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I'll post to this thread to simplify a lot of our discussion, tptacek also has good insight here. Listen to him as well. Hunter and Schmidt did a meta-study of
by spitfire 10y ago
I'll post to this thread to simplify a lot of our discussion, tptacek also has good insight here. Listen to him as well.
Hunter and Schmidt did a meta-study of 85 years of research on hiring criteria. [1] There are three attributes you need to select for to identify performing employees in intellectual fields.
- General mental ability (Are they generally smart)
Use WAIS or if there are artifacts of GMA(Complex work they've done themselves) available use them as proxies.
Using IQ is effectively illegal[2] in the US, so you'll have to find a test that acts as a good proxy.
- Work sample test. NOT HAZING! As close as possible to the actual work they'd be doing. Try to make it apples-to-apples comparison across candidates. Also, try and make accomidations for candidates not knowing your company shibboleth.
- Integrity. The first two won't matter if you hire dishonest people or politicians.
There are existing tests available for this, you can purchase for < $50 per use.
This alone will get you > 65% hit rate [1], and can be done inside of three hours.
There's no need for day long (or multi-day) gladiator style gauntlets. Apply this process to EVERYONE, including that elite cool kid. You don't want to exclude part of your sample population!
[1] http://mavweb.mnsu.edu/howard/Schmidt%20and%20Hunter%201998%20Validity%20and%20Utility%20Psychological%20Bulletin.pdf http://mavweb.mnsu.edu/howard/Schmidt%20and%20Hunter%201998%...
[2] Technically IQ tests aren't "illegal", but the bar courts have decided companies have to climb is so high it effectively means they are. I have spoken to a lawyer about this. You should speak with yours too, before you decide to try IQ testing.
- intrasight 10y agoWe use university degrees and GPAs as a proxy for IQ, and even with grade inflation, it think it is still a good proxy.
- tptacek 10y agoDegrees and GPA are primarily a proxy for social status. You have to start by giving some thought to what your screens aren't telling you. A bad screen that rejects 90% of qualified candidates can easily look like a great screen so long as it's not passing through obvious bozos. That's the problem with screens! It's easy to reject most bozos, but hard to let through most solid candidates.
- crzwdjk 10y agoAnd of course Google and Facebook and the like don't really have a problem with rejecting 90% of qualified candidates, because "everyone" wants to work there and they have no shortage of qualified applicants. On the other hand, everyone that is imitating them has a rather big problem, because most potential candidates haven't even heard of their company.
- flukus 10y ago> Degrees and GPA are primarily a proxy for social status. And IQ also has a correlation with social status, like it or not.
- tptacek 10y agoI find all the most important and incisive comments about the nature and distribution of intelligence in society tend to end with "like it or not".
- throwanem 10y agoWhat do you do about people who didn't go to school?
- intrasight 10y agoIf there are plenty of candidates applying that have degrees from accredited institutions, then they are SOL. It gets interesting when there aren't enough qualified candidates.
- throwanem 10y agoI like that you make a distinction between qualified candidates and those without tertiary education. It makes your priorities very clear.
- intrasight 10y agoWasn't my intention. I should have qualified qualified: > between "qualified" candidates I'm presenting from the point of view of the hiring institution. But still... If I were a law firm, I wouldn't hire a lawyer who hadn't gone to law school. Why would we behave differently with software engineers?
- kasey_junk 10y agoLargely because a lawyer who hasn't gone to law school won't be able to practice in most places, due to their guild preventing them. That same guild has coordinated a test & accreditation process that largely spans their industry. Whether or not this process has led to better lawyers or legal procedures is an open question, but the software industry has no such standardization, testing, or work embargo, so they are largely not comparable.