3 ms·

hiring good employees. iq tests, what else?

6 points by keiretsu 19y ago

keiretsu 19y ago
planning to hire some people soon. any recommendations on how to gauge if they are any good? I need some statistically significant tests that can weed out those loafers. Know of any?
- jey 19y ago
  Dear $DEITY, don't rely on an IQ test! You need to talk to them, give them problems, see how they respond.
  - keiretsu 19y ago
    yes. i will talk to them, give them problems and see how they respond. but iq test is still useful. by the way, i'm not asking them to do those full blown iq test. Just those fun-and-games "test" like http://www.lumosity.com. http://www.lumosity.com. This site really does work. I've test it out on my friends. The smart ones get high score. The dumb... err... less bright ones get average scores.
    - danielha 19y ago
      It looks like you already knew your smart friends from your dumb friends, so that test wasn't exactly necessary was it? Don't make them take IQ tests. Honestly, it doesn't reflect well on an employer, especially a small startup. You can usually tell of someone's value and experience by the work they've done, their personality just by talking to them, and their pertinent knowledge just by asking them relevant questions.
      - keiretsu 19y ago
        the gist is to check if the site is accurate
- npk 19y ago
  No, they don't exist. First of all, your question has no objective test function. Let's put aside that totally fundamental issue. In that case, you would need a test that distinguishes out of a small group of people, and would not have any statistical robustness. Another way to look at this problem is, if such a test exists, why doesn't everyone use it? The SAT, for example, is very well correlated with intelligence. Most companies don't care about it. The overarching question, "how do you weed out good people?" is a fundamental challenge of running business. Generally, the advice is to hire people that you personally know are good. If that doesn't work, hire the good people that other good people know, if that doesn't work, maybe you or your pitch is not that good.
  - keiretsu 19y ago
    actually, i would look at SAT. Not as a major decision point, but just one small factor in the entire hiring process. IQ test would take another small factor. Personality another factor, Familiarity with the domain you are hiring for another factor. Experience another factor. and so on. This way, even if you don't score well for your SAT, your other factors may make up for it. isn't this how Google now automate their hiring process (at least in the initial stage to filter out the crap)? Categorize their current best and worst employees based on these factors. Then get the factors of the interviewees and run them on their bayesian classifier and it will indicate whether the interviewee is likely to be a good or bad employee.
    - abstractbill 19y ago
      I would think twice about working for anyone who gave me an IQ test. Not because I think I'd do badly on it, but because of what it says about that employer.
      - keiretsu 19y ago
        what does it say about the employer?
        npk 19y ago
- cwilbur 19y ago
  If you can define objectively what makes a person good, you can probably, after a decade or so of research, put together a statistically significant test that will allow you to objectively determine whether a candidate is good or not. That's probably longer than your schedule allows, so you'll have to fudge it. First, you want people who are analytical and can figure things out. I went to an interview once where the interviewer had a binary clock on the table. It wasn't immediately obvious to me what it was, never having seen one. He left me in the room for a minute while he went to fetch something, and while he was out I figured out what the clock was and that it was off by about a quarter of an hour. Later on in the interview he asked if I had any idea what it was, and I told him that it was off. Apparently I passed the test. Second, you want people who know their stuff, and who, if they don't know some bit of their stuff, can take a reasonable guess or know where to find the answer. If the candidate submitted a portfolio, you can ask leading questions about the candidate's work: why did you do it this way? What were the tradeoffs if you had done it this other way? You also want to make sure the candidate does something small right there in your office: write code for a merge sort, for instance. Third, you want someone who fits with your company culture. If you're dominant and want people to follow your instructions, you don't want to hire someone who's always questioning authority. No matter who's right and who's wrong, you'll both have an unpleasant time of it. If you expect people to wear business casual clothes and be punctual, you don't want to hire someone who's the most brilliant programmer in the world but who never gets in before 10:30 am and only owns one shirt with a collar. If the candidate is a poor fit for the culture, the candidate won't perform anywhere near his capacity. In particular, the difference between a supremely productive programmer and a loafer is often the environment the person is in. Put someone who isn't punctual or a sharp dresser in a culture where he is expected to be at his desk every morning by 8:30 in a jacket and tie, and he'll turn into a loafer out of frustration within a year. No test will identify that.
NickDouglas 19y ago
You could test them on their knowledge of Python. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zP0sqRMzkwo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zP0sqRMzkwo
far33d 19y ago
Asking a few nearly trivial programming or other puzzles in the initial job listing or in a first phone screen really helps for two reasons: 1) it discourages lazy people and resume spammers. Most people want to cut and paste their resume and cover letter and be done. Someone solving your (even simple) puzzle means they might actually be interested in what you are doing. 2) You make sure they aren't completely incompetent jokers. They pass the trivial reject.
palish 19y ago
Okay, the conversation probably went in a wrong direction. Let's change pace: 1) Do you, personally, write code? If yes, that's a good thing. 2) You probably know that each employee is like a mini-founder. (If the number of total employees is small, then they could really be a founder.) It doesn't take a smart person to found a successful business, but rather hard work and dedication. People can do really, really well on an IQ test and have no dedication, or they can bomb the IQ test and have so much dedication that they make up for it. Therefore, if the IQ test doesn't have any correlation to how good an employee is, you shouldn't use it to gauge anything. 3) At the company I work at, we've put together a programming test. It's difficult and it grills you hard. If you get a 60/160 we'll still consider you (I got around 60% two years ago). The test is followed by every developer in the company spending time with the interviewee, asking them questions. Then the interviewee is asked to go to the white board and do a programming problem that we give him verbally, with no use of an editor or compiler. How he can react to a the stressful situation of being asked to solve a hard problem in front of total strangers says loads about him. But possibly the most important part is that at the end of the day, the decision for hire or no hire is made from a gut instinct by all developers. That's just how humans work, and it does work. The programming test weeds out all non-hackers. We call each semi-promising person in, sit them in a room for an hour and leave them with the test. At the end of the hour we score them and if they do horribly, we send them on their way with no hard feelings. It doesn't use up too much of our time, and finding a great person is worth the effort. You should read http://joelonsoftware.com/articles/GuerrillaInterviewing3.html http://joelonsoftware.com/articles/GuerrillaInterviewing3.html also. Shawn
curio 19y ago
the problem is that i know a lot of really smart people who don't have the self-motivation to produce anything.
- zemaj 19y ago
  Very true. I've always found productive people to be much more useful than smart people.
  - ralph 19y ago
    That's not what he's saying. He said self motivation. So if left to their own devices they'd rather learn more than stick to one task and produce something. Smart, productive people are what you want when they are being motivated, possibly by others, e.g. boss or peer pressure. I don't care how productive they are if they're not smart and not working in a smart manner.
Prrometheus 19y ago
As a banker, I asked each entry-level candidate to tell me about something that they did that was hard. Basically, I want to know how they will perform when it's gut-check time. The real world will provide occasions where their character will be tested. One positive about this method is that I got to hear some interesting stories, whether it was the kid that started his own commercial hookah bar in college or the one that expelled a friend as a member of his college honor council. It was easy to tell which candidates had the right stuff and which did not. Intelligence is important, but the kid that was voted most likely to succeed in my high school was not near the most intelligent. And for what it's worth, I think the voting was accurate.
gyro_robo 19y ago
Employees? You want people who do as they're told and accept bureaucracy. Essentially the opposite of a founder.
chiefp 19y ago
references are the key to hiring. not the "official" ones. Backdoor or referrals are the best. http://genotropic-orgs.blogspot.com/ http://genotropic-orgs.blogspot.com/

6 points by keiretsu 19y ago

planning to hire some people soon. any recommendations on how to gauge if they are any good? I need some statistically significant tests that can weed out those loafers. Know of any?

jey 19y ago
Dear $DEITY, don't rely on an IQ test! You need to talk to them, give them problems, see how they respond.
- keiretsu 19y ago
  yes. i will talk to them, give them problems and see how they respond. but iq test is still useful. by the way, i'm not asking them to do those full blown iq test. Just those fun-and-games "test" like http://www.lumosity.com. http://www.lumosity.com. This site really does work. I've test it out on my friends. The smart ones get high score. The dumb... err... less bright ones get average scores.
  - danielha 19y ago
    It looks like you already knew your smart friends from your dumb friends, so that test wasn't exactly necessary was it? Don't make them take IQ tests. Honestly, it doesn't reflect well on an employer, especially a small startup. You can usually tell of someone's value and experience by the work they've done, their personality just by talking to them, and their pertinent knowledge just by asking them relevant questions.
    - keiretsu 19y ago
      the gist is to check if the site is accurate
npk 19y ago
No, they don't exist. First of all, your question has no objective test function. Let's put aside that totally fundamental issue. In that case, you would need a test that distinguishes out of a small group of people, and would not have any statistical robustness. Another way to look at this problem is, if such a test exists, why doesn't everyone use it? The SAT, for example, is very well correlated with intelligence. Most companies don't care about it. The overarching question, "how do you weed out good people?" is a fundamental challenge of running business. Generally, the advice is to hire people that you personally know are good. If that doesn't work, hire the good people that other good people know, if that doesn't work, maybe you or your pitch is not that good.
- keiretsu 19y ago
  actually, i would look at SAT. Not as a major decision point, but just one small factor in the entire hiring process. IQ test would take another small factor. Personality another factor, Familiarity with the domain you are hiring for another factor. Experience another factor. and so on. This way, even if you don't score well for your SAT, your other factors may make up for it. isn't this how Google now automate their hiring process (at least in the initial stage to filter out the crap)? Categorize their current best and worst employees based on these factors. Then get the factors of the interviewees and run them on their bayesian classifier and it will indicate whether the interviewee is likely to be a good or bad employee.
  - abstractbill 19y ago
    I would think twice about working for anyone who gave me an IQ test. Not because I think I'd do badly on it, but because of what it says about that employer.
    - keiretsu 19y ago
      what does it say about the employer?
      - npk 19y ago
cwilbur 19y ago
If you can define objectively what makes a person good, you can probably, after a decade or so of research, put together a statistically significant test that will allow you to objectively determine whether a candidate is good or not. That's probably longer than your schedule allows, so you'll have to fudge it. First, you want people who are analytical and can figure things out. I went to an interview once where the interviewer had a binary clock on the table. It wasn't immediately obvious to me what it was, never having seen one. He left me in the room for a minute while he went to fetch something, and while he was out I figured out what the clock was and that it was off by about a quarter of an hour. Later on in the interview he asked if I had any idea what it was, and I told him that it was off. Apparently I passed the test. Second, you want people who know their stuff, and who, if they don't know some bit of their stuff, can take a reasonable guess or know where to find the answer. If the candidate submitted a portfolio, you can ask leading questions about the candidate's work: why did you do it this way? What were the tradeoffs if you had done it this other way? You also want to make sure the candidate does something small right there in your office: write code for a merge sort, for instance. Third, you want someone who fits with your company culture. If you're dominant and want people to follow your instructions, you don't want to hire someone who's always questioning authority. No matter who's right and who's wrong, you'll both have an unpleasant time of it. If you expect people to wear business casual clothes and be punctual, you don't want to hire someone who's the most brilliant programmer in the world but who never gets in before 10:30 am and only owns one shirt with a collar. If the candidate is a poor fit for the culture, the candidate won't perform anywhere near his capacity. In particular, the difference between a supremely productive programmer and a loafer is often the environment the person is in. Put someone who isn't punctual or a sharp dresser in a culture where he is expected to be at his desk every morning by 8:30 in a jacket and tie, and he'll turn into a loafer out of frustration within a year. No test will identify that.

NickDouglas 19y ago

You could test them on their knowledge of Python. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zP0sqRMzkwo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zP0sqRMzkwo

far33d 19y ago

Asking a few nearly trivial programming or other puzzles in the initial job listing or in a first phone screen really helps for two reasons: 1) it discourages lazy people and resume spammers. Most people want to cut and paste their resume and cover letter and be done. Someone solving your (even simple) puzzle means they might actually be interested in what you are doing. 2) You make sure they aren't completely incompetent jokers. They pass the trivial reject.

palish 19y ago

Okay, the conversation probably went in a wrong direction. Let's change pace: 1) Do you, personally, write code? If yes, that's a good thing. 2) You probably know that each employee is like a mini-founder. (If the number of total employees is small, then they could really be a founder.) It doesn't take a smart person to found a successful business, but rather hard work and dedication. People can do really, really well on an IQ test and have no dedication, or they can bomb the IQ test and have so much dedication that they make up for it. Therefore, if the IQ test doesn't have any correlation to how good an employee is, you shouldn't use it to gauge anything. 3) At the company I work at, we've put together a programming test. It's difficult and it grills you hard. If you get a 60/160 we'll still consider you (I got around 60% two years ago). The test is followed by every developer in the company spending time with the interviewee, asking them questions. Then the interviewee is asked to go to the white board and do a programming problem that we give him verbally, with no use of an editor or compiler. How he can react to a the stressful situation of being asked to solve a hard problem in front of total strangers says loads about him. But possibly the most important part is that at the end of the day, the decision for hire or no hire is made from a gut instinct by all developers. That's just how humans work, and it does work. The programming test weeds out all non-hackers. We call each semi-promising person in, sit them in a room for an hour and leave them with the test. At the end of the hour we score them and if they do horribly, we send them on their way with no hard feelings. It doesn't use up too much of our time, and finding a great person is worth the effort. You should read http://joelonsoftware.com/articles/GuerrillaInterviewing3.html http://joelonsoftware.com/articles/GuerrillaInterviewing3.html also. Shawn

curio 19y ago

the problem is that i know a lot of really smart people who don't have the self-motivation to produce anything.

zemaj 19y ago
Very true. I've always found productive people to be much more useful than smart people.
- ralph 19y ago
  That's not what he's saying. He said self motivation. So if left to their own devices they'd rather learn more than stick to one task and produce something. Smart, productive people are what you want when they are being motivated, possibly by others, e.g. boss or peer pressure. I don't care how productive they are if they're not smart and not working in a smart manner.

Prrometheus 19y ago

As a banker, I asked each entry-level candidate to tell me about something that they did that was hard. Basically, I want to know how they will perform when it's gut-check time. The real world will provide occasions where their character will be tested. One positive about this method is that I got to hear some interesting stories, whether it was the kid that started his own commercial hookah bar in college or the one that expelled a friend as a member of his college honor council. It was easy to tell which candidates had the right stuff and which did not. Intelligence is important, but the kid that was voted most likely to succeed in my high school was not near the most intelligent. And for what it's worth, I think the voting was accurate.

gyro_robo 19y ago

Employees? You want people who do as they're told and accept bureaucracy. Essentially the opposite of a founder.

chiefp 19y ago

references are the key to hiring. not the "official" ones. Backdoor or referrals are the best. http://genotropic-orgs.blogspot.com/ http://genotropic-orgs.blogspot.com/