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> At the end of the day if you have 1 position and 4 applicants, the only way you can opt out of a meritocracy is selecting randomly. You're oversimplifying th

> At the end of the day if you have 1 position and 4 applicants, the only way you can opt out of a meritocracy is selecting randomly. You're oversimplifying things. You have a list of criteria based on which you select applicants. You're not basing your selection based on a scalar "skill" value in [0, +inf[. You have different applicants with different skillsets and personalities. You have to gauge whether that set of skill will translate with good performance on the job. However, you also want to gauge whether the person is actually interested in your project or not, and whether or not they'll get along with you and your team, all of which is nontrivial to judge during interviews. All of your measurements are noisy and biased. I was interviewing someone recently, and they were a friend of mine. I knew they had the knowledge, but during the interview, they came off as not having done their homework and not that interested in the work we were doing, so my friend, who I knew was more than capable enough, flunked the interview, and we ended up selecting someone less skilled but seemingly more interested. However, after having hired the second guy, I'm actually finding I don't like his personality that much. Hiring is complicated and hard to get right, more complicated than just "merit". Personally, I'm finding personality, friendliness and eagerness to be more valuable than what people have on their CV, their GitHub, or how much they ace whatever we throw at them in programming interviews. There are people out there who are really good but are total dicks. From what I've seen, I don't think I would ever want to work with Linus Torvalds for instance, even though I use git and Linux everyday, and the guy for sure scores a lot of "merit" points, he's had a huge impact on the world. If I interview you and the feel I get from you is that you're arrogant and kind of a dick, it's not going to matter what your SAT scores is or however many patents you have to your name.

slibhb 5y ago
> Personally, I'm finding personality, friendliness and eagerness to be more valuable than what people have on their CV, their GitHub, or how much they ace whatever we throw at them in programming interviews. Great. You have constructed a meritocracy that prices in "personality, friendliness and eagerness". It's still a meritocracy.
- snek_case 5y ago
  Except there's no global "meritocracy" where people are ranked by "true worth" in any organization, because: 1. Your measurements are noisy and biased 2. People's "true worth" would value over time, but their compensation and status doesn't always follow 3. Everyone doing the hiring has slightly different criteria What you have is an approximate ranking which by definition cannot be a true a meritocracy, no matter how hard you try.
- AstralStorm 5y ago
  Most crucially, a true meritocracy would fire people at will whenever a better applicant surfaces for any position. What currently happens is that we get many "has beens", or people who seemed ok at the time but are actually getting bad results. Plus, to judge results you would need either objective criteria or average of many opinions like in democracy.

slibhb 5y ago

> Personally, I'm finding personality, friendliness and eagerness to be more valuable than what people have on their CV, their GitHub, or how much they ace whatever we throw at them in programming interviews. Great. You have constructed a meritocracy that prices in "personality, friendliness and eagerness". It's still a meritocracy.

snek_case 5y ago
Except there's no global "meritocracy" where people are ranked by "true worth" in any organization, because: 1. Your measurements are noisy and biased 2. People's "true worth" would value over time, but their compensation and status doesn't always follow 3. Everyone doing the hiring has slightly different criteria What you have is an approximate ranking which by definition cannot be a true a meritocracy, no matter how hard you try.
AstralStorm 5y ago
Most crucially, a true meritocracy would fire people at will whenever a better applicant surfaces for any position. What currently happens is that we get many "has beens", or people who seemed ok at the time but are actually getting bad results. Plus, to judge results you would need either objective criteria or average of many opinions like in democracy.