6 ms·

There are lots of other cheap filters that companies do not use. For example, "Have you read Ayn Rand?" This question may well have better predictive power than

by xlnt 18y ago

There are lots of other cheap filters that companies do not use. For example, "Have you read Ayn Rand?" This question may well have better predictive power than a degree. And it's not hard to verify if the person is lying about whether they've read some at all. Or, "how many blog posts do you have about programming?" Again this is easy to verify.

xenoterracide 18y ago
who's Ayn Rand? and why must you be a blogger to be a programmer? These are silly questions imho.
- xlnt 18y ago
  The degree question is also silly, but has non-zero predictive capability. So do these. Certainly they rule out plenty of good programmers, but the issue is: do they leave plenty of good programmers, and a higher quality pool of remaining applicants? If good programmers read Rand or write blogs at a higher rate than bad programmers, then it works, even if it's frequently wrong about individual people.
  - xenoterracide 18y ago
    Linus Torvalds - best programmer I've heard of doesn't write a blog. You still haven't told us who Ayn Rand is.
    - xlnt 18y ago
      You haven't addressed the point and you can google her.
      - xenoterracide 18y ago
        they are generic and poor filters. for example do you read person x. If person X isn't a household name (e.g. Bill Gates) Then it says nothing about them other than none ever introduced them to that person. I'm willing to bet there are a significant number of good C++ programmers that don't/can't care or know who Bjarne Stroustrup is. I had to look up the spelling of his name (although I don't consider myself a good c++ programmer). The ability to write blogs is irrelevant here too as what we most likely care about is the ability to program. Hence, the programming test.
        xlnt 18y ago
        Take the group of programmers who have written more than 30 blog posts about programming. X% of them are good hires, and 100-X% are bad hires. Now take the group of programmers who have written less than 30 blog posts about programming. Y% of them are good hires, and 100-Y% are bad hires. Is X > Y, or X == Y, or X < Y? That is the issue. And that is the way degrees are used (when used rationally). The claim with degrees is that X is more than Y, not that most good programmers have degrees or anything else. That may be so. Then someone defended using degrees by saying there is a lack of alternative tests that are sufficiently cheap. That's not true. There are lots of cheap tests, and I have suggested 2 for which I believe X>Y is likely, and which, if studied, might turn out to have a higher X than the degree test.
      - xenoterracide 18y ago
        to a degree I did. Maybe not to the degree you desired. My point was is that even though it filters out many of the worst programmers it would also filter out all of the really great programmers. I'd rather have my search take longer and cost more to have those great programmers on my team than end up with just good programmers.
  - pfedor 18y ago
    The difference is, if companies started using the filters you suggest, then the candidates would soon catch up and everyone would have a programming blog and have read Cliff's notes for "Atlas Shrugged." So it's not, as they say, an evolutionarily stable strategy. That's why no one does it on a larger scale I guess.
    - raganwald 18y ago
      For a demonstration of this principle, compare the quality of a person with a degree in Computer Science. Has the average gotten better in the last 30 years, stayed about the same, or gotten worse? My feeling is it has gotten much worse as people have sought degrees solely for the purpose of using them to get jobs in the field, precisely as you suggest would happen to blogs and reading cliff's notes. However, may I point out that blogging is very different from reading the cliff's notes of a book? A hiring manager can read your blog. If they simply check that you have a blog, well, whoop-de-doo. I have a blog, so that clearly proves nothing. However, if the hiring manager reads your blog, they can deduce a great deal about what you pretend to think and how you communicate it. So it is a small example of your work, much as posting source code is a small example of your work.
jfornear 18y ago
I actually have a friend who was asked if he has read Ayn Rand while interviewing with an insurance company.
yummyfajitas 18y ago
Provided your filters (1) increase the probability that the remaining applicants are qualified and (2) do not reduce the applicant pool too much, then it is probably a good idea (even if unconventional). Note however that criteria (2) is important. If you use the filter "Is named Linus Torvalds", you would certainly increase the probability that any given applicant is good. Then again, your applicant pool will drop to either 0.
erdos2 18y ago
Who is Ayn Rand? An utterly dreadful writer and philosopher who believed that the axiom of reflexivity of identity had substantive ontological, social, moral and political consequences. It's no accident that Objectivists sought to justify their belief in the "virtue of selfishness" in the law of reflexivity; they have no use for altruism. Rand's philosophy glorifies the sociopath homo economicus, whose sole objective in life is to maximize his expected utility. However, results in evolutionary game theory show that a society of self-seeking, self-regarding agents will generally face conditions that ultimately lead to its collapse. Gary Cooper's goofy speech in The Fountainhead ( see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zc7oZ9yWqO4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zc7oZ9yWqO4 ) typifies Rand's attitudes. Among other preposterous propositions, Cooper is made to utter the nonsense that great inventions are uniformly the work of sole inventors, selfishly and reflexively seeking their own interests. This is ahistorical; see Against Intellectual Monopoly by Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine ( http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstnew.htm http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstnew.htm ) for the history of inventions such as the steam engine, radio, telephone, and so on. In each case, ideas were in the air, and there were a number of people who came up with similar inventions more or less at the same time. Cooper argues the basic notions of intellectual monopoly, which are that intellectual property is essentially indistinguishable from tangible property, and that all copies of ideas "belong" to their creator. These arguments come straight from the RIAA legal playbook. I'm surprised that any culture of hackers would want to subscribe to notions more commonly associated with corporate monopolists.
- xlnt 18y ago
  Ayn Rand seems to be (significantly) more popular here than in the general population, judging from a dozen or so times I've seen her come up in comment threads. Isn't that more relevant than your personal, negative opinion of her philosophy? So, out of curiosity, do these "results in evolutionary game theory" have a source?
  - erdos2 18y ago
    "Isn't that more relevant than your personal, negative opinion of her philosophy?" No, because it's not only a personal opinion, but a statement that Rand's philosophy of rational self interest is logically invalid ('rational' does not imply 'self interest'; the basis on the reflexivity of identity could fairly be called desperate) and scientifically incorrect. Rand's philosophy is incompatible with findings of reciprocal altruism in evolutionary biology and experimental game theory. "So, out of curiosity, do these "results in evolutionary game theory" have a source?" Here's one: "Game Theory Evolving" by Herbert Gintis; see Chapter 11. http://www.amazon.com/Game-Theory-Evolving-Herbert-Gintis/dp/0691009430/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1211693018&sr=8-1 http://www.amazon.com/Game-Theory-Evolving-Herbert-Gintis/dp...

by xlnt 18y ago

xenoterracide 18y ago

who's Ayn Rand? and why must you be a blogger to be a programmer? These are silly questions imho.

xlnt 18y ago
The degree question is also silly, but has non-zero predictive capability. So do these. Certainly they rule out plenty of good programmers, but the issue is: do they leave plenty of good programmers, and a higher quality pool of remaining applicants? If good programmers read Rand or write blogs at a higher rate than bad programmers, then it works, even if it's frequently wrong about individual people.
- xenoterracide 18y ago
  Linus Torvalds - best programmer I've heard of doesn't write a blog. You still haven't told us who Ayn Rand is.
  - xlnt 18y ago
    You haven't addressed the point and you can google her.
    - xenoterracide 18y ago
      they are generic and poor filters. for example do you read person x. If person X isn't a household name (e.g. Bill Gates) Then it says nothing about them other than none ever introduced them to that person. I'm willing to bet there are a significant number of good C++ programmers that don't/can't care or know who Bjarne Stroustrup is. I had to look up the spelling of his name (although I don't consider myself a good c++ programmer). The ability to write blogs is irrelevant here too as what we most likely care about is the ability to program. Hence, the programming test.
      - xlnt 18y ago
        Take the group of programmers who have written more than 30 blog posts about programming. X% of them are good hires, and 100-X% are bad hires. Now take the group of programmers who have written less than 30 blog posts about programming. Y% of them are good hires, and 100-Y% are bad hires. Is X > Y, or X == Y, or X < Y? That is the issue. And that is the way degrees are used (when used rationally). The claim with degrees is that X is more than Y, not that most good programmers have degrees or anything else. That may be so. Then someone defended using degrees by saying there is a lack of alternative tests that are sufficiently cheap. That's not true. There are lots of cheap tests, and I have suggested 2 for which I believe X>Y is likely, and which, if studied, might turn out to have a higher X than the degree test.
    - xenoterracide 18y ago
      to a degree I did. Maybe not to the degree you desired. My point was is that even though it filters out many of the worst programmers it would also filter out all of the really great programmers. I'd rather have my search take longer and cost more to have those great programmers on my team than end up with just good programmers.
- pfedor 18y ago
  The difference is, if companies started using the filters you suggest, then the candidates would soon catch up and everyone would have a programming blog and have read Cliff's notes for "Atlas Shrugged." So it's not, as they say, an evolutionarily stable strategy. That's why no one does it on a larger scale I guess.
  - raganwald 18y ago
    For a demonstration of this principle, compare the quality of a person with a degree in Computer Science. Has the average gotten better in the last 30 years, stayed about the same, or gotten worse? My feeling is it has gotten much worse as people have sought degrees solely for the purpose of using them to get jobs in the field, precisely as you suggest would happen to blogs and reading cliff's notes. However, may I point out that blogging is very different from reading the cliff's notes of a book? A hiring manager can read your blog. If they simply check that you have a blog, well, whoop-de-doo. I have a blog, so that clearly proves nothing. However, if the hiring manager reads your blog, they can deduce a great deal about what you pretend to think and how you communicate it. So it is a small example of your work, much as posting source code is a small example of your work.

jfornear 18y ago

I actually have a friend who was asked if he has read Ayn Rand while interviewing with an insurance company.

yummyfajitas 18y ago

Provided your filters (1) increase the probability that the remaining applicants are qualified and (2) do not reduce the applicant pool too much, then it is probably a good idea (even if unconventional). Note however that criteria (2) is important. If you use the filter "Is named Linus Torvalds", you would certainly increase the probability that any given applicant is good. Then again, your applicant pool will drop to either 0.

erdos2 18y ago

Who is Ayn Rand? An utterly dreadful writer and philosopher who believed that the axiom of reflexivity of identity had substantive ontological, social, moral and political consequences. It's no accident that Objectivists sought to justify their belief in the "virtue of selfishness" in the law of reflexivity; they have no use for altruism. Rand's philosophy glorifies the sociopath homo economicus, whose sole objective in life is to maximize his expected utility. However, results in evolutionary game theory show that a society of self-seeking, self-regarding agents will generally face conditions that ultimately lead to its collapse. Gary Cooper's goofy speech in The Fountainhead ( see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zc7oZ9yWqO4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zc7oZ9yWqO4 ) typifies Rand's attitudes. Among other preposterous propositions, Cooper is made to utter the nonsense that great inventions are uniformly the work of sole inventors, selfishly and reflexively seeking their own interests. This is ahistorical; see Against Intellectual Monopoly by Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine ( http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstnew.htm http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstnew.htm ) for the history of inventions such as the steam engine, radio, telephone, and so on. In each case, ideas were in the air, and there were a number of people who came up with similar inventions more or less at the same time. Cooper argues the basic notions of intellectual monopoly, which are that intellectual property is essentially indistinguishable from tangible property, and that all copies of ideas "belong" to their creator. These arguments come straight from the RIAA legal playbook. I'm surprised that any culture of hackers would want to subscribe to notions more commonly associated with corporate monopolists.

xlnt 18y ago
Ayn Rand seems to be (significantly) more popular here than in the general population, judging from a dozen or so times I've seen her come up in comment threads. Isn't that more relevant than your personal, negative opinion of her philosophy? So, out of curiosity, do these "results in evolutionary game theory" have a source?
- erdos2 18y ago
  "Isn't that more relevant than your personal, negative opinion of her philosophy?" No, because it's not only a personal opinion, but a statement that Rand's philosophy of rational self interest is logically invalid ('rational' does not imply 'self interest'; the basis on the reflexivity of identity could fairly be called desperate) and scientifically incorrect. Rand's philosophy is incompatible with findings of reciprocal altruism in evolutionary biology and experimental game theory. "So, out of curiosity, do these "results in evolutionary game theory" have a source?" Here's one: "Game Theory Evolving" by Herbert Gintis; see Chapter 11. http://www.amazon.com/Game-Theory-Evolving-Herbert-Gintis/dp/0691009430/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1211693018&sr=8-1 http://www.amazon.com/Game-Theory-Evolving-Herbert-Gintis/dp...