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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

#371

Post by tokenadult »

mgkimsal wrote: post #116
tehwalrus wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sure - they're not the be-all answer to everything, but I've found them helpful in (re)assessing myself lately. I found much more static-ness in my IQ over the last 30+ years. I was actually surprised at how consistent it was over decades and various tests (and, dare I say, slightly disappointed).

Oh, if we are talking about the specifics of IQ testing here, I can link to one of the rare Wikipedia articles

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_classification

that has actually recently been updated with reliable sources. Some of the comments below this comment of yours make guesses about IQ tests that can be checked against the sources by referring to that article.

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

#372

Post by r00fus »

rlu wrote: post #352

While this is pretty shitty, and overall I completely agree that personality tests should not decide a hiring decision, I certainly don't think that we should lose sight of one thing: It is 100% legitimate to not hire someone because they don't fit in with your team. They might be really smart and ace your interviews, but if they simply don't fit in then they don't fit in. This advice is given countless times in basi…

> So, while the company in this story did something most of us agree is bad, they at least had good intentions.

Road, hell, paved... you know the rest. If I were ever subject to such a test I'd walk out of that interview pronto. If I were ever in the hiring manager's role I'd raise this to the CEO and fight like hell to get the situation changed or the HRbot repaired.

I've worked for a lot of software corporations (either as an employee or contractor/consultant) and I've never heard of anything like a psychometric evaluation.

Please tell me this isn't becoming popular.

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

#373

Post by svachalek »

I think this story is a great example of sometimes being rejected on an interview can be a fantastic outcome. With the impressive score of 1% this guy was clearly either going to be miserable in the kind of company that thinks this sort of test is of paramount importance to the hiring process, or deliberately chose answers that made sure he wouldn't end up in such a company. Bravo.

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

#374

Post by rybosome »

rlu wrote: post #350
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 tes…

I read "Big Corp" as "non-technical Big Corp" in this sense. I think it's pretty well known that the major tech players have difficult technical interviews, but that the people ultimately making the decision are engineers.

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

#376

Post by rcthompson »

bad_user wrote: post #308
georgemcbay wrote: post #211

Oh god, I am shocked and horrified to hear that these sorts of tests may now be making their way into the tech industry. I've never encountered one of these personally, but my then-girlfriend who was a recent nursing school graduate looking for her first job ran into them and failed the first few of them. After reading about them online I'm convinced the only way for you to "pass" these tests is to be slightly psycho…

Dude, your girlfriend may have been too immature at that point to realize what the right answers to Unicru were, but it's really obvious what the interviewer wants to hear after getting some life experience with assholes: bend over, don't complain, smile, etc... I never got such a test, but if I did, I would try really hard to score 0% just because fuck you. Funny thing is that the capable guy being exemplified in th…

Ironically, if you did that then the score would probably be accurate.

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

#377

Post by rsiqueira »

I was horrified by the Milgram experiment (psychological test to test obedience to authority) that the author cites: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

And (but not related to the article) I was amazed to find out that Milgram is the same researcher who created the first "six degrees of separation" experiments, that lead to the creation of the first global-scale social networks: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_world_experiment

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

#378

Post by brosirmandude »

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…

If you don't mind me asking, where would one begin searching for employment at a company such as the one you used to work at?

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

#379

Post by dragonwriter »

lambda wrote: post #330
dragonwriter wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even in that case, HR can identify the risk paramters (likelihood of risk manifesting, expected cost if it manifests, overall expected cost taking all of that into account, etc.) but they can't weigh the cost against the expected benefits.

There are plenty of cases in which the company just needs to have a policy that it's an unacceptable risk. For instance, if the job involves getting a security clearance, a felony on your background check basically means that you are unfit for the job. Or if you are dealing with highly sensitive financial data, there can just be too much of a risk. I'm not saying that all HR departments should have such a policy (in…

> There are plenty of cases in which the company just needs to have a policy that it's an unacceptable risk.

Sure, but HR generally shouldn't be setting that policy, and whoever is setting that policy is logically making the decision, HR is gathering an input to that decision (a potentially decisive input, but that's because of decision criteria set outside of HR.)

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

#380

Post by mahyarm »

bad_user wrote: post #308
georgemcbay wrote: post #211

Oh god, I am shocked and horrified to hear that these sorts of tests may now be making their way into the tech industry. I've never encountered one of these personally, but my then-girlfriend who was a recent nursing school graduate looking for her first job ran into them and failed the first few of them. After reading about them online I'm convinced the only way for you to "pass" these tests is to be slightly psycho…

Dude, your girlfriend may have been too immature at that point to realize what the right answers to Unicru were, but it's really obvious what the interviewer wants to hear after getting some life experience with assholes: bend over, don't complain, smile, etc... I never got such a test, but if I did, I would try really hard to score 0% just because fuck you. Funny thing is that the capable guy being exemplified in th…

I think if you haven't worked in a 'real' professional job for several years (your first job) then it can be harder to understand the psychology behind the test implicitly. Or if you just worked in small businesses with very low amounts of politics.
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