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Job application asked for my SAT scores

mrmarket.lol

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Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#351

Post by TomasBM »

pmontra wrote: post #196

> similar-to-me bias (I like you because you're me!). My first boss in the 90s eventually told me why he hired me. "I assume that everybody at their first job with a CS degree have more or less the same level of technical competence [which is not much IMHO] so I ask which are the last books they have read. You told me a few, I usually get none, so I hired you because I hoped that talking with you would be interesting…

Isn't that bias just legitimized by having culture fitness criteria in hiring?

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#352

Post by dingdongditchme »

parpfish wrote: post #168
OptionOfT wrote: post #50

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…

i hate references. all a good reference means to a potential employer is "you are on good terms with somebody from a previous job". and as a job seeker, it's awkward reaching out to people you may not have talked to in a couple years to announce that you're job hunting.

in my experience it (announcing to people in your network that you are job hunting) is precisely what you should be doing. Some might even point you to the next opportunity. I understand your concern though and have personally only shared it with close contacts (guess it is an ego thing).

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#353

Post by collingreen »

WalterBright wrote: post #324
dr_hooo wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of the content, a test filters for people willing to put in the work to pass. All else being equal, given two candidates, where one has passed a test and another one who didn't bother, the first one sends a stronger signal to the potential employer. It's still worth discussing if the particular test is ideal, but the answer IMO is not to say let's remove tests in general.

Right on. Instead of complaining about the test, he did what was necessary to ace it. He's the kind of person I'd want to hire.

Is that what the sat is supposed to measure, in your opinion? Do you worry that would heavily skew toward people who didn't have to work over people who didn't have as much available time to train to a particular test? Does that even matter?

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#354

Post by marcuskane2 »

somenameforme wrote: post #300
Newlaptop wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just checked, and the SAT math section covers algebra, trigonometry and statistics. Look at this list: Quadratic equations and functions (vertex form, roots, discriminant) Polynomial operations and factoring Exponential functions and growth/decay Radical and rational expressions Function notation, composite and inverse functions Nonlinear graphs and their transformations A genius student who had never been taught t…

Somebody who goes to take a test on something they know that they know nothing about could be called many things, but genius is not one, even moreso when they're paying for the privilege of taking that test. What is on the SAT is no secret, so people are free to prepare as little or as much as they might like. If somebody can't be assed to prepare for such a critical test, then they're probably going to be the sort o…

Or they're a student who has to work a part-time job after school. Or they have a long commute. Or they have hours of practice for a competitive sport or extracurricular. Or they have to take care of their siblings, grandparent or sick parent. Or they were told by their parents and teachers that because they're smart and do well in school that they don't need to worry about studying. Or they know their parents can't afford an elite school anyway, so they know they just have to score well enough to get into a school with in-state tuition and noncompetitive admissions.

Two kids who both went to the same school, were told the same things about the importance of the SAT and dedicated equal time to study and preparation can probably say that the difference in their scores is indicative of differences in intelligence.

But any two random students? There are so many factors that could cause students to underperform their hypothetical max score if they had perfect conditions in the months leading up to the test and day of.

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#355

Post by koe123 »

WalterBright wrote: post #183
andrecarini wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is you're equating `failing a test` to `lacking the relevant skills and knowledge to do a certain task competently`. The reality is sometimes tests in academia are just not very well made and don't really test what they are supposed to be testing, and that's usually due to multiple reasons like misaligned incentives, staffing shortages and maybe lack of resources / funding. I don't think the comparis…

I don't buy the notion that tests do not test relevant skills. In my long career I've noticed a strong correlation between SAT scores and academic performance as well as job performance. > I don't think the comparison to flight school is relevant enough in this context because it's a too different of a world to traditional academia. My dad kept his flight school tests for flying all sorts of airplanes. They bear a lo…

Correlation isn’t causation. Students with test aptitude and ambition will score hire regardless of the test content.

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#356

Post by cucumber3732842 »

dgacmu wrote: post #246
falcor84 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally strongly disagree. I think it's much better to be given the opportunity to do the actual work, rather than to be required to do the pre-assessment song and dance. And if there are actual prerequisites that a person hasn't previously passed, they should be allowed to be tested on these specifically.

Speaking as a professor: the filter is really helpful. Having students struggle for two years in a program they're going to fail out of is terrible. I've seen it happen - and I saw more of it happen for the years CMU also stopped requiring the SAT. The SAT is a very imperfect measure but it turns out a lot of the others are even worse.

>Having students struggle for two years in a program they're going to fail out of is terrible.

Putting a body every a seat for those profitable 500-person lectures taught by an adjunct and graded by TAs who are all paid peanuts and then having them wash out before those expensive 50-person high level classes and esoteric electives taught by tenured profs and accompanied by lots of expensive lab time is great for the university's bottom line though.

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#357

Post by tiahura »

WalterBright wrote: post #209
hammock wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The SAT is actually a lot easier today than it was when most of us took it. It is an hour or more shorter in length, the long reading passages have been replaced with short paragraphs, calculators are allowed, and vocabulary has been removed.

> calculators are allowed OMG. Calculators are useless on the SAT anyway. > vocabulary has been removed. I flipped through a book that coached on SAT vocabulary. I knew all the words. Oh well. I never learned vocabulary as an explicit task. I simply read a lot. I remember one question on the SAT verbal because it irked me. It asked an analogy question which required knowledge of mixed alcoholic drinks. Since I was fa…

We're all really proud of you.

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#358

Post by KevinMS »

cm2012 wrote: post #30

I would never ask for them since its so cringe. But SAT scores correlate to IQ at .81, and IQ is one of the few things that strongly correlates to knowledge work performance positively. There is probably a lot of alpha from knowing candidates SAT scores. Its more useful than knowing the college they went to.

Nothing is worse than a smart bad programmer. There's no limit to the technical debt they can pile up.

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#359

Post by [deleted] »

LtWorf wrote: post #307
igregoryca wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once upon a time, I thought I wanted to learn cursive handwriting. Except this version of me was already in his 20s, would be out of school in a matter of months, and quickly realized the skill would be of such marginal utility in the future that it wasn't worth the hours spent tracing out giant letters like a kindergartener every day. One could learn this skill in their 20s or beyond, but there's an opportunity cost…

So what did you learn instead of cursive?

[deleted]

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#360

Post by expedition32 »

andrecarini wrote: post #158
WalterBright wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always enjoy the advocates who claim that students have mastered their subjects, but "don't test well". Would you want a pilot on your flight who flunked flying school exams, but somehow "really knew how to fly!"?

My understanding is you're equating `failing a test` to `lacking the relevant skills and knowledge to do a certain task competently`. The reality is sometimes tests in academia are just not very well made and don't really test what they are supposed to be testing, and that's usually due to multiple reasons like misaligned incentives, staffing shortages and maybe lack of resources / funding. I don't think the comparis…

Whether or not tests are bad the fact is that nobody has even come close with something objective that can replace it at scale. Teachers have 30 kids in their class- they actually in reality have no idea what their students can or cannot do.
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