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I'll be happy to disagree with this post for reasons other than claims of "systemic discrimination". It celebrates behaviors that are linked with hypocrisy and

I'll be happy to disagree with this post for reasons other than claims of "systemic discrimination". It celebrates behaviors that are linked with hypocrisy and arbitrary bias. The problem isn't that you're weeding out people who don't fit in with the team. The problem is that you're weeding out people as a result of invalid, inaccurate, arbitrary biases that are more likely to stem from animal-brain genetic instincts, rather than modern evidence-based research and training. It's simply another form of low mediocrity, and you're doing yourself no favors for it. Any attempt to defend using gut instinct as a target for hiring decisions (even though some bias is unavoidable due to human nature) is going to sound obnoxiously ignorant to those who know better.

core-questions 7y ago
> animal-brain genetic instincts You're discounting intuition with this dismissive label. Trusting the instincts of your team to make decisions on who they can work with is critical to maintaining cohesion on that team and keeping people happy, which is a critical competitive advantage (especially during any kind of downturn). We're not talking about "low mediocre", "animal-brain" people, we're talking about professionals who may have hired / worked with hundreds of different people. But then, you're just using ad hominems, and not actually providing any kind of evidence, or really an argument of any kind other than "you're obnoxiously ignorant", which ironically enough is _your_ intuition about _me_. Delightful! Thanks for this crass exchange.
- h0l0cube 7y ago
  > and not actually providing any kind of evidence You might want to live up to your own standards. Looking at your posts so far, you point to no evidence that hiring 'based on intuition' (for whatever that means) ends in positive outcomes for either group cohesion, or even that fuzzy end-goal: productivity.
  - gliboc 7y ago
    You're going full circle here. He's not the one advocating for "modern evidence-based research and training", so it's not in his standards. And I'm not blaming him. Not everything is measurable, or at least measurable in ways that would enable researchers to extract meaningful answers or techniques. You said it yourself, productivity is a fuzzy end-goal. If you do not believe it is possible to empirically derive a way to interview properly, then rationalism is your best choice, i.e. Intuition/Deduction. And contrary to common belief, rationalism is not a prison. It's just a decision process, in which you're perfectly allowed to question yourself using available empiric data.
    - h0l0cube 7y ago
      I was validly pointing out the hypocrisy of core-questions.
TeMPOraL 7y ago
In defense of GP, you know why we haven't replaced all hiring interviews with standardized tests and statistical models? Gut instinct. People can make a good guess about how they'll get along with an interviewee. Machines can't just yet. And this is important, because while a mediocre person that fits in well with a team is only a minor positive contribution, a bad team fit is a negative contribution even if they're exceptional in hard skills. > modern evidence-based research and training. Interviewing process is hard, social-sciences-style hard. Completely bullshit theories and "standard practices". This doesn't rise anywhere near "evidence-based".
- erik_seaberg 7y ago
  Some of my interview is giving them an underspecified problem and seeing whether they can formulate questions (and dare to ask them!) that lead to solving the important part. I don't know how to standardize that, but we definitely need it.
- Nuzzerino 7y ago
  I'm not arguing against gut instinct being a necessary factor. My point is that when it's the only factor, and when people rationalize it as being the only factor, without any quantification, then that's the problem. How do you define "bad team fit"? Can you make a checklist of things that are associated with "good team fit" and "bad team fit", and aim to assess for those items individually, before coming to a conclusion? You don't need artificial general intelligence to make a spreadsheet and a checklist. If you don't do at least this, how do you even know in your own mind what a good team fit really is? You don't need to have perfect accuracy with this list of criteria, but not having a list at all will be less accurate than any list you come up with in good faith.

core-questions 7y ago

> animal-brain genetic instincts You're discounting intuition with this dismissive label. Trusting the instincts of your team to make decisions on who they can work with is critical to maintaining cohesion on that team and keeping people happy, which is a critical competitive advantage (especially during any kind of downturn). We're not talking about "low mediocre", "animal-brain" people, we're talking about professionals who may have hired / worked with hundreds of different people. But then, you're just using ad hominems, and not actually providing any kind of evidence, or really an argument of any kind other than "you're obnoxiously ignorant", which ironically enough is _your_ intuition about _me_. Delightful! Thanks for this crass exchange.

h0l0cube 7y ago
> and not actually providing any kind of evidence You might want to live up to your own standards. Looking at your posts so far, you point to no evidence that hiring 'based on intuition' (for whatever that means) ends in positive outcomes for either group cohesion, or even that fuzzy end-goal: productivity.
- gliboc 7y ago
  You're going full circle here. He's not the one advocating for "modern evidence-based research and training", so it's not in his standards. And I'm not blaming him. Not everything is measurable, or at least measurable in ways that would enable researchers to extract meaningful answers or techniques. You said it yourself, productivity is a fuzzy end-goal. If you do not believe it is possible to empirically derive a way to interview properly, then rationalism is your best choice, i.e. Intuition/Deduction. And contrary to common belief, rationalism is not a prison. It's just a decision process, in which you're perfectly allowed to question yourself using available empiric data.
  - h0l0cube 7y ago
    I was validly pointing out the hypocrisy of core-questions.

TeMPOraL 7y ago

In defense of GP, you know why we haven't replaced all hiring interviews with standardized tests and statistical models? Gut instinct. People can make a good guess about how they'll get along with an interviewee. Machines can't just yet. And this is important, because while a mediocre person that fits in well with a team is only a minor positive contribution, a bad team fit is a negative contribution even if they're exceptional in hard skills. > modern evidence-based research and training. Interviewing process is hard, social-sciences-style hard. Completely bullshit theories and "standard practices". This doesn't rise anywhere near "evidence-based".

erik_seaberg 7y ago
Some of my interview is giving them an underspecified problem and seeing whether they can formulate questions (and dare to ask them!) that lead to solving the important part. I don't know how to standardize that, but we definitely need it.
Nuzzerino 7y ago
I'm not arguing against gut instinct being a necessary factor. My point is that when it's the only factor, and when people rationalize it as being the only factor, without any quantification, then that's the problem. How do you define "bad team fit"? Can you make a checklist of things that are associated with "good team fit" and "bad team fit", and aim to assess for those items individually, before coming to a conclusion? You don't need artificial general intelligence to make a spreadsheet and a checklist. If you don't do at least this, how do you even know in your own mind what a good team fit really is? You don't need to have perfect accuracy with this list of criteria, but not having a list at all will be less accurate than any list you come up with in good faith.