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San Francisco VC firm required job applicants to take online IQ test

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Re: San Francisco VC firm required job applicants to take online IQ test

#61

Post by dragonwriter »

threatofrain wrote: post #60
dragonwriter wrote: post #50

> The former is illegal under a 1971 Supreme Court ruling that decreed IQ tests and other tests unrelated to the job to violate the Civil Rights Act of 1964 This is patently false, and in this context (flat out stating that a hiring practice is illegal) quite arguably libelous. The case in question: (1) Did not rule that IQ tests violate the Civil Rights Act, (2) Did not rule that tests unrelated to job functions vio…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bona_fide_occupational_qualifi... Police departments have successfully sued for the use of IQ tests in their hiring practices.

> Police departments have successfully sued for the use of IQ tests in their hiring practices.

More accurately, they have successfully defended suits challenging their use. (In the most notable case, with a high score being a disqualifying factor.)

Re: San Francisco VC firm required job applicants to take online IQ test

#62

Post by Apocryphon »

toomim wrote: post #54
paxys wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you put "are you pregnant?" as a required field on a job application and then say "oh we were just using it to know to get you a gift!", you really think anyone is buying it?

Perhaps you've never interviewed someone. I am an employer. When I interview job candidates, I ask them about their lives, about their day, where they grew up, and lots of questions because I am starting a relationship with them. The interview is not just a place to filter employees. It's also where you begin a relationship with them. You are envisioning how you might employ them. What kind of work could they do? Cou…

A good way to reduce someone to a 2-D archetype, complete with preconceptions of who they are and how they behave, rather than interacting with them, encountering them, experiencing them in person. Applying Taylorist techniques on souls. That sounds exactly like the thinking of a VC to me.

Re: San Francisco VC firm required job applicants to take online IQ test

#63

Post by Apocryphon »

toomim wrote: post #51
aemreunal wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it doesn't work why ban it? Precisely because, as you said, "it doesn't work." There's not a good amount of evidence that IQ tests (which vary wildly, BTW) are a valid measure of cognitive ability or an indicator of aptitude toward a task (perhaps other than mental arithmetic or something). It only causes people who may be bad at rotating shapes in their mind or whatever to be discriminated against.

You might want to read up on general intelligence, which is the well-documented phenomena that your performance on tasks like rotating shapes in your mind correlates very strongly with other tasks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_(psychometrics) Look at the figures in the "Cognitive ability testing" section -- see how strong those correlations are across the disparate fields of Classics, Math, and Music! In ot…

On the subject of psychometrics, it would be interesting to see a response to this comment from a prior discussion:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29798887

Re: San Francisco VC firm required job applicants to take online IQ test

#64

Post by graderjs »

I think what will be the nail in the coffin for IQ tests is the fact that I'm sure we could train some deep learning algorithm to really Ace them. Like and then we'll have to say well is the deep learning algorithm intelligent? I think the answer is no. So we might have to question what do those IQ tests really measure.

Good thing is how that will create opportunity for next generation of IQ tests that are really focused on human intelligence... but as AI improves that slice of the pie that's valid may get really narrow in a weird and niche way. and so we may end up doing these strange tests that are really bizarre but somehow the data says they reflect our innate human intelligence.

Re: San Francisco VC firm required job applicants to take online IQ test

#65

Post by jen20 »

Gareth321 wrote: post #53

IQ tests are extremely common in Europe for any kind of skilled job. This makes sense, since IQ is by far the highest correlated attribute when it comes to performance. It’s also an excellent way to standardise applicant selection and avoid bias. It even works the other way, when someone too intelligent applies for a job which won’t keep them engaged and challenged. Statistically, such applicants leave rather quickly…

Is there any kind of documentation of this? I managed to last 30 years in Europe without ever encountering this practice, or hearing of it.

Re: San Francisco VC firm required job applicants to take online IQ test

#66

Post by wink »

jen20 wrote: post #65
Gareth321 wrote: post #53

IQ tests are extremely common in Europe for any kind of skilled job. This makes sense, since IQ is by far the highest correlated attribute when it comes to performance. It’s also an excellent way to standardise applicant selection and avoid bias. It even works the other way, when someone too intelligent applies for a job which won’t keep them engaged and challenged. Statistically, such applicants leave rather quickly…

Is there any kind of documentation of this? I managed to last 30 years in Europe without ever encountering this practice, or hearing of it.

Same. Have never heard about this or taken one for a job.

Re: San Francisco VC firm required job applicants to take online IQ test

#67

Post by ksec »

toomim wrote: post #54
paxys wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you put "are you pregnant?" as a required field on a job application and then say "oh we were just using it to know to get you a gift!", you really think anyone is buying it?

Perhaps you've never interviewed someone. I am an employer. When I interview job candidates, I ask them about their lives, about their day, where they grew up, and lots of questions because I am starting a relationship with them. The interview is not just a place to filter employees. It's also where you begin a relationship with them. You are envisioning how you might employ them. What kind of work could they do? Cou…

I agree to a certain point but I think this view is going to be politically incorrect on HN.

Personally I hate MBTI, not the test itself but the industry using it as the "sole" tools and main tools to access candidate. i.e If you dont fit type X in the test they are not good for the job. For some strange reason it is heavily used in luxury goods industry.

I still maintain that good hiring is 90% gut feeling.

Re: San Francisco VC firm required job applicants to take online IQ test

#68

Post by bmn__ »

fnordsensei wrote: post #55
jokethrowaway wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't understand how IQ tests work. It's not measuring aptitude of test taking, it's measuring your ability to detect and apply patterns.

There seems to be a general assumption that the brain is a muscle. If you train a muscle, it’s going to get strong regardless of what you lift with it. If you train yourself to get better at seeing patterns of dots in boxes, that doesn’t generalize nearly as well as a muscle does. It doesn’t make you a better chess player. There’s plenty of science to back this up. At large, IQ tests in recruiting are training applic…

The three hypotheses you expressed are false.

Re: San Francisco VC firm required job applicants to take online IQ test

#69

Post by sandstrom »

Gareth321 wrote: post #53

IQ tests are extremely common in Europe for any kind of skilled job. This makes sense, since IQ is by far the highest correlated attribute when it comes to performance. It’s also an excellent way to standardise applicant selection and avoid bias. It even works the other way, when someone too intelligent applies for a job which won’t keep them engaged and challenged. Statistically, such applicants leave rather quickly…

I second this. In Sweden they are extremely common. Often something similar to Raven's Progressive Matrices.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raven%27s_Progressive_Matrices

Re: San Francisco VC firm required job applicants to take online IQ test

#70

Post by detaro »

Gareth321 wrote: post #53

IQ tests are extremely common in Europe for any kind of skilled job. This makes sense, since IQ is by far the highest correlated attribute when it comes to performance. It’s also an excellent way to standardise applicant selection and avoid bias. It even works the other way, when someone too intelligent applies for a job which won’t keep them engaged and challenged. Statistically, such applicants leave rather quickly…

Individual industries/countries maybe, but I very much doubt "extremely common in Europe for any kind of skilled job".
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