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The computers rejecting job applications

bbc.co.uk

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Re: The computers rejecting job applications

#61

Post by isbvhodnvemrwvn »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #35
Mauricebranagh wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am surprised that Germany hasn't been taken to the European court of human rights over this abuse. Maybe those German privacy activists going after google et all might want to look at this.

Because in Germany/Europe discrimination is officially illegal so it is assumed nobody does it, even though people know better, and because you cannot fully outlaw and police tribalism, human bias and cronyism that is evolutionary ingrained in us as a species since the dawn of man. Putting more legislative hoops in place means HR will just need to find more creative ways to formulate job requirements in order to excl…

There's also the Arbeitszeugnis thing (a summary of how they see you as an employee, given when you leave the company). If your boss doesn't like you, they can fuck up your future a bit by giving you a bad Zeugnis (future employers typically want to see those).

It's effectively illegal to complain about employees in Zeugnis, but they can reorder words and skip some phrases to imply that you're a bad employee. If you're not German you might even think you got a good Zeugnis because it looks well on the surface, but there's the entire code you need to learn to read these.

Re: The computers rejecting job applications

#62

Post by kleiba »

OliverGilan wrote: post #38

About a year and half ago I was applying for a software engineering internship at Goldman Sachs and they made me take a Pymetrics test. One of the tasks was to press the spacebar as many times as possible in 30 seconds. I didn't do the task and withdrew my application.

Good on you, mate.

It would be great if you gave them feedback along the same lines, although chances are it would just get ignored.

Re: The computers rejecting job applications

#64

Post by kleiba »

OliverGilan wrote: post #38

About a year and half ago I was applying for a software engineering internship at Goldman Sachs and they made me take a Pymetrics test. One of the tasks was to press the spacebar as many times as possible in 30 seconds. I didn't do the task and withdrew my application.

Fun fact: Pymetrics has hired a lot of former C64 game programmers.

Re: The computers rejecting job applications

#65

Post by bloqs »

OliverGilan wrote: post #38

About a year and half ago I was applying for a software engineering internship at Goldman Sachs and they made me take a Pymetrics test. One of the tasks was to press the spacebar as many times as possible in 30 seconds. I didn't do the task and withdrew my application.

Bravo. Genuinely well done..

Re: The computers rejecting job applications

#66

Post by 1980phipsi »

vsareto wrote: post #39
kemiller2002 wrote: post #9

I used to work as a programmer in this field. I'm torn, on one side the "science" behind it is based on statistics and is supposed to be validated. Your view depends largely on whether you trust the validity of psychometrics. On the other side, someone makes a test wraps some statistics around it and says it's valid and measures what it's supposed can seem a little far fetched.

It doesn't seem like science, or it's selectively chosen science. If we must do these tests, I should be able to take one or a few of these and keep that as a record and not have to do them again. But instead, I have to repeat the process for every company that gives them (recently, Berkshire-Hathaway and it had to be done before anyone would even speak about the position). These things rarely test for job-specific s…

I would guess that if you actually dig into it, the reason why each company who does it does them differently is legal.

Re: The computers rejecting job applications

#67

Post by airhead969 »

dcolkitt wrote: post #36

The next logical step would be to train an adversarial AI against the hiring AI. You'd have the system generate your resume and application to maximize your chances. Then the hiring AI would need to be re-trained to account for this. And so on. In the far future, this feedback loop creates an economy where every job application is total gibberish. No human can possibly explain why their resume is a recipe for carne a…

Yeap. There then ought to be a whole cottage industry of gaming AI applications and AI hiring.

So, we're basically voluntarily letting the machines take over and replace human jobs, nuance, and critical thinking?

Oh and then the next logical progressions are AI performance reviews and AI management. Within a decade, your AI boss will slinging around a coffee cup and saying "yeah, I'm gonna need you to come in on Sunday too."

You are a true believer, blessings of the State, blessings of the masses. Work hard, increase production, prevent accidents and be happy.

Re: The computers rejecting job applications

#68

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

Mauricebranagh wrote: post #52
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because in Germany/Europe discrimination is officially illegal so it is assumed nobody does it, even though people know better, and because you cannot fully outlaw and police tribalism, human bias and cronyism that is evolutionary ingrained in us as a species since the dawn of man. Putting more legislative hoops in place means HR will just need to find more creative ways to formulate job requirements in order to excl…

Ah the "Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown" defence. or maybe you ned some high profile sackings of HR directors at a few big German companies ala github.

Sackings? On what ground? Proving there's any kind of malice or bias in rejected applications is nearly impossible as the main job of HR is to protect the company from any hiring bias leaking out. That's why your rejection email is usually some generic copy-paste message and they usually refuse to give you any feedback upon request

Re: The computers rejecting job applications

#69

Post by hkmurakami »

dcolkitt wrote: post #36

The next logical step would be to train an adversarial AI against the hiring AI. You'd have the system generate your resume and application to maximize your chances. Then the hiring AI would need to be re-trained to account for this. And so on. In the far future, this feedback loop creates an economy where every job application is total gibberish. No human can possibly explain why their resume is a recipe for carne a…

This has a strong Kurt Vonnegut smell to it.

Re: The computers rejecting job applications

#70

Post by galfarragem »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #6
underseacables wrote: post #3

I know a number of people who have paid for someone to do the personality tests for them, but with video it’s gotten harder. It’s also gotten easier for companies to reject for tacit bias such as gender, race, and any other number of factors. There doesn’t seem to be any safe guards for it; we didn’t do it, the software did it.

>It’s also gotten easier for companies to reject for tacit bias such as gender, race, and any other number of factors In some European countries like Germany, Spain and Austria it's not even tacit as it's tradition to have your photo and birthday in your resume, especially for more traditional companies, to the point where it generated some scandals in Austria and Germany since in some companies, being black or havin…

There's an elephant in the room: hiring is by nature biased.

I have yet to witness an hiring process that isn't biased. As an anecdote, in a past small business job, a colleage (that accumulated the hiring manager hat) used to choose people (always opposite sex) by photo and had even the literal approval of the company owner to do so. To corroborate this, I remember two persons "hired by photo" commenting that they never had any trouble getting job interviews. It may indicate that "hiring by photo" is rather common.

We like to forget that most jobs don't allow 10X'ers. Choosing "the best" is normally just a form of "early optimization". My take on this (but I might be biased) is trial most and only hire who adds enough value.

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