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The computers rejecting job applications

bbc.co.uk

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Re: The computers rejecting job applications

#51

Post by Bukhmanizer »

kemiller2002 wrote: post #9

I used to work as a programmer in this field. I'm torn, on one side the "science" behind it is based on statistics and is supposed to be validated. Your view depends largely on whether you trust the validity of psychometrics. On the other side, someone makes a test wraps some statistics around it and says it's valid and measures what it's supposed can seem a little far fetched.

I work with a lot of psychological testing, and IMO it’s absurd to expect these kinds of tests to describe individuals. They’re fine at creating norms and viewing statistical deviations, but There’s a reason why, even in the ideal case, when you have a gold standard diagnostic test, with obvious symptoms, hundreds of thousands of previous cases to look at, few things are diagnosed solely on testing alone. And these tests likely don’t get anywhere close to any of these ideals.

Re: The computers rejecting job applications

#52

Post by Mauricebranagh »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #35
Mauricebranagh wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am surprised that Germany hasn't been taken to the European court of human rights over this abuse. Maybe those German privacy activists going after google et all might want to look at this.

Because in Germany/Europe discrimination is officially illegal so it is assumed nobody does it, even though people know better, and because you cannot fully outlaw and police tribalism, human bias and cronyism that is evolutionary ingrained in us as a species since the dawn of man. Putting more legislative hoops in place means HR will just need to find more creative ways to formulate job requirements in order to excl…

Ah the "Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown" defence.

or maybe you ned some high profile sackings of HR directors at a few big German companies ala github.

Re: The computers rejecting job applications

#53

Post by bogwog »

OliverGilan wrote: post #38

About a year and half ago I was applying for a software engineering internship at Goldman Sachs and they made me take a Pymetrics test. One of the tasks was to press the spacebar as many times as possible in 30 seconds. I didn't do the task and withdrew my application.

That sounds like it could be discriminatory against people with certain disabilities.

Besides the fact that it's stupid and somewhat embarassing.

Re: The computers rejecting job applications

#54

Post by mark254 »

MikeDelta wrote: post #11
HenryBemis wrote: post #4

I assume that not all roles go through this process. If you are hiring for a sensitive position (CEO, other C-suite, any type of Compliance and Internal Audit), the process is different. I will also assume that the "AI" does only the first clean-up. Basically moving them from the 'pile on the floor' to the 'table', pick the 'top 100' for a role. Fun story: When working for a US tech company some years back, we were l…

Maybe they should use more AI to hire CEOs and upper management from a very large pool. We might get positively surprised. (Or not, in which case I'd be surprised.)

Even just a random process might give better results - sometimes.

From THHGTTG:

> To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.”

Re: The computers rejecting job applications

#55

Post by finolex1 »

curiousllama wrote: post #40

I was part of a very in-depth evaluations of both Pymetrics & HireVue for a large company recently (2 different evals, among others). Some interesting things we observed: (1) It was not clear to us, with any level of certainty, whether either tool did anything more useful than filter out people who don't want to take the test / don't trust "AI". (2) It was not clear to us, with any level of certainty, whether (1) was…

The pymetrics test mentioned in the article involves among other things, clicking on a balloon till it pops and pressing the keyboard as many times as possible in a minute. As much as people love to hate on leetcode-style interview programming questions, they are at least remotely related to performance on the job.

Personally, I've found it to be a good filter in terms of deciding where to interview at. Companies that have adopted these pop-psychology tests (management consulting companies and big banks like BCG, JP Morgan) signal that they've let non-technical upper management hold sway over recruiting in comparison to tech-centric companies/hedge funds etc. that seem to have more rigorous recruiting standards.

Re: The computers rejecting job applications

#56

Post by OliverGilan »

bogwog wrote: post #53
OliverGilan wrote: post #38

About a year and half ago I was applying for a software engineering internship at Goldman Sachs and they made me take a Pymetrics test. One of the tasks was to press the spacebar as many times as possible in 30 seconds. I didn't do the task and withdrew my application.

That sounds like it could be discriminatory against people with certain disabilities. Besides the fact that it's stupid and somewhat embarassing.

I literally was embarrassed. I didn't want to work for a company that selected talent like that.

Re: The computers rejecting job applications

#57

Post by crispyambulance »

Doing an online application to initiate contact with a potential employer is already a strike against the applicant.

The whole point of these systems is to whittle down the pool of candidates down to single digits. Of course each candidate is going to "perfectly match" the stated faux-objective criteria because that's what the users of these systems think they want. Whether or not that's what they need is another question entirely.

For the jobs where it's possible, it's much better to reach out directly to human beings and exercise one's human professional network. The best jobs are filled by referral and/or reputation, almost always.

Re: The computers rejecting job applications

#58

Post by asdf123qwer »

jakub_g wrote: post #49

FWIW (at least in tech industry), apparently the automated filtering systems are a myth spread by companies who make money on the promise to optimize your resume to get past the filter. https://twitter.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1292909844886945792 (The OP of the tweet was an engineering manager in several big tech companies, wrote The Software Engineer’s Guidebook last year, and talked with many recruiters in the proce…

>(at least in tech industry), apparently the automated filtering systems are a myth

Sounds like horseshit. There's no shortage of graduates in tech, on top of graduates of various "bootcamps", as everyone and their dog has been telling young people they just need to "learn to code!" and they'll have a luxurious, joyous future.

Re: The computers rejecting job applications

#60

Post by [deleted] »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #6
underseacables wrote: post #3

I know a number of people who have paid for someone to do the personality tests for them, but with video it’s gotten harder. It’s also gotten easier for companies to reject for tacit bias such as gender, race, and any other number of factors. There doesn’t seem to be any safe guards for it; we didn’t do it, the software did it.

>It’s also gotten easier for companies to reject for tacit bias such as gender, race, and any other number of factors In some European countries like Germany, Spain and Austria it's not even tacit as it's tradition to have your photo and birthday in your resume, especially for more traditional companies, to the point where it generated some scandals in Austria and Germany since in some companies, being black or havin…

[deleted]
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