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The computers rejecting job applications

bbc.co.uk

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Re: The computers rejecting job applications

#71

Post by wccrawford »

londons_explore wrote: post #19

I wonder if it's possible to get the job applicants to evaluate each other? That way you have a process that automatically scales to the number of applicants you have. Exactly how to structure it so it can't be gamed/subverted is tricky, but you might imagine some team activity where the team does a task together, and then each person in the team is asked to so some kind of review of the other people in the team. If…

Any time people are asked to review their peers, there's at least some compulsion to rate others poorly because it'll make you look better.

IME, the only times that it can go well is with people who don't think the results will matter. And in which case, why do it?

The one exception is someone who is already somewhat of a leader and isn't looking for a promotion, and so they don't have much desire to make themselves look better.

Re: The computers rejecting job applications

#72

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

galfarragem wrote: post #70
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 n…

Like I said below, 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.

Re: The computers rejecting job applications

#73

Post by srswtf123 »

BerislavLopac wrote: post #23
JackFr wrote: post #10

This makes me think of the (most likely apocryphal) story of the hiring manager faced with a huge stack of resumes. He divides the stack in half, and tosses the top half in the trash. "We don't want to hire those people. They're terribly unlucky."

I've read once of a company who fired everyone who had below average performance score.

I personally worked at a place that stack-ranked all their employees then cut the bottom 1/3 of performers. I was on a team of two, with the other guy a 15-year veteran.

Guess who didn’t make it past the first year? Guess who also fixed more outstanding issues in that year than had been fixed in decades? Yep, me, the guy who failed the stack rankings and got fired.

I’ve worked dumber places, but really that one was a bit much.

Re: The computers rejecting job applications

#75

Post by AlwaysRock »

jakub_g wrote: post #49

FWIW (at least in tech industry), apparently the automated filtering systems are a myth spread by companies who make money on the promise to optimize your resume to get past the filter. https://twitter.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1292909844886945792 (The OP of the tweet was an engineering manager in several big tech companies, wrote The Software Engineer’s Guidebook last year, and talked with many recruiters in the proce…

I don't know if there are automated filtering systems that will send a rejection email in place but I know as a manager who used LinkedIn job posts I had what was basically a, "qualified" and then a "not qualified/spam" folder for applications. New applications were auto sorted into one or the other depending on their resume/linkedin profile/some other factors I was not aware of.

I could still find those profiles but it was auto filtering the candidates it thought were relevant and those that were not. To at least some extend these types of automated filtering systems do exists. I don't know why recruiters/manager say they do not.

Re: The computers rejecting job applications

#76

Post by sfg »

"AI can help evaluate all those candidates in a very consistent way," he says."

Which, if applied across an industry, means someone will be consistently rejected; where as now they might have a chance of finding a position somewhere, as the intellects in each hiring process are different.

Re: The computers rejecting job applications

#77

Post by wmil »

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.

They successfully filtered out one of the applicants who won't put up with their bullshit.

It's a pure win on their side.

Re: The computers rejecting job applications

#78

Post by technofiend »

BerislavLopac wrote: post #23
JackFr wrote: post #10

This makes me think of the (most likely apocryphal) story of the hiring manager faced with a huge stack of resumes. He divides the stack in half, and tosses the top half in the trash. "We don't want to hire those people. They're terribly unlucky."

I've read once of a company who fired everyone who had below average performance score.

It's more typical to fire the bottom 10% but that's derisively called rank and yank. Microsoft, HP and others have allegedly used it at one time or another. The assumption is if you do your job well you'll rank well. The reality is your job becomes ensuring you rank well, which may not 100% align with doing the job you were hired for well.

Re: The computers rejecting job applications

#79

Post by onion2k »

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.

Pushing candidates who actually question the requests being made to select themselves out of the running sounds like the ideal recruitment software for a consulting firm.

Re: The computers rejecting job applications

#80

Post by NotPavlovsDog »

wmil wrote: post #77
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.

They successfully filtered out one of the applicants who won't put up with their bullshit. It's a pure win on their side.

This. People think stupid tests and ineffective recruitment stand for incompetence. They may actually signify a well-tuned process to identify compliant, mediocre individuals that don't produce results, stand out, nor are self-motivated, but rather aim to please the boss, without question, and to "fit in".

As an engineer, you want to increase your value contribution to the org and the org should see you the same way. This usually means look for software product companies with at least some meritocracy. It should be about software all the way down.

In any other scenario, it's about something else, usually pleasing the boss, you are a servant, and good luck with that.

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