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IBM's Asshole Test

johnpublic.mataroa.blog

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Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#121

Post by brimble »

Victerius wrote: post #25
neo_g wrote: post #13

This sounds so weird, people without any expertise in human psychology are in-charge of a behavior detection exercise. The worst part, those who got in were the new experts in 6-months.

Take this with a pinch of salt, but I read an anecdote on Reddit a long time ago about a corporation in New York (I think it was a bank) where an executive was looking for a new VP/Director/something. He found a potential candidate and invited him to a one-on-one lunch. When the candidate placed his order, the executive discreetly told the waiter to bring the wrong order for the candidate. The point was to see how th…

Is the correct response to slip a Benjamin to another waiter to "accidentally" trip the one who screwed up, so you can judge from their response what your demeanor should be like when requesting a correction?

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#122

Post by Victerius »

banana_giraffe wrote: post #115
f0e4c2f7 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This story strikes me as pretty funny. As if he might say "damn, I was hoping you knew. We've been working on this one for weeks!"

I once walked into an interview where some code was already written on a whiteboard. It was presented to me as a "find the problem with the code" sort of puzzle, and I pointed out the one big logic problem with it's algorithm and wrote a quick fix. The interviewer responded with "hold on", and grabbed a colleague, pointed at the whiteboard, and the colleague said "yes! that'll fix it!" and ran off. I was offered the…

> I was offered the job that I was clearly qualified for, but I declined.

Out of curiosity, why?

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#123

Post by yowlingcat »

tomatowurst wrote: post #50
cperciva wrote: post #31

When I interviewed at Google in 2006, one of the interviewers asked me to write code for solving a particular problem. I replied along the lines of "ok I need to think about this, it's not obvious how to solve it" and started thinking. Time ticked away. Five minutes. Ten minutes. Fifteen minutes. The interviewer started reminding me that he needed me to write some code and if there wasn't anything for him to copy dow…

The two aren't mutually exclusive, you could've easily started out with salary + stock options that would've put you in a better position to start a side gig. Then you might actually be driving a lambo now too ;)

Did you start out with the Google salary + stock options, proceed to also start a side gig, and now drive a lambo?

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#124

Post by [deleted] »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #104
cmckn wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hm, I don't dig this. I don't think it's ethical to evaluate a candidate's interactions when they weren't informed they were being evaluated. People are stressed heading into an interview, and may be upset afterwards. Unless they're interviewing for a public-facing role, I don't see how this behavior is relevant to the job; and discussing it with a hiring committee invites all sorts of "cultural fit" biases that make…

It's understandable that people might be stressed or upset, but if they take it out on people they consider beneath them that's not a good sign.

[deleted]

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#125

Post by throwaway6532 »

conorh wrote: post #105

Many years ago when applying for a somewhat similar program at another big company I went through something similar. Bunch of us in a room with a difficult to solve problem, not enough time, and at the end we had to do a group presentation on our solution. I don't know if it was exactly an asshole test, it was also to see how people worked in a group generally. Even if it is somewhat artificial people's personalities…

I've evaluated one of these group exercises for a grad program before. One thing that stuck out like a sore thumb was out of the four individuals there was one guy that continually derailed the group, and there was another guy who even though the other guy was always derailing things still showed courtesy towards him and listened to his opinions. The other two guys were both reasonable and I liked them too, but the guy whom I both liked and who showed courtesy to an individual I would describe as "difficult" was one of the ones we wound up hiring. He got glowing reviews from pretty much every assessor and went on to become a great colleague to work with. I think any of those three out of the four people would have been fine hires, and the other guy was a strong no-hire.

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#126

Post by rmah »

cmckn wrote: post #93
eej71 wrote: post #67

Decades ago, in the days before uber, my employer would fly in candidates from college campuses as part of an onsite interview. The candidate would fly in the night before and we relied on a taxi service to bring the candidate to the hotel. Then in the morning the same service would bring them to the onsite and of course bring them back to the airport at the end. It was a whole curated process. Little did the candida…

Hm, I don't dig this. I don't think it's ethical to evaluate a candidate's interactions when they weren't informed they were being evaluated. People are stressed heading into an interview, and may be upset afterwards. Unless they're interviewing for a public-facing role, I don't see how this behavior is relevant to the job; and discussing it with a hiring committee invites all sorts of "cultural fit" biases that make…

I disagree, the best time to evaluate how a candidate behaves towards other people is when they don't know they are being evaluated. Were they stressed before/after the interview? Well, how one behaves when stressed matters too. Finally, yes, rudeness is subjective, but so are most things in life.

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#127

Post by bloodyplonker22 »

f0e4c2f7 wrote: post #66
cperciva wrote: post #31

When I interviewed at Google in 2006, one of the interviewers asked me to write code for solving a particular problem. I replied along the lines of "ok I need to think about this, it's not obvious how to solve it" and started thinking. Time ticked away. Five minutes. Ten minutes. Fifteen minutes. The interviewer started reminding me that he needed me to write some code and if there wasn't anything for him to copy dow…

This story strikes me as pretty funny. As if he might say "damn, I was hoping you knew. We've been working on this one for weeks!"

I once interviewed a guy who was going to work on a different team than mine who, 20 minutes in, I knew he was going to pass everyone's interview. I then proceeded to give him a "take home test" which was actually my project for the sprint, but framed in a generic manner. He was a much better and faster programmer than I, and he completed it beyond my expectations. I made the modifications to make it work with my project and I even received a commendation at the end of the sprint on how clean "my work" was.

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#128

Post by noselasd »

chrisseaton wrote: post #28
Victerius wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The post doesn't go into enough detail to be sure, but I think the "asshole" participants fighting for control of the whiteboard assumed that whoever would successfully lead the group to solve the puzzle would receive good marks and have the highest probability of receiving an offer. Furthermore, some companies, or departments/teams within companies, foster a corporate culture where "assholes" are more likely to be p…

I don't get it - in the recollection, the person leading at the front wasn't getting anywhere, so someone else stepped in to give it a go. Is that supposed to be an asshole thing to do?

Well the story doesn't tell us who was the 'assholes'. It could be someone up at the whiteboard, or it could be someone yelling at the people that was at the whiteboard.

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#130

Post by yowlingcat »

tomatowurst wrote: post #91
qbasic_forever wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By '06 Google was already public so you weren't going to make life changing, never work again in your life money from stock awards/options. At best you'd be sitting on a decent nest egg that maybe bought you some property or better investments if you were smart (and a $250k supercar is not a smart investment).

if you owned stock options and invested it in Google with portion of your salary going to it, you absolutely would be looking at extreme returns. The power of compounded returns is still not clear to some I see. With that money you could've funded any side project that generates recurring revenue. I don't get why you should quit your job, take on tremendous amount of risk for a highly improbable outcome with heavy su…

> I don't get why you should quit your job, take on tremendous amount of risk for a highly improbable outcome with heavy survivorship bias.

For someone like you? I'd say you shouldn't. The correct option for the vast majority of people is to stay at a stable, low risk high paying corporate job and live a comfortable upper-middle class life.

For other people...it's not that much risk if you're good at fundraising, hiring and executing. For those people, the sky is the limit.

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