Live data from Hacker News

Job application asked for my SAT scores

mrmarket.lol

61–70 of 403 posts

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#61
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Please note that we will also rely significantly on both solicited references (where you introduce us) as well as unsolicited or "back-end" references (where we do our own). For the latter, please rest assured that we will never contact a current employer without first getting your permission. References already give me goosebumps. Having them reach out to people who haven't given you permission to be a reference s…

If they do sensitive work for the government, it'd make sense that they'd do those back-end references. Also if they are in high end finance where you want to weed out people who have demonstrated moral flexibility was well as total lack of it for certain things.

> If they do sensitive work for the government, it'd make sense that they'd do those back-end references.

If they do government work that requires clearances, the clearance process already covers this sort of investigation on its own.

In any case, they are free to do whatever background checks they want within legal limits, but I'd never apply to a company with such ridiculous hiring processes.

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#62
post #34

I like it. I also like it when companies ask for 10 years of [5 year old technology] experience, or say "there's more to working here than the salary!", or other red flags that make it easy to move to the next listing. If you think my decades old SAT score is relevant, then I know all I need to know about your company.

I only had one company (D. E. Shaw & Co.) ask for my SAT scores. I was late-20s and had to have the recruiter repeat herself two more times before I understood what she was asking.

It was also the single highest density of talent I’ve ever worked, by a long shot. Crazy talented coworkers.

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#63
A lot of responses pointing out various flaws with this question, including the fact that it can be used as a proxy for ageism, the fact that the grading scale has not been consistent over time, or that most foreigners will not have gone through the US education system. However, is it really that uncommon for Americans to never have had reason to take the SAT/ACT, such as, simply not going to uni, or going straight to work after graduating high school?

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#64

I just applied to Epic, the EHR company from Wisconsin, and I can confirm that they also ask for SAT scores. Thankfully I have my collegeboard credentials saved

Their pre-screen test was awful. Brain teasers, including some infamous ones like “if you have two coins that make 15 cents and one is not a nickel, how is this possible,” and moderately involved programming questions like “parse phone numbers from a file and record those with any of these area codes OR every other digit is a 2 OR they have multiple pairs of consecutive digits” and you’re given a blank text box with no formatting, IDE, or even non-word processing style indentation help.

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"In cursive" is just filtering for people old enough to have been taught cursive.

sadly my kids were just recently taught cursive in elementary school for some unknown reason

I learned in Brazil. Here in the California I asked my son's kindergarten teacher if she would teach cursive, and she said they don't teach calligraphy and I've never seen it described this way, but she's right.

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#68

This by default includes a whole bunch of people who didn't take any kind of standardized tests (most notably, immigrants). The (albeit small) country I'm from doesn't do any. Reasoning was that standardized tests create an environment where teaching is merely done to create good test scores, not to actually teach.

The SAT doesn’t test course material. It is literally just applying middle school math and English proficiency.

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#69

"You're partly making your decision based on who someone was as a 17 year old." Sure, but IQ tests show a high degree of stability over a person's life. It's not unreasonable to be interested in it for sorting.

I never done an iq test, but just curious, can’t one simply “rehearse/study” for such tests? I dunno, let’s say you do a few past IQ tests (with answers available), I guess one could get a higher score just by doing that

You can. IQ scores are not stable throughout one’s life.

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#70
post #7

Sneaky age filter? You must be young enough to remember your SAT scores.

Sneaky age filter? You must be young enough to remember your SAT scores. I can remember mine just fine. If you're really looking for smart people, use "Answer this word problem in two or more paragraphs. Write your answer on the sheet of paper provided. In cursive."

Are people who were forced to learn cursive smarter? They're just older.

Doing this may well expose you to age discrimination lawsuits, since it's just sneaky indirect age filtering.

Another example would be if you required a minimum SAT score of 1601. Sure, someone could have gone off and taken the SAT as an adult or a young child but in reality it is mainly an age filter.

Post reply on HN