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"'Teaching highly motivated students to code is actually not that hard.' — Dan Sofer" This broadly matches my experience. The hiring and interviewing of bootca

by menssen 10y ago

"'Teaching highly motivated students to code is actually not that hard.' — Dan Sofer" This broadly matches my experience. The hiring and interviewing of bootcamp graduates I've done has made me thing it's really just an intense vetting process for junior developer candidates. Which is valuable, but potentially could be replaced by something that costs less than $15k.

Moshe_Silnorin 10y ago
I've had a startup idea for this type of thing. We are forbidden, for nonsense reasons, to use IQ tests when hiring. This makes training your own workforce untenable for any cognitively demanding field, so we must use proxies like college education. However, one of the most important findings in psychometrics is the fact that scores on all cognitive tests are correlated. Thus there seems to be an opening for a company that is able to skillfully embed IQ tests in tests that are inarguably domain-relevant, and can be argued as such in court. If you can create an abundance of such tests for various occupations, this would seem valuable. Because psychometrics is both wildly unpopular and correct, this is exactly the type of secret, in Thiel's terms, one might expect to be under-appreciated.
- burkaman 10y ago
  It's not illegal to use an IQ test for hiring, as long as the job actually requires skills that the test screens for. Companies just don't do it because it's not useful.
  - Moshe_Silnorin 10y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co. It is very useful. This is why the military, police and even postal service use them. If you use an IQ test in your company, you will risk a lawsuit. The burden of proof is on you to prove how these skills are relevant, but in most cases they are only relevant because they are predictive of future performance, because they accurately measure cognitive ability. They do not resemble the tasks you will be doing in your job. My startup idea would be to higher some psychologists and lawyers and develop IQ test templates that are both effective at measuring g and demonstrably related to skills in each job. Because of the nature of g, this seems doable.
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- always_good 10y ago
  I had to take an IQ test when I was interviewing for ThoughtWorks. Then again, they also asked me about my cultural and religious views, like my thoughts on immigration and refugees. "I don't have strong feelings about this issue either way" was not the right answer to whatever it was they were asking.
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  - wyldfire 10y ago
    Not sure if you're joking. "Immigration and refugees" don't sound like religion to me but if they did ask about religion they shouldn't have. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000e–2 [1]. [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/2000e%E2%80%932 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/2000e%E2%80%932
alexbanks 10y ago
I take issue with the false promises Coding Bootcamps make. Billboards all over my city read "6 Weeks to Learn to Code - Find a Job with an Average Salary of 80k." What that brings is people from all walks of life who aren't highly motivated to code, but highly motivated to make 80k. It's an excellent way to ruin the 0-Experience developer market and saturate the industry with "I'll do whatever you want (badly) for money" developers, but I've yet to see many excellent, qualified candidates out of a bootcamp. YMMV.

by menssen 10y ago

Moshe_Silnorin 10y ago

I've had a startup idea for this type of thing. We are forbidden, for nonsense reasons, to use IQ tests when hiring. This makes training your own workforce untenable for any cognitively demanding field, so we must use proxies like college education. However, one of the most important findings in psychometrics is the fact that scores on all cognitive tests are correlated. Thus there seems to be an opening for a company that is able to skillfully embed IQ tests in tests that are inarguably domain-relevant, and can be argued as such in court. If you can create an abundance of such tests for various occupations, this would seem valuable. Because psychometrics is both wildly unpopular and correct, this is exactly the type of secret, in Thiel's terms, one might expect to be under-appreciated.

burkaman 10y ago
It's not illegal to use an IQ test for hiring, as long as the job actually requires skills that the test screens for. Companies just don't do it because it's not useful.
- Moshe_Silnorin 10y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co. It is very useful. This is why the military, police and even postal service use them. If you use an IQ test in your company, you will risk a lawsuit. The burden of proof is on you to prove how these skills are relevant, but in most cases they are only relevant because they are predictive of future performance, because they accurately measure cognitive ability. They do not resemble the tasks you will be doing in your job. My startup idea would be to higher some psychologists and lawyers and develop IQ test templates that are both effective at measuring g and demonstrably related to skills in each job. Because of the nature of g, this seems doable.
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always_good 10y ago
I had to take an IQ test when I was interviewing for ThoughtWorks. Then again, they also asked me about my cultural and religious views, like my thoughts on immigration and refugees. "I don't have strong feelings about this issue either way" was not the right answer to whatever it was they were asking.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- wyldfire 10y ago
  Not sure if you're joking. "Immigration and refugees" don't sound like religion to me but if they did ask about religion they shouldn't have. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000e–2 [1]. [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/2000e%E2%80%932 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/2000e%E2%80%932

alexbanks 10y ago

I take issue with the false promises Coding Bootcamps make. Billboards all over my city read "6 Weeks to Learn to Code - Find a Job with an Average Salary of 80k." What that brings is people from all walks of life who aren't highly motivated to code, but highly motivated to make 80k. It's an excellent way to ruin the 0-Experience developer market and saturate the industry with "I'll do whatever you want (badly) for money" developers, but I've yet to see many excellent, qualified candidates out of a bootcamp. YMMV.