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IBM's Asshole Test

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Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#241

Post by genewitch »

bee_rider wrote: post #214
genewitch wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this extremely hard to believe. I, too, try very hard to not get upset at "service workers", but at a certain point, if someone has a bad attitude with me i'll eventually give it right back. This has only happened a few times, off the top of my head: support at ISPs a couple of times, creditors who were harassing me without reason, and one time extremely rude and racist people at a California School transporta…

This would make sense as an objection if the taxi driver had specifically been asked to be a dick, to test the candidates. I'd assume they have some idea that the taxi driver is a fairly reasonable person (and apparently they know him well enough to trust his judgement).

English is a tricky language, and in my reading of GP i was incredulous at the word "never", especially since service workers can be in bad moods or stressed and that becomes, to you (or me, or GP), external stressors.

Maybe i'm a bad person?

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#242

Post by moffkalast »

hindsightbias wrote: post #146
eej71 wrote: post #67

Decades ago, in the days before uber, my employer would fly in candidates from college campuses as part of an onsite interview. The candidate would fly in the night before and we relied on a taxi service to bring the candidate to the hotel. Then in the morning the same service would bring them to the onsite and of course bring them back to the airport at the end. It was a whole curated process. Little did the candida…

Was told if you interview with the FBI, the interview starts the moment you go through the door. And be careful what you say at the bar.

These days it probably starts when you're born, the amount of data they can dig up has got to be close to astounding.

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#243

Post by AceJohnny2 »

slg wrote: post #145

Honestly I see two asshole tests here. Some of the candidates failed the first one. IBM failed the other. This type of dishonest and unnecessarily stressful approach tells me that I probably don't want to be working there. Even just professing that a candidate needs to work well under stress is somewhat of a red flag. Why are your employees under so much stress? I am software developer not a trauma surgeon. If I am u…

Meh. The only teams that never face stress are those that don't have customers.

Stress happens. Good management provides a buffer to mitigate it, but sometimes compounding events means it's gonna happen, despite the best planning.

Better to know up-front how people will behave during the worst times than to see the team completely collapse when they're needed the most.

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#244

Post by wolverine876 »

hnarn wrote: post #134
cmckn wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hm, I don't dig this. I don't think it's ethical to evaluate a candidate's interactions when they weren't informed they were being evaluated. People are stressed heading into an interview, and may be upset afterwards. Unless they're interviewing for a public-facing role, I don't see how this behavior is relevant to the job; and discussing it with a hiring committee invites all sorts of "cultural fit" biases that make…

> I don't think it's ethical to evaluate a candidate's interactions when they weren't informed they were being evaluated. That makes about as much sense as saying that you shouldn’t be held responsible for stealing office supplies because no one informed you that there were cameras installed. If you treat cab drivers and other service personnel badly, that’s because you’re a shit person. It’s really that simple. I’ve…

> If you treat cab drivers and other service personnel badly, that’s because you’re a shit person.

That attitude seems the same one that judges service workers. IME, and based on what I know of humanity, people act badly because they feel vulnerable; they are scared or anxious. It's still bad behavior, but they aren't 'shit people'.

If bad behavior damns us, then we all qualify. The mistake is judging others, and lacking empathy and humility.

> I’ve been in extremely stressful situations in my life involving lots of travel and I’ve yet to “take it out” on a third party.

We all act badly sometimes; if you really think you don't, you are not seeing it. It's not ok in the situation, but it's ok in terms of our humanity. Apologize and work to do better.

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#245

Post by skissane »

SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #103
cmckn wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hm, I don't dig this. I don't think it's ethical to evaluate a candidate's interactions when they weren't informed they were being evaluated. People are stressed heading into an interview, and may be upset afterwards. Unless they're interviewing for a public-facing role, I don't see how this behavior is relevant to the job; and discussing it with a hiring committee invites all sorts of "cultural fit" biases that make…

I don't want to work with anyone who treats service workers like garbage, no matter what mood they are in. I have never in my life, no matter how bad or good of a day I am having, taken my frustrations out on a service worker for whatever internal/external stressors are happening to me.

I worry that this might unintentionally discriminate against culturally diverse candidates. Standards of politeness can vary between cultures (and even subcultures), and a person might behave in a way which is perceived as polite in their (sub)culture but as impolite in the culture of the service worker; an "asshole" could turn out to just be a cultural misunderstanding. Particularly if the candidate is from a minority or immigrant background (especially recent immigrant).

Similarly, I'd worry that this might unintentionally discriminate against neurodiverse candidates, who sometimes might act in ways which are perceived as impolite by others without realising they are doing so. Often, if you simply analyse the interaction and give them a calm rational explanation of how it went wrong, many of them are happy to adjust their behaviour in response, and will improve over time. But, instead, some just want to label other people as "assholes" over misunderstandings. And a significant percentage of service workers may have weaker skills at "analyse the situation and try to infer the psychological processes involved" than others with greater education do, which may make them more likely to jump to the "just an asshole" explanation and less likely to perceive other possible explanations.

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#246

Post by analog31 »

eej71 wrote: post #67

Decades ago, in the days before uber, my employer would fly in candidates from college campuses as part of an onsite interview. The candidate would fly in the night before and we relied on a taxi service to bring the candidate to the hotel. Then in the morning the same service would bring them to the onsite and of course bring them back to the airport at the end. It was a whole curated process. Little did the candida…

There's a saying among musicians: "Be careful of how you treat the people you meet on your way up, because you'll meet them again on your way down."

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#247

Post by [deleted] »

genewitch wrote: post #204
jameshart wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asking for character references from someone who has interacted with a candidate is perfectly fine. I think where this might get dodgy is with the possibility that some of the candidates might have tipped this driver, which puts us in the position of asking for an opinion about several candidates from someone who might have been compensated by some of them.

if i were to institute something like this, the driver would be fairly (and well) compensated to do this task. Any tips would be handed over at the end, so there's no consideration of compensation involved. Obviously tipping is a data point, but it wouldn't influence the drivers report beyond that checkbox.

[deleted]

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#248

Post by spanktheuser »

I don't have an asshole test, but I do have a collaboration test I use when hiring for design or product roles. I match the candidate with the hiring manager and two peers. And essentially mimic the rapid sketching exercise from a design sprint for a very simple and broadly understood feature. For example: editing tweets. I'm less interested in the quality of the candidates work than how they work. Are the comfortable working out in the open? How do they accept feedback? Are they generous with their own criticism and praise? Will they iterate on ideas they didn't originate? Will they react well to someone else incorporating their best idea into their own designs? I'll also produce a few concepts that are flat out terrible and see how their feedback changes when coming from a supervisor.

Of all the interview techniques I've used over the years, this had been the most predictive and the best recruiting tool. When the right candidate is in there with us we all end up having a great time.

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#249

Post by serf »

jackblemming wrote: post #56
WisNorCan wrote: post #17

I am fairly sure Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos & Elon Musk would have failed this test. Are you better off having them at your company or not?

Shockingly, there's plenty of competent CEOs who aren't assholes, but we don't idolize them because Americans love the idea of the genius asshole.

yeah , agreed -- but that doesn't really say anything about parents' point.

in fact it makes just as much sense totally flipped -- lots of highly effective people who have been successful in this world have had terrible interpersonal skills.

Presumably the point being made is that interpersonal skill doesn't predict success in business 1:1, and that deciding to throw a portion of applicants out due to perceived social issues is necessarily throwing out some thorny individuals with fantastic individual ability for the sake of the herd.

I can't say whether or not that's good or bad -- but as someone with terrible interpersonal skills myself I tend to hope that someone would alert me to my individual faux pas rather than silently ridding themselves of my presence all together.

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#250

Post by slg »

TameAntelope wrote: post #184
slg wrote: post #145

Honestly I see two asshole tests here. Some of the candidates failed the first one. IBM failed the other. This type of dishonest and unnecessarily stressful approach tells me that I probably don't want to be working there. Even just professing that a candidate needs to work well under stress is somewhat of a red flag. Why are your employees under so much stress? I am software developer not a trauma surgeon. If I am u…

Meh, I definitely want to filter out people who can't handle situations like this, because honestly they come up all the time. Uncertainty in ownership, data not matching up, clarity lacking; how people behave in these scenarios is basically how they'll behave at their job. I don't think it's an "asshole" behavior to induce stress during an interview and observe results. What else are you supposed to do?

It isn't just inducing stress that tells me they are an asshole. Interviews are inherently stressful, there is little need to intentionally add extra stress on top. The dishonesty is also a problem. Interviews are a two-way street. The first impression this gives candidates is that their employer will think nothing of lying to their face and employees will so regularly be under stress that handling stress well is one of the traits they find most important. No thanks.
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