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IBM's Asshole Test

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Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#431

Post by itronitron »

jlokier wrote: post #266
itronitron wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the reasons I like matrixed organizations as it allows people, over several years, to choose who they work with and encourages leaders/managers to develop effective people and leadership skills. Siloed organizations unfortunately facilitate assholes.

Don't matrix organisations put you in the stressful position of having two or more bosses, who may disagree about what they are looking to see from you, especially when it comes to evaluating your performance and promotion/fire recommendations? It sounds pretty good to be able to move around in an organisation, but knowing who determines your fate in the short term, and who doesn't, is really important too.

In my experience, when done well, the manager on the org-chart is primarily a people manager and does the annual performance reviews of staff based on input from the employees' project managers, peers, and/or team leads. If they have additional goals (technical/product/etc.) beyond improving the capability and impact of their group then that can definitely muddy things up for everyone.

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#432

Post by angarg12 »

synicalx wrote: post #341
angarg12 wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it wasn't. Source: I conducted +400 interviews for Amazon. We don't do weird or obscure tests. Your recruiter will explicitly tell you what to expect. It sounds like a mistake.

> We don't do weird or obscure tests. I beg to differ. The one and only time I've interviewed for an engineering role at AWS, I was told to be successful I would need to memorise a list of "management principles" handed down by none other than Bezos himself, all of which were meaningless generic platitudes that could have easily been copy pasted from anywhere. And sure enough, they quizzed me on them quite thoroughly…

I suppose you mean the leadership principles. Yes, that feels cult-ish, but is part of the company culture. I personally like part of them, but that's a topic of its own.

For the purpose of the interview, Leadership Principles are dressing for behavioral questions. Actually I think this reinforces my point: rather than generic behavioral rounds, you know which areas you'll be asked about. Also you shouldn't memorize them, but think about examples from your experience that match those.

I'm curious about your last sentence though. Long hiring process are exhausting and I understand a bad experience, but why were the Bar Raiser and the interviewers a red flag?

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#433

Post by edmundsauto »

derefr wrote: post #376
moistly wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dunno why you are so determined to say that my good deed (not stealing) was not rewarded. Cashier explicitly stated “honesty should be rewarded” and knocked three or four bucks off the price. Those extra dollar bills in my wallet are very much extrinsic. Why are you being so damn weird about it?

Those aren't "extra dollar bills in your wallet" any more than a tax refund is. You still paid, you just paid less. In the case where you didn't go back, you'd have had even more "extra dollar bills in your wallet." An (absolute, not relative) reward for good behavior — i.e. a positive-ROI outcome for doing the right thing, vs. not doing the right thing — would be, for example, if you came back and told them you didn…

Is it accurate to say your argument is that stealing something costs less than what happened? Because I’m having trouble understanding your point.

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#434

Post by SamReidHughes »

dekhn wrote: post #234
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).

That's definitely not true. Even post-IPO, the stock has had tremendous growth and RSUs are evergreen.

This was before Facebook broke the SV no-poaching ring, so the offer probably wasn’t that spectacular. Also, in 2006-2010 any RSU’s would be rather horizontal.

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#435

Post by yukinon »

reificator wrote: post #430
Wires77 wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A lot of the time it'll be "they were OK", but occasionally you'll get[...] Missed this first half of the sentence.

So our range is somewhere around: - They were OK - They treated me like a human being - They were rude There's no room for "We had an interesting conversation" or "They gave me some good advice" or "I think I made a new friend"? Not even "They seemed like a good person"? The maximum is "They treated me like a human being" which is somehow above "They were OK"?

I can't speak for the Parent commenter, but I get the feeling you are taking what he said a little too literally. Those were simply examples of what could be said during the process. Their reply was not intended to be an exhaustive list of all the responses.

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#436

Post by itronitron »

Aachen wrote: post #208
itronitron wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also what many internships are for.

I'm probably from a different culture than you so this is new to me. Care to elaborate? Am I picturing it right that someone is put under stress for six months without pay (or at least for pay that might barely cover base rent in my experience) to see if they can deal with stress without burning out or doing a worse job?

It shouldn't be like that. Most internships are three months and typically in the summer between academic years for undergraduate or graduate students. They are paid internships, but much less than a permanent position (enough to cover base rent and travel logistics.)

The stress should not be too high as most companies have policies that interns can not be assigned to essential work activities (and this might be the law in some US states.) It's typically 'educational' in some form for them as it lets them see how the sausage is made.

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#437

Post by reificator »

yukinon wrote: post #435
reificator wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So our range is somewhere around: - They were OK - They treated me like a human being - They were rude There's no room for "We had an interesting conversation" or "They gave me some good advice" or "I think I made a new friend"? Not even "They seemed like a good person"? The maximum is "They treated me like a human being" which is somehow above "They were OK"?

I can't speak for the Parent commenter, but I get the feeling you are taking what he said a little too literally. Those were simply examples of what could be said during the process. Their reply was not intended to be an exhaustive list of all the responses.

My previous comment, perhaps.

My original point, however, was to highlight the fact that "They treated me like a human being" was given as the example of a positive interaction.

Which is absolutely absurd. And I don't think I'm taking that too literally.

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#438

Post by moistly »

wfme wrote: post #371
moistly wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dunno why you are so determined to say that my good deed (not stealing) was not rewarded. Cashier explicitly stated “honesty should be rewarded” and knocked three or four bucks off the price. Those extra dollar bills in my wallet are very much extrinsic. Why are you being so damn weird about it?

The parent you were responding to stated that people are not really rewarded for good behaviour after childhood. I'm not saying your deed was not a good one. I am saying that you are monetarily worse off for having gone back to pay and that feeling of having done the right thing, or the discount off the original price is hardly an example of good behaviour being rewarded, especially when you compare the reward for no…

What a pathetically sad way to view the world.

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#439

Post by ungamedplayer »

ALittleLight wrote: post #325
krisoft wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The taxi driver is going to text or email HR or the hiring manager or someone? That would be indeed implausible. But not every transaction happens between undeferentiated cogs. A specific person organises the interview logistics from the company. Let’s call him Joe. When they agree with a candidate on an interview date Joe picks up the phone and calls the hotel to book a room. After that Joe calls George the truste…

Since you asked, I find a few things implausible about your story. First, taxi drivers typically work with dispatchers. They aren't scheduling their own calls or schedules - because they are busy driving. Second, in the world of "decades ago" we are pre-smartphone. How, exactly, are you going to call up the taxi driver for a chat? And don't you think the taxi driver is going to notice that he has to take a call from…

Silver taxis in Australia definitely handle direct customer to driver interactions.

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#440

Post by yukinon »

reificator wrote: post #437
yukinon wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't speak for the Parent commenter, but I get the feeling you are taking what he said a little too literally. Those were simply examples of what could be said during the process. Their reply was not intended to be an exhaustive list of all the responses.

My previous comment, perhaps. My original point, however, was to highlight the fact that "They treated me like a human being" was given as the example of a positive interaction. Which is absolutely absurd. And I don't think I'm taking that too literally.

Again, can't speak for OP, but I doubt it was intended as an example of a positive interaction - rather it's meant to be an indication that there was NOT a negative interaction. Again, those words are just examples of what could be said. They weren't saying "This is absolutely the words we used and built an entire decision of someone off of" or even anything close to "This is the range we specifically had".

I get the impression everything was relatively informal in the process they described. In forums like these, it's about looking at the spirit of what they were trying to say and get across.

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