Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

IBM's Asshole Test

johnpublic.mataroa.blog

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 604 posts

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#191

Post by ramraj07 »

hindsightbias wrote: post #146
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…

Was told if you interview with the FBI, the interview starts the moment you go through the door. And be careful what you say at the bar.

Which door? In this case OP seems to have outwitted the FBI, since the candidate is being surveiled the moment they left their own home.

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#192

Post by Melatonic »

hnarn wrote: post #134
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…

> I don't think it's ethical to evaluate a candidate's interactions when they weren't informed they were being evaluated. That makes about as much sense as saying that you shouldn’t be held responsible for stealing office supplies because no one informed you that there were cameras installed. If you treat cab drivers and other service personnel badly, that’s because you’re a shit person. It’s really that simple. I’ve…

I generally apply a similar test when dating - if the person is a huge asshole to the service staff then it generally is not going anywhere

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#193

Post by kragen »

actually_a_dog wrote: post #179
hedora wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not if you can compress your thinking it into something short. Good code interviews test communication skills too.

No, they don't, generally. When was the last time you were required to compose code in a real world situation, in front of someone, while talking through your thought process, all under time pressure and in a high-stakes environment?

Every time I pair program. Also sometimes I've given talks that way. I like it, I guess not everybody does.

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#194

Post by TameAntelope »

isk517 wrote: post #94
monktastic1 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that they'll only hide it when it helps them. In general this is far more dangerous.

Agreed, the most successful assholes have always been the ones that understood that you can't be a asshole all the time, you need to deploy it at a opportune moment.

If you've got an asshole being strategic about when to be an asshole, you actually have a sociopath, because most folks at the point where they know they're being an asshole would just stop.

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#195

Post by prmoustache »

WisNorCan wrote: post #17

I am fairly sure Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos & Elon Musk would have failed this test. Are you better off having them at your company or not?

I don't think any of those 3 could have been a good team player. They are entrepreneurs.

So yes I am pretty sure you don't want them at your company.

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#196

Post by genewitch »

SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #103
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…

I don't want to work with anyone who treats service workers like garbage, no matter what mood they are in. I have never in my life, no matter how bad or good of a day I am having, taken my frustrations out on a service worker for whatever internal/external stressors are happening to me.

I find this extremely hard to believe. I, too, try very hard to not get upset at "service workers", but at a certain point, if someone has a bad attitude with me i'll eventually give it right back. This has only happened a few times, off the top of my head: support at ISPs a couple of times, creditors who were harassing me without reason, and one time extremely rude and racist people at a California School transportation office.

Sure, i probably could hang up, turn the other cheek, whatever. And i'm sure my responses/actions made them no nevermind.

You might be as stoic and nonplussed as you claim, but we're all the heroes of our own stories, or something.

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#197

Post by TameAntelope »

solveit wrote: post #78
chrisseaton wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That takes exactly the same amount of time as everyone reading out their packet, which the story says didn't scale to the time allowed.

Reading silently is faster than reading out, and also easier and less error-prone than listening.

Yeah but not by much.

Also I doubt there was any info in those packets that would have mattered. The whole point of the test was to stump the group.

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#198

Post by IggleSniggle »

mrmattyboy wrote: post #44
throwanem wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sticking Cloudflare's free-tier CDN in front of your existing blog will probably help a lot. If nothing else, it'll make a stopgap while you're investigating alternatives.

Agreed! Though, just a note that if you use them, you need to use them as your nameservers for your domain (the whole domain) (at least for the free tier) ... maybe doesn't matter for most people, but something that's put me off massively :D

I am certain this is not true, as I only use them for a subdomain CDN for hosting my static site, and don’t use them for any of my other dynamic sites that are on the same parent domain.

Maybe what you say was true at one point. I only set up a static site and used Cloudflare to front it within the last couple of months.

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#199

Post by maximus-decimus »

metadat wrote: post #168
eropple wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the OP, but for my money, a company that does that isn't a company to work for. I don't work for free and you shouldn't either.

Honest question: What difference does it make whether you work on a l33tcode question or a real problem in the interview? At least the real problem has a chance of being interesting. Sometimes I do give candidates examples of real challenges we're facing. The purpose is not to get anything for free, but rather to see if they're good at coming up with new ideas. It also gets boring asking the same questions that may o…

Because you're literally working for them for free.

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#200

Post by ASalazarMX »

slg wrote: post #145

Honestly I see two asshole tests here. Some of the candidates failed the first one. IBM failed the other. This type of dishonest and unnecessarily stressful approach tells me that I probably don't want to be working there. Even just professing that a candidate needs to work well under stress is somewhat of a red flag. Why are your employees under so much stress? I am software developer not a trauma surgeon. If I am u…

Somehow I found this very clever, and more appropriate than asking people to napkin-guess how many piano tuners are in NY. I'd expect most candidates kind of panicked, a few reacted superbly, and a few became assholes. This would be a very way to both separate the most problematic people, and find potential team leaders.

Of course they could have accepted the assholes and invested ample time and resources to nurture their emotional intelligence, but they would have resorted to that only if they couldn't find enough candidates.

Post reply on HN