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He got 1%, we can't hire him

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Re: He got 1%, we can't hire him

#341

Post by jfriedly »

columbo wrote: post #198

I used to work for a company that writes and administers these tests. This company broke the cardinal rule. #1 - Only give personality tests in their native language. This is unacceptable , a personality test is NOT a language aptitude test. Personality tests will have questions like this: True or False I am happy when others are taking advantage of me. Non-native speakers may not appreciate that "taking advantage" i…

Would you care to send me an email? I'd love to ask someone who worked at one of these companies a few questions.

joelfriedly@gmail.com

Thanks!

Re: He got 1%, we can't hire him

#342

Post by fosap »

lutusp wrote: post #170
GFischer wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some psychologists that actually try to be scientific (my GF is doing a postgraduate degree in neuropsychology). Unfortunately, they're overwhelmed by the majority, which are full of pseudoscience. Maybe the more rigorous ones should change their titles, not to be associated with standard "psychologists" anymore?

> Maybe the more rigorous ones should change their titles, not to be associated with standard "psychologists" anymore? I have been recommending that serious students, those who want to avoid the stigma of psychology, enter the field of neuroscience instead. Neuroscience will eventually replace psychiatry and psychology as the preferred approach to treating what we now call "mental illnesses", most of which are actual…

But psychiatry and psychology do not have much in common.

Psychiatrists are medicals doctors treating the organ "brain". It's pretty much interchangeable with neuroscience. And before once changes, one should reason very carefully, because they are completely different, and medical school is very hard, while one says that psychology tends to be easy. Also there is not much new about this approach. It's probably as old as psychology. Maybe one could say psychology developed from the former. Pawlov for example was a physiologist.

/e Well, no they are not interchangeable. A psychiatrists does not research about bionic eyes. But the way they see human psyche is pretty much.

Re: He got 1%, we can't hire him

#343

Post by B-Con »

tehwalrus wrote: post #70
mgkimsal wrote: post #64

"The psychometric test was supposed to produce a "true" reflection of how someone saw themselves, and I was told it couldn't change over time - i.e. whatever it determined was fixed, immutable and infallable." 20 years ago I took the Meyers-Briggs test multiple times (well, once a year for 3 years). My numbers changed a little bit each time - I was fairly strong I and N, but very weak 'T' and 'J', to the point where…

remember that MBTIs have no evidence base - they can be helpful in allowing someone to "see" jobs they might be happier in, as they did for me, but they don't necessarily measure anything statistically significant about a personality.

That's arguably backward. The MBTI was developed to help people place into jobs, but it has not proven itself to be a useful indicator of that. Conversely, all it is is a personality measurement. When you analyze the type system, it's actually a fairly decent one. (Probably the best we have today, but that doesn't mean much if you think they're all bad.)

Re: He got 1%, we can't hire him

#344

Post by snake_plissken »

wpietri wrote: post #306
snake_plissken wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lolo I like: "It is maddening when the court lets guilty criminals go free >> SA" Yeah, what is the point of having a court of law anyway, because the test taker knows all.

Or they could be modestly conversant with the basics of criminal law. The courts are designed to let some portion of the guilty go free: E.g.: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone%27s_formulation For example, in any case where the evidence was obtained illegally, a person who is provably guilty may not be convicted: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_of_the_poisonous_tree

I feel like this validates my comment? The two notions regarding criminal law you post are not maddening, but thoroughly reassuring.

Re: He got 1%, we can't hire him

#345

Post by nekopa »

HarryHirsch wrote: post #309
praptak wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are much worse ones. I seriously hope that the key is fake. You are supposed to Strongly Disagree with: "When you are annoyed with something, you say so" "When people make mistakes, you correct them" "You are not afraid to tell someone off" ... and Strongly Agree with: "Any trouble you have is your own fault" "You avoid arguments as much as possible" "You finish your work no matter what" This is what the wicked…

The key is correct. Remember you are a mindless drone, as such you are not expected to take charge. Them above, they know best. Anyone remember that case when a prank caller called a McDonalds, telling them that they were management and that they should strip-search a female employee? McDonalds has an employee handbook with all the procedures for the robot, and if you can make it appear that what you ask is in the ha…

I think the caller pretended to be a cop. Pretty sure they made a movie about it recently...

Re: He got 1%, we can't hire him

#346

Post by HelloMcFly »

gbog wrote: post #335
HelloMcFly wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand why you think that way, but there are reasons HR-related folks get involved in these types of things. Note that I cannot speak for this particular company or their processes, but I can speak generally. Properly validated psychometric tests are valid predictors of job performance (by which I mean objectively and factually correlated with actual work performance), and a properly constructed work-relevant t…

> If you don't consistently apply it, it becomes worthless. Why? Having read Thinking Fast and Slow and been convinced by this book's many useful views, I would agree that a simple questionnaire-based ranking is actually better than any subjective assessment of candidates. And it should be as neutral as possible, ie not letting one's "first impression" influence the ranking (because it is almost always based on irrel…

Well, legally consistent application is very important. If getting an 80% if the cutoff for candidate A, and getting a 65% is acceptable for candidate B, then you're now setting different standards for different candidates. What if those different standards align with something like gender, or religion? It may not happen on purpose, but it's a problem.

Statistically, you've created a model for consistent application, and if you don't consistently apply then the anticipated value of the tools you're using is now in question as the model has a large source or error involved now.

I don't mean to say subject evaluations have no place in the process. Think of each part of the selection process as an independent stage. The candidates can pass the objective tests, perhaps with a minimum cutoff score, then pass the subjective judgment test. Or vice versa (though that may limit utility further).

Re: He got 1%, we can't hire him

#347

Post by rlu »

bitwize wrote: post #336
columbo wrote: post #198

I used to work for a company that writes and administers these tests. This company broke the cardinal rule. #1 - Only give personality tests in their native language. This is unacceptable , a personality test is NOT a language aptitude test. Personality tests will have questions like this: True or False I am happy when others are taking advantage of me. Non-native speakers may not appreciate that "taking advantage" i…

The correct answer, in any case is "True". Employees who object to their bosses taking advantage of them are a liability risk and are automatic no-hires.

For the sake of argument though, if the point of the test (in OP's case anyways) is to determine culture fit, should it matter what the "right" answer is if the rest of the team got it "wrong"?

Re: He got 1%, we can't hire him

#348

Post by tankbot »

ajross wrote: post #324
tankbot wrote: post #299

Not to be nitpicky, but rather to help: You are using 'me' and 'I' backwards. It's really distracting and made it difficult to get through the beginning of the post to the actual story. The rules are simple: Take Carl out of the sentence. Would you say "Me made myself available"? No. Then why "Carl and me made ourselves available"? Would you say "score extra points with I"? No. Then why "score extra points with Carl…

Amusingly, exactly this characteristic -- being "really distracted" by things like grammar errors, or in general annoyed by other people for minor/nonessential reasons -- would get you dinged like crazy on the test being discussed. It marks you as a non-conformist and "hard to work with".

Hah! Well, usually I can get past things like a lack of apostrophe or incorrect use of there/their/they're, I wouldn't consider myself a "Grammar Nazi". But for some reason this one causes me to lose my place when reading. I kept having to go back and find where I was in the paragraph and re-read the sentence to be sure of who is involved and what they were doing.

Re: He got 1%, we can't hire him

#349

Post by enraged_camel »

JonFish85 wrote: post #337
enraged_camel wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>But their role is to get resumes in front of the real decision makers, and to take care of all the stuff like W-2 forms and whatnot nobody wants to deal with, Don't forget enforcing dress codes and other such nonsense policies in the "employee handbook."

Don't forget enforcing dress codes and other such nonsense policies in the "employee handbook." I personally don't have a problem with this. Someone has to be responsible for making sure that the office doesn't look like a sty / homeless shelter. When investors/customers/interviewers stop by, there's a certain level of professionalism that needs to be present. So if there's a rule that people need to wear a top, they…

If I were a business owner and a customer judged me for allowing my employees to wear comfortable clothes around the office, I would not want them as a customer. Same with investors.

Why? Because them caring about outward appearances would signal to me that they have a fundamental lack of understanding about what factors are relevant to running a successful business.

Don't get me wrong: if an employee is visiting a customer or business partner, then yes, they should dress up. But the office should be an environment where people focus on their work instead of how they look. My philosophy: people should be able to wear anything they would feel comfortable wearing around a roommate that they don't know well. I think once you provide that guideline, people will auto-adjust towards a standard that is acceptable to everyone.

Re: He got 1%, we can't hire him

#350

Post by rlu »

rayiner wrote: post #218

There is absolutely zero reason why HR/recruiting people should have final say on a candidate. None. It should be inconceivable, at a technical company, to hand over that much hiring power to a non-technical person. HR people are valuable in a company. But their role is to get resumes in front of the real decision makers, and to take care of all the stuff like W-2 forms and whatnot nobody wants to deal with, not make…

What is "Big Corp" though? I work at MS and they certainly don't do tests like this - and from my understanding neither does Google, Amazon, Facebook (is fb a "bigcorp"? perhaps not yet..). Dunno about IBM - wouldn't be surprised either way I guess.

Perhaps the bigger lesson here is to not do personality tests. With that said, obviously gauging team fit is super important - but you don't need (and should avoid) a test for that.

On a related note, it seems another lesson to be learned from here is to be cautious when searching a technical job at a non-technical company. We don't know whether this is the case in OP, but nevertheless the whole "BigCorp" caution you give is likely more applicable when you look at financial companies or otherwise "companies that don't focus on making software/etc."

But I have no idea why growing startups would model their HR after them. If they want to model their HR after a "Big Corp" then they might as well model it after a technical Big Corp. Let's not compare apples to oranges.

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