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WTF with high school questions?

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Re: WTF with high school questions?

#201

Post by Krisjohn »

kube-system wrote: post #58

Not that I agree with it, but maybe they ask those kinds of questions because they want people who will just answer the damn questions, rather than argue with them over it. > High School: I got kicked out of AP English for insubordination in high school. ...is this evidence that the filter is bad, or evidence that the filter is working?

Is this evidence that the applicant is bad, or good?

This story is real, but I understand if you don't believe it: The year I finished school, all but one of my school's English Lit students failed the state exam (TEE). The only one that passed was the guy coming bottom of the class.

Re: WTF with high school questions?

#202

Post by googlryas »

legutierr wrote: post #109
googlryas wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had one like that for 10th grade algebra. Basically failed the class , and the teacher was always mad at me. After I got he highest score in my county on some standardized math test and was given some award, the principal looked at my grades and saw I had a C- and had a conference with the teacher and myself where I found out he was giving me a different test than everyone else.

I feel like the teacher could be either the hero or the villain in this story—pushing you to excel, or tearing down a gifted student. What was the outcome of that meeting?

Definitely tearing down. However talented I was, my sister went through 3 years earlier and was a math prodigy on the national level, and I think this teacher viewed himself as partially responsible for her success. So I came in later, not nearly as good, but still locally great, and I think my lack of desire to push myself to excel like my sister did ticked him off and he wanted to punish me for it.

End result was I got an A in the course, but had to do extra credit assignments.

Re: WTF with high school questions?

#203

Post by tomxor »

red-iron-pine wrote: post #193
tomxor wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would much rather care about your history of insubordination than your self-ascribed writing skills. A valid strategy if servility is a trait matching the role. But I doubt it would be present in those capable of producing insightful or thoughtful writing. Unique value usually emerges from some degree of risk taking, including the risks involved in hiring talented people over reliable sheep where needed.

Or it means they they assume to know everything and are absolutely odious to work with in any sort of knowledge profession. You're hearing noble assumptions of risk taking and talent, sticking the neck out and lording over the sheep, but all I'm seeing is narcissism and overconfidence.

> but all I'm seeing is narcissism and overconfidence.

Yes me too, but that's sampling bias. Not everyone is equally visible.

Re: WTF with high school questions?

#204

Post by kube-system »

Krisjohn wrote: post #201
kube-system wrote: post #58

Not that I agree with it, but maybe they ask those kinds of questions because they want people who will just answer the damn questions, rather than argue with them over it. > High School: I got kicked out of AP English for insubordination in high school. ...is this evidence that the filter is bad, or evidence that the filter is working?

Is this evidence that the applicant is bad, or good? This story is real, but I understand if you don't believe it: The year I finished school, all but one of my school's English Lit students failed the state exam (TEE). The only one that passed was the guy coming bottom of the class.

Depends on what kind of applicant they're looking for. In some roles you may want someone who is not afraid to challenge rules and conventions, in some roles, rules and conventions exist for very important reasons. The preferred balance varies per organization/team/role etc, just as it does for any other attribute of someone's style of work.

Re: WTF with high school questions?

#205

Post by yamazakiwi »

renewiltord wrote: post #180
yamazakiwi wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are those who refuse to play the game because they don't see a poor schooling experience as useful and you're saying those people are the same as those who can't do basic math. Or at least you're not distinguishing the difference.

Yes, that is correct. I don't believe there is utility in attempting to distinguish that.

Your comment speaks for itself so I won't elaborate further.

Re: WTF with high school questions?

#206

Post by anonymouskimmer »

yamtaddle wrote: post #126
anonymouskimmer wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asking about High School assumes everyone graduated from it. With dual enrollment it's quite possible for someone to get a college degree without ever getting a high school diploma (or even taking high school classes).

Really wish I'd taken a route like that. First couple years of college ended up being way easier and far lower-time-commitment than last couple of high school. I could have been less-stressed and earned an associate degree, ready to transfer to a bunch of universities toward a bachelor's degree, while also working more hours at a job that was giving me direct tech industry experience. All in the same couple years I s…

Yep. Me too. I ended up dropping out of college the first two go-arounds. It would have been a lot easier to finish if I had started earlier.

Re: WTF with high school questions?

#207

Post by lll-o-lll »

renewiltord wrote: post #37

Personally, I don't know any awesome engineers who sucked at school. I don't know if any of them would work at Canonical (which has exhausted most of its growth potential by now), though. Nothing wrong with the question, imho, if you have lots of applicants. I doubt it adversely selects for the job. It drops a lot of legitimately skilled people, but every method does. For interviewing, it makes sense to budget an amo…

> Personally, I don't know any awesome engineers who sucked at school.

To me this simply shows a lack of life experience. One of the best engineers I know left school before graduating. Has ADHD, was a bit messed up with drugs wrong crowd etc at that time.

He’s also a genius, had his life together for over 20 years and a very senior person at my current company. Why should some bad decisions over 20 years ago have any relevance to the value he’d provide now? Why should anything you did over 20 years ago have any relevance, good or bad?

This is unquestionably yet another example of ageism in an industry that is riddled with it.

Re: WTF with high school questions?

#208

Post by anonymouskimmer »

alphazard wrote: post #117

The best way to see if someone will perform well at a job, is to have them do that job and see. The second best way is to ask them for proof they succeeded at a similar job. That proof is usually a combination of references and a discussion about work they did at the previous job. If you can't do any of those things, like for some recent grads, then the next best predictors of job performance are going to be psychome…

> "specifically IQ and trait conscientiousness. Colleges heavily select for these traits during admissions"

Out of curiousity, can you cite these claims? I mean I buy the conscientiousness, but I wouldn't guess they heavily select for it or IQ. Or at least not both together, not past a point.

Re: WTF with high school questions?

#209

Post by anonymouskimmer »

randomdata wrote: post #88
irrational wrote: post #42

I went to High School in the 1980s. I think I did okay in those classes, but I fail to see how something that happened more than 30 years ago would be relevant for hiring purposes in the 2020s.

Fodder for discrimination lawsuits. The more information they have like this, the more they have to work with when defending a suit. School-based discrimination has been deemed legally acceptable, thus "Our records indicate the plaintiff did not meet our high school expectations. She was not hired for that reason."

> "School-based discrimination has been deemed legally acceptable"

Can you give me a link to the decision?

Re: WTF with high school questions?

#210

Post by musicale »

BarryMilo wrote: post #66
mtlynch wrote: post #6

Related: This was the first step in the interview process at Canonical – I withdrew (2022) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30735678

Based on the process, Canonical is the choosiest beggar I've bothered to apply to in the tech world. It was quite obvious to me I would be rejected, as the form is much more focused on "things that look good on paper" rather than "what this person can do", e.g. asking for your GPA. This presumably reflects the internal culture which leads to a history of user-hostile decisions: snap, Unity, that Amazon fiasco. They p…

> snap, Unity, that Amazon fiasco. They probably looked good on paper.

Hahaha. I miss Unity though.

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