones which are ad-hoc or based on intuition instead of evidence. I'm not suggesting that Gladwell is wrong about any of the examples he gave being 'mismatches', or that there are many of them, and exposing the misuse of metrics is certainly valuable. However, he seems to go further, suggesting that we can't find good predictors at all, which is a claim which I think deserves just as much skepticism. I doubt he would seriously make such a claim, and it is probably just an artifact of an early talk which won't be present in his book, but I have plenty of skepticism to go around, so I'm perfectly happy to deploy it wherever it is warranted at all.
Re: Malcolm Gladwell on Hiring: the Mismatch Problem
#18Almost everything he says needs a [citation needed] tag at the end of it. I guess that's one problem with public speaking--it's pretty hard to take apart in that manner. One of his comments highlights his overall problem, ...that ineffible, illusive gift, "Being a good teacher" ...in other words, he seems to think that teaching ability is "ineffable" and that therefore the best way to find the good ones is to (???) h…
"hire a large number, find the best ones, and fire the rest"
Actually, in many cases this is the only way to find the best candidates. The near impossibility of firing teachers is the biggest impediment to improving teaching quality in the United States.
Re: Malcolm Gladwell on Hiring: the Mismatch Problem
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're being skeptical for the wrong side. We humans have a long, inglorious history of inventing objective metrics that absolutely fail to be useful at predicting the things we want to predict. From the IQ tests to the NHL combine, we're traditionally quite awful at inventing predictive tests of performance. Which is to say: if you're being intellectually honest, you should be far more skeptical that a test does wha…
We should be skeptical that any particular metric does what it claims to do, especially ones which are ad-hoc or based on intuition instead of evidence. I'm not suggesting that Gladwell is wrong about any of the examples he gave being 'mismatches', or that there are many of them, and exposing the misuse of metrics is certainly valuable. However, he seems to go further, suggesting that we can't find good predictors at…
I don't think he implied that. He just said that many of the metrics we use are wrong. He didn't say those metrics don't exist at all.
Re: Malcolm Gladwell on Hiring: the Mismatch Problem
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
That argument makes no sense. We have to measure people? Really? Why? If his claims are correct, then Gladwell is right -- we're doing worse by screening people according to criteria that are useless, because we're essentially randomly filtering out a large percentage of the people who are good at the job. You can attack the evidence for his claims, but if the evidence holds, then the conclusion Gladwell reaches is a…
I'm sympathetic to his claims, as I went to a crap school and got a crap GPA. Okay. I'd love it if people had judged me based upon my winning personality, my good looks, or my tendency to point out everyone's foibles, but I'm not sure those are a superior measure of coding skill... Even if they were, they could be subjected to analysis and so become objective measures themselves. The practical reality is that lots of…
I think his argument is that the best objective measurement of a basketball player's skill is his ability to play basketball.