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The worst job interview I ever had

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Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#581

Post by tptacek »

like_any_other wrote: post #580
rad-b wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Working in selection, I can say it’s more nuanced than that. Any measurement can be used as long as it is relevant to the business and related to performance. For example, you’re fine to reject people based on height if you’re hiring basketball players and being higher predicts scoring more points. Or even reject people based on gender (or other protected classes) if you can demonstrate that that specific group is ab…

Yeah if you're willing to go into a decade-long court fight then maybe they'll allow you to use a test (where the burden of proof is on the employer to show the test is necessary, i.e. guilty until proven innocent). Or maybe you'll be liable for millions of dollars in compensation. And even something as seemingly reasonable as an IQ test for a knowledge work position is illegal.

No it isn't. This Griggs v Duke Power meme is an internet myth. Practically every white collar job can use IQ tests to qualify applicants, and a few very large companies do exactly this.

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#582

Post by like_any_other »

tptacek wrote: post #581
like_any_other wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah if you're willing to go into a decade-long court fight then maybe they'll allow you to use a test (where the burden of proof is on the employer to show the test is necessary, i.e. guilty until proven innocent). Or maybe you'll be liable for millions of dollars in compensation. And even something as seemingly reasonable as an IQ test for a knowledge work position is illegal.

No it isn't. This Griggs v Duke Power meme is an internet myth. Practically every white collar job can use IQ tests to qualify applicants, and a few very large companies do exactly this.

You call it a myth yet it was a real case, with that real conclusion, and the subsequent case of New York having to pay for daring to require a teacher licensing test was also real. You can't just dismiss real examples by calling it a "myth". You also omit that "very large companies" almost universally have DEI departments and affirmative action policies to shield themselves [1]. And it is still the opinion of law professors that such tests are legally risky [2]:

Under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, using IQ tests could violate the law if the tests are shown to have a disproportionate impact on racial minorities or women, and are not job-related, New York University School of Law Professor Samuel Estreicher told The Post.

Estreicher added that the use of IQ and Myers-Briggs tests also risks violating the Americans with Disabilities Act, which bars companies from requiring applicants to take mental or physical examinations prior to offering them jobs.

“To avoid legal risk, companies shouldn’t rely on these tests,” Estreicher said. “They should just be talking to job applicants.”

Lydia Brown, a policy counsel at advocacy group the Center for Democracy and Technology, said trying to quanitfy an applicant’s intelligence is a ” rather slippery concept.”

“Employers need to really carefully consider whether their test is actually measuring a quality or trait that is necessary to perform the job — and that’s a legal standard,” Brown told The Post.

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2023-black-lives-matter-e...

[2] https://nypost.com/2022/03/15/silicon-valley-firm-apologizes...

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#583

Post by dragonwriter »

like_any_other wrote: post #582
tptacek wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it isn't. This Griggs v Duke Power meme is an internet myth. Practically every white collar job can use IQ tests to qualify applicants, and a few very large companies do exactly this.

You call it a myth yet it was a real case, with that real conclusion, and the subsequent case of New York having to pay for daring to require a teacher licensing test was also real. You can't just dismiss real examples by calling it a "myth". You also omit that "very large companies" almost universally have DEI departments and affirmative action policies to shield themselves [1]. And it is still the opinion of law pr…

Key element of your quote: “if the tests [...] are not job-related”

There’s nothing magic about IQ tests. Any hiring criteria that isn’t sufficiently linked (the threshold here has always been low, and the trend has been to lower it further) and is also shown to have an uneven impact by protected class is a problem.

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#584

Post by like_any_other »

dragonwriter wrote: post #583
like_any_other wrote: post #582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You call it a myth yet it was a real case, with that real conclusion, and the subsequent case of New York having to pay for daring to require a teacher licensing test was also real. You can't just dismiss real examples by calling it a "myth". You also omit that "very large companies" almost universally have DEI departments and affirmative action policies to shield themselves [1]. And it is still the opinion of law pr…

Key element of your quote: “if the tests [...] are not job-related” There’s nothing magic about IQ tests. Any hiring criteria that isn’t sufficiently linked (the threshold here has always been low, and the trend has been to lower it further) and is also shown to have an uneven impact by protected class is a problem.

And now we're pretending to not understand chilling effects. And again ignoring how New York had to pay for asking teaching-related questions to prospective teachers.

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#585

Post by tptacek »

like_any_other wrote: post #584
dragonwriter wrote: post #583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Key element of your quote: “if the tests [...] are not job-related” There’s nothing magic about IQ tests. Any hiring criteria that isn’t sufficiently linked (the threshold here has always been low, and the trend has been to lower it further) and is also shown to have an uneven impact by protected class is a problem.

And now we're pretending to not understand chilling effects. And again ignoring how New York had to pay for asking teaching-related questions to prospective teachers.

The (well-known) companies that sell general cognitive testing services for employment applications have logo crawls that include household names with deep pockets. It's an internet myth.

The reason general cognitive IQ testing isn't more commonly used in employment settings is that it doesn't work very well.

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#587

Post by elzbardico »

interviewitis wrote: post #442
elzbardico wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In defense of Dale Carnegie he always said that for this to work, you need first to learn to GENUILY CARE about other people.

The worst thing about even relatively-good advice of this sort, like Dale's, is that applying it well requires being so good at these kinds of things that you probably didn't need the advice in the first place. People who've read a couple of these books and are trying to use them are usually transparent, and it hurts way more than it helps. If they weren't inept at applying the advice, they probably wouldn't have nee…

I think it is a generational thing. Those kinds of things can be learned, but they take time. If you try to systematically be more positive on how you see other people, you’ll feel weird at the beginning, but over times it will come as more natural to you.

But this was easier in the past, people used to trust more, and be somewhat more naive. Our current generation, jagged by years of manipulative advertising, Nigerian prince scams, SEO, religious and political leaders scandals and so on, it is not so naive anymore, and thus, someone trying too hard can’t escape our detection antennas.

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#588

Post by 11mariom »

npodbielski wrote: post #176
donatj wrote: post #81

I've been working as a dev for over twenty years now and have had my fair share of interviews. The very worst I ever had was about six months ago. I'd had a fantastic initial interview, it seemed like a perfect fit and interesting tech. Overlapped a lot with some work I'd been doing recently. They made it sound like my experience was a great match and they were exited for me to move forward. I was the most excited I'…

He probably perceived you as a competition. If you do not like playing politics that probably was for the better.

+1. My worst experience was tech interview for TL… with current two most senior persons in team, with no-one else supervising the process. That couldn't go well.

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#589

Post by mkoryak »

ryukoposting wrote: post #550
mkoryak wrote: post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you answered that, my past self would have appreciated your answer and maybe even stopped. I mostly got things like: "code", "cash", "love" and one time a "fart"

I hope you hired "fart."

I did.
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