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> If you work in an average company who hires average people and you are well above average you quickly risk becoming exactly that. I liked Steven Covey's 7 Ha

by baldfat 11y ago

> If you work in an average company who hires average people and you are well above average you quickly risk becoming exactly that. I liked Steven Covey's 7 Habits take on this much more "Sharpen the Saw." This approach and wording puts all the blame on those around you. That is very good to think your above those around you and that you are above average. A) Nothing wrong with average half the people are below average B) Rating someone top 5% is totally a perception unless your in something that can be measured easily (Think fast 100m Dash or the author's bowling) C) Having hired dozens of people for different jobs I can tell you that my top 5% at higher usually ended up being drama and the one person I just hired because I needed a body ASAP ended up being hands down my best employee. (Look at how Google has changed their hiring practices because hiring is close to impossible to get right, think NCAA Brackets) D) Self-deception - Everyone believes their kid is above average and self-delusion inflates our own self-assessment. Blaming those around you give you a great out of self-responsibility.

dsp1234 11y ago
A) Nothing wrong with average half the people are below average This isn't necessarily true. Imagine a system where we could rate developers. There are 4 'A' developers (92,95,97,91) and 2 'B' developers (83, 85). Only 1/3 of the developers are 'below average' as compared to below median, and flip those numbers around and 2/3 are below average. This is kind of important when evaluating the type of company culture that you're in. Is it a place where there are a lot of 'top 5%' developers, and a short tail of good, but not great developers. Or is it a place where there are just one or two developers that doing 'A' work, but a long tail of developers doing solid, but not great work. The 'average' could be misleading in these cases.
- baldfat 11y ago
  Wow I have a Theology/Philosophy degree and I have seen what I can Theology/Philosophy gymnastics to make some wierd basic fact of life into a totally different thing. You might have missed your calling. Average = Average you have 100 developers 49 and below are bellow average :P
  - ThatGeoGuy 11y ago
    > Average = Average you have 100 developers 49 and below are bellow average Not exactly. Average is defined as the 50th percentile, which if you have 100 developers, and can (objectively) rank them in order from 1 to 100, then there is a chance that 49 and below are not "average" or "worse than average." Consider a sample distribution where all 100 employees rank exactly the same. Now all 100 are average. Consider a sample distribution that takes on a bi or tri-modal form, where employee groups cluster at certain knowledge or experience levels. Here you might find that "average" is hard to quantify, as it is not well defined when your distribution does not follow "normal" rules.
  - ajuc 11y ago
    What is the average of [1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 10]? How many entries are below the average?
    - baldfat 11y ago
      No: Dealing with 10,000 People We are talking rank so top person ranked 10,000 and the bottom is 1. 10,000 - 5,000 are Above Average and the 4,999 to 1 are Bellow Average. What you showed was some abstract numbers that have nothing to do with ranking.
      - ajuc 11y ago
        Nobody said we were using ranking. And we shouldn't, because ranking is misleading (it loses information by hiding the size of the gaps). But even assuming it's a ranking - in a ranking there's possibility of equal rankings, right? So, you can have rankings [1, 1, 1, 1, ..., 1, 10000], and the "average=median" assumption is violated again. Most real-world distributions have different average and median values, the "50% is below average" is a common misconception that should be cleared out. For one important example see average salary - huge majority of people in (almost) every country earn less than average salary in that country.
        baldfat 11y ago
dbalbright 11y ago
>Look at how Google has changed their hiring practices because hiring is close to impossible to get right How has Google changed their hiring practices?
- stuxnet79 11y ago
  They used to ask ridiculous non-math / non-CS questions like "how many golf balls can be stuffed inside a bus" just to see how you respond. Taking these questions out only leaves the esoteric math, stats, CS questions a la "Cracking The Coding Interview". So for guys like us trying to get in, unfortunately it doesn't make much of a difference :/

by baldfat 11y ago

dsp1234 11y ago

A) Nothing wrong with average half the people are below average This isn't necessarily true. Imagine a system where we could rate developers. There are 4 'A' developers (92,95,97,91) and 2 'B' developers (83, 85). Only 1/3 of the developers are 'below average' as compared to below median, and flip those numbers around and 2/3 are below average. This is kind of important when evaluating the type of company culture that you're in. Is it a place where there are a lot of 'top 5%' developers, and a short tail of good, but not great developers. Or is it a place where there are just one or two developers that doing 'A' work, but a long tail of developers doing solid, but not great work. The 'average' could be misleading in these cases.

baldfat 11y ago
Wow I have a Theology/Philosophy degree and I have seen what I can Theology/Philosophy gymnastics to make some wierd basic fact of life into a totally different thing. You might have missed your calling. Average = Average you have 100 developers 49 and below are bellow average :P
- ThatGeoGuy 11y ago
  > Average = Average you have 100 developers 49 and below are bellow average Not exactly. Average is defined as the 50th percentile, which if you have 100 developers, and can (objectively) rank them in order from 1 to 100, then there is a chance that 49 and below are not "average" or "worse than average." Consider a sample distribution where all 100 employees rank exactly the same. Now all 100 are average. Consider a sample distribution that takes on a bi or tri-modal form, where employee groups cluster at certain knowledge or experience levels. Here you might find that "average" is hard to quantify, as it is not well defined when your distribution does not follow "normal" rules.
- ajuc 11y ago
  What is the average of [1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 10]? How many entries are below the average?
  - baldfat 11y ago
    No: Dealing with 10,000 People We are talking rank so top person ranked 10,000 and the bottom is 1. 10,000 - 5,000 are Above Average and the 4,999 to 1 are Bellow Average. What you showed was some abstract numbers that have nothing to do with ranking.
    - ajuc 11y ago
      Nobody said we were using ranking. And we shouldn't, because ranking is misleading (it loses information by hiding the size of the gaps). But even assuming it's a ranking - in a ranking there's possibility of equal rankings, right? So, you can have rankings [1, 1, 1, 1, ..., 1, 10000], and the "average=median" assumption is violated again. Most real-world distributions have different average and median values, the "50% is below average" is a common misconception that should be cleared out. For one important example see average salary - huge majority of people in (almost) every country earn less than average salary in that country.
      - baldfat 11y ago

dbalbright 11y ago

>Look at how Google has changed their hiring practices because hiring is close to impossible to get right How has Google changed their hiring practices?

stuxnet79 11y ago
They used to ask ridiculous non-math / non-CS questions like "how many golf balls can be stuffed inside a bus" just to see how you respond. Taking these questions out only leaves the esoteric math, stats, CS questions a la "Cracking The Coding Interview". So for guys like us trying to get in, unfortunately it doesn't make much of a difference :/