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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

#441

Post by robterrell »

hoka wrote: post #391
rlu wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

An anecdote, for sure, but a friend of mine just failed a Google interview for not knowing 'Dalvik' was the name of the Android VM, despite knowing it was stack-based and used, among other things, to avoid licensing fees. The non-technical interviewer saw that his answer to the trivia question was wrong, and that concluded the interview. It's possible that trivia question was the straw that broke the camel's back, bu…

But isn't Dalvik register-based, not stack-based? Missing the name could be excusable, while getting the architecture wrong might have been a relevant factor.

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

#442

Post by HarryHirsch »

nekopa wrote: post #345
HarryHirsch wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

One would think they changed the line in the manual about cooperating with law enforcement to something more detailed.

Note: I'm saying "something more detailed", not "something more appropiate to situation". The robot must not be required to think ever.

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

#443

Post by hkmurakami »

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…

> 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.

Welcome to the world of Asian Bigcos, where HR not only has the final say on the candidate hire, they also have enormous influence on what department/team that candidate ends up in.

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

#444

Post by codygman »

andrewingram wrote: post #21

I very much dislike the idea that you can't give special treatment to individual candidates. The job of a recruiter is to find the best candidate for the job, not to treat all candidates equally. Now obviously we can't go around discriminating against candidates based on attributes not relevant to their ability to perform (ie gender, race, religion etc), but that doesn't mean we can't make use of any extra informatio…

The problem here is that it's very hard for people to not discriminate at all based on attributes not relative to ability such as gender, race, religion, etc.

For example, many people have racist tendencies but rationalize them as something else.

"There is a big group of male magentas dressed the same over there, I should avoid them because they are almost certainly a gang"

is rationalized as:

"I don't avoid the group of male magentas dressed the same because I'm racist and assume that most magentas are in a gang, but because I've been taught common sense. Common sense dictates people that look like that must be gangsters."

Perhaps if we interviewed people without being able to see them, their name, or anything about them and using voice obfuscation we could eliminate a lot of bias?

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

#445

Post by andrew_gardener »

moocowduckquack wrote: post #390
nitrogen wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If every hyperbole was met with pedantry then nobody would ever go fishing again, and HN would turn into the worst newsgroup you can remember from the 90s.

This would be good for the fish.

Be pedantic towards hyperbole and save ALL the fish!

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

#446

Post by pbhjpbhj »

extra88 wrote: post #366
bitwize wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You're only thinking about the smallest cogs. Do you want a middle manager to be taken advantage of by those under him? Do you want someone in Sales to be taken advantage of by customers?

No, but only because that stops them being taken advantage of fully by their boss/shareholders [categorically not my point of view].

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

#447

Post by Fomite »

I've taken these tests - they're terrible. You're told not to try to game them, and this is just trying to get a feel for who you are...but there's often clearly a "right" answer.

And even when there isn't, there is to the person reading it - if your "type" rejects their values, you must be broken somehow.

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

#448

Post by Fomite »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #253

I had lots of questions after reading this. So why was the test given, if it wasn't used to disqualify people? And who came up with this test idea in the first place anyway? Why was it important? In general, it's a mistake to substitute technical knowledge for ability to perform. You might be a freaking genius, but one that nobody can get along with. So how well this guy did during his technical evaluation is besides…

The notion behind tests like this is to get a feel for your personality, in order to assess "fit". Not necessarily to disqualify people but, for example, if you're not much motivated by money, but are interested in challenging problems, and you're being considered for a lucrative but dull-as-rocks position...it might not work out.

That's the idea at least. In practice, I haven't been impressed by them at all.

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

#449

Post by bad_user »

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

> in any case where the evidence was obtained illegally

It does make sense. Who's to say that the evidence in question wasn't planted?

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

#450

Post by lettergram »

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…

I've read a few business related books/taken several courses and it's actually taught that HR should have the largest role in hiring.

The rational: 1) HR is the manager of the human resource. 2) HR should determine and screen employees for possible risks. 3) HR is at fault if the screening is not achieved.

Relying on a test such as personality is pretty B.S. though. Most tech guys compared to the general populous will receive low scores for being social or extroverted. Which should directly translate into being a lesser productive team member (by being unable to communicated his/her ideas). In actuality, introverted individuals often can communicate well or in a manner which is suitable to completing a task such as the man who was not hired in this example.

What HR really needed to do was to just talk with him, clearly he didnt' seem like a threat and was capable of working with a team so it really shouldn't have mattered.

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