He got 1%, we can't hire him • Hacker News Board

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

#581

Post by just_testing » Fri, Aug 30, 2013, 4:02 AM UTC

hoffcoder wrote: post #560

minor_nitwit wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good post. These HR tests favor extroversion and obedience. In my experience, brilliant people are highly unlikely to exhibit these traits. I work with a guy who pounds on his desk daily, curses at code, has OCD, walks about aimlessly, is anti-authority, depressed, and is a self-described autistic. In other words, he's the type to score 1%. However, if you have any advanced math problem he can solve it in minutes, wh…

I think that these HR tests basically ensure uniformity of candidates to a certain extent. But if all people in a workplace are of the same nature, if they wear the same clothes (some companies require that too), and if they think in the same manner, a lot of out-of-the-box thinkers would be left out. And it is a law of nature that the higher the variety, the better the yield. I believe that a lot of differently thin…

By the way, that's exactly why I left a corporate career at a bank: I was the only person in the entire floor to question the dress code, I was the only person in a 10.000 people center to commute by bike (among other things) and I got tired of being the ugly duck and having my ideas being completely rejected just because they were different.

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

#582

Post by aidenn0 » Fri, Aug 30, 2013, 5:23 AM UTC

HelloMcFly wrote: post #313

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 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…

Here's a very oversimplified model of people that would allow a test to strongly correlate with job performance, but still be wrong.

Let's assume for a moment that when a person is told to do something, and they disagree, 90% of all employees are typically wrong when they disagree and 10% of all employees are typically right when they disagree.

We are considering now just engineering type jobs (since that's what the article is about).

Now consider anti-authoritarianism: 90% of the people who are anti-authoritarianism will perform terribly worse than the typical population (since they will tend to go with their mistaken belief of what is right, or be obstructionist when poeple want to do it differently, etc). They will be your least valuable employees.

The remaining 10% of those scoring high on anti-authoritarianism are among the most valuable of your employees, as they won't allow their teammates to go down a dead-end.

So anti-authoritarianism is highly correlated with poor performance (even trouble-makers) but rejecting all applicants based on this will keep you from getting some of the most valuable employees.

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

#583

Post by srd » Fri, Aug 30, 2013, 6:54 AM UTC

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #564

Fomite wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think maybe I did a poor job of explaining myself. Yes, I understand the things the tests provide. These kinds of tests have been around forever. Personally I don't like them, most engineers don't, but that's not going to make them go away. My question was about the organization itself. Why measure something if you're not going to do anything with it? So in your example, where you're not motivated by money, but its…

It's the standard corporate CYA strategy. If the hire turns out to be a bad apple, everyone will glare at HR. HR will point to the test results, and sigh "We did our due dilligence, not our fault". And noone is to blame.

Same as with all the IT certification stuff that corporate HR loves to get their hands on.

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

#584

Post by ballard » Fri, Aug 30, 2013, 9:15 AM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #576

ballard wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Duh. Value is holistic. We can find anything we want to find to support an argument. When you have worked with someone that screams at their coworkers, can barely feed/clothe themselves or refuses to lift a finger to help you... then you will know how much time and emotional effort these behavioral traits can waste.

Toxic employees exist at the extremes of those buckets. Avoid hiring toxic employees, but the filters available to you might not be good enough to screen them out, so fire them quickly. During the interview, you might just be able to observe minor quirks which are hardly indicators either way. I cringe whenever I read job ads that are aiming for a culture fit: "we only want to hire harmonious, independent, extroverte…

All or nothing hiring is too risky. Gradual formality makes the selection from both sides cooler, you know. We don't do interviews either; hazing sure, but no stupid hypothetical questions to test loyalty. There is no loyalty. Greed is good. =)

There is the another option. Make something people want and build it up slowly, on the side. If you do, you may free yourself from being at the beckon call of other masters (other than users). Others have, so it's possible. We are each masters of our own fate.

Peace.

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

#585

Post by James_Duval » Fri, Aug 30, 2013, 10:14 AM UTC

theorique wrote: post #557

illumen wrote: post #545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- People who capitalise their sentences. ps. lol

- People who spell 'capitalize' as 'capitalise' pps. lolol

- the colonies

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

#586

Post by Ziomislaw » Fri, Aug 30, 2013, 1:00 PM UTC

alan_cx wrote: post #546

johnohara wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So are most HR types.

Enough........ By your logic, no position in a business know about business apart from oh so clever programmers? Oh please. Look across HN at the threads about the psychology, depression, and so on. Programmers and some of the most insular people out there. No problem as such, but don't tell me they have some special ability to cover all bases in a business. That has to be a joke. If you think about it, HR are one of…

can you make a company full of HR succeed? Can you make the same with only programmers?

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

#587

Post by snowwrestler » Fri, Aug 30, 2013, 8:21 PM UTC

lambdasquirrel wrote: post #461

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Psychometric evaluations are not voodoo science. Honestly, as a PhD psychologist, they are the only useful (i.e. scientific) part of psychology. For example, see Hunter and Schmidt (1998) http://mavweb.mnsu.edu/howard/Schmidt%20and%20Hunter%201998%... . This (and if you've been around here a while, you've probably seen this) is a meta-analysis of the utility of particular selection procedures for jobs. That is psycho…

Which is why we screen people for submission to authority? I don't doubt that they "work" for certain easily-measurable traits of personality. I'm also certain that (1) the tests will be abused and (2) HR people are screening for attributes that are probably more useful in a factory setting.

People always doing whatever they think is right works until someone's sense of what is "right" is actually wrong, or harmful to their employer. For example, consider all the people who thought their particular brand of humor or affection was ok, but it triggered a harassment suit.

Loose cannons can destroy more value than they create, even if they are brilliant in certain skills.

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

#588

Post by disgruntledphd2 » Fri, Aug 30, 2013, 9:05 PM UTC

lutusp wrote: post #472

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You appear to be suffering from a misapprehension. Psychology: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology Psychiatry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychiatry Note the not to be confused with introduction on Wikipedia. They are quite different, and while I agree that DSM-5 was a disgrace, that was somewhat inevitable given the commercial pressures involved. Its worth noting that I agree with your major point, but it appl…

> You appear to be suffering from a misapprehension. Both are studies of the mind. Psychiatrists are psychologists with an M.D. degree. Psychology: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology Quote: "an academic and applied discipline that involves the scientific study of mental functions and behaviors" Psychiatry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychiatry Quote: "the medical specialty devoted to the study, diagnosis, trea…

I would urge you to realise that psychology!=psychotherapy.

I hate with the blinding passion of a thousand fiery suns psychotherapy, but I find much (experimental) psychology rather interesting.

Seriously, one of the very first things they tell you in a psychology degree (at least in Europe) is that its not about therapy, and in fact that most therapists are not psychologists. The study of the human mind and what is essentially a form of confession are very, very different.

But hey, you'll believe what you want to on this one, it doesn't look like I can convince you.

Have you read any of the work of Daniel Kahneman? Thats what I would consider as psychology (even if his System One and Two stuff is a dirty hack that provides little useful insight to the field).

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

#589

Post by disgruntledphd2 » Fri, Aug 30, 2013, 9:07 PM UTC

dylangs1030 wrote: post #489

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a psychologist, and I game personality tests for fun. The MMPI is harder than the Myers Briggs, but not that difficult. Additionally its really only optimal for clinical samples, at which it is very good. However, everyone in the field knows that these tests can be gamed, the only open question is how many people game them consistently. You can probably estimate the proportion of social desirability exhibited in…

Wow, I have to defer to you then :) Is there anything you've got offhand that I can read further about this? I didn't know you could actually game them.

Find the scoring manuals, do loads of personality tests, rinse, repeat. Its not particularly difficult.

Despite this, I have ran many surveys back when I worked in academia. You can detect some of this stuff with Guttman errors, but these are not often used, and as long as you are consistent, its very difficult to spot.

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

#590

Post by disgruntledphd2 » Fri, Aug 30, 2013, 9:20 PM UTC

vacri wrote: post #496

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Psychometric evaluations are not voodoo science. Honestly, as a PhD psychologist, they are the only useful (i.e. scientific) part of psychology. For example, see Hunter and Schmidt (1998) http://mavweb.mnsu.edu/howard/Schmidt%20and%20Hunter%201998%... . This (and if you've been around here a while, you've probably seen this) is a meta-analysis of the utility of particular selection procedures for jobs. That is psycho…

Another boring comment shitting on psychology - and theoretically by someone who should know better. It's really tiresome. cut/pasting from another comment of mine: by saying that psychological research is itself useless, you're also throwing away things like A/B testing, UX testing (including Apple's much-vaunted usability stuff), research into grief management, team-building research, research into cognitive recove…

Dude, from my perspective, its the only sub field that is even halfway right in statistics. I have read so very many psychology papers in top-ranked journals that commit basic, stupid statistical mistakes all the time. And no-one seems to learn.

If you use a linear regression rather than ANOVA, you will often be asked to change it to an ANOVA.

I am well aware of the breadth and depth that is psychology, and most of it is poorly conducted and irritatingly bad. I actually think it has a lot to do with applying a particular experimental model of science developed for non-reflexive systems to reflexive systems, with predictably hilarious results.

Please do not take out the rest of the commentators opinions on me, it upsets me also when people bash psychology from ignorance, but I come from a place of love when I bash it, as I do really adore the subject, but feel that much of it is so very, very awfully done.

A/B testing - psychology degrees teach pretty good experimental design, but you wouldn't know it to see a lot of published research. Additionally, rigorous experimental design owes a lot more to statistics than psychology.

UX Testing: This is definitely a good area, but again I think we don't control enough for the impact of the researcher(s) - see Rosenthal, 1969 for the problem, and note the complete lack of care regarding these effects in modern psychology.

Grief management? Seriously? I don't really think psychology has added much here, but would be delighted to read some good papers that prove me wrong.

Ameliorating sexism and racism? Good intentions, but given that I read a lot of this stuff I would have to say that they are perhaps the worst for statistical sins and errors (with the notable exception of Brian Nosek).

I know very little about perception research in HUD's, do you have some good papers?

I'm not entirely certain why you felt the need to correct me, when if you look at my comments in the overall thread it can be seen that I am pretty much on the same side as you.

It is possible that I am so sick of people who commit statistical sins for career advancement purposes (something I could never do) that I may be taking it out on the field.

Incidentally, what is psychology? I would be interested to hear your definition (as long as its not waffle like the scientific study of the human mind and behaviour, which merely begs far more questions).