3 ms·
Two more approaches: 1) There's the well-known Secretary (or Marriage, or Sultan's Dowry) Problem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem http://en.wik
by Jun8 15y ago
Two more approaches:
1) There's the well-known Secretary (or Marriage, or Sultan's Dowry) Problem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem). It has three caveats, though:
* Solution assumes that you have a lot of (e.g. ~20) candidates.
* It is assumed that you can sum up each candidate's ability in a single number. This is the hardest part, since the human mind works relationally and assigning absolute numbers to anything is hard.
* The probability of picking the best candidate is only 1/e.
But at least there's a guaranteed bound on the probability of success, that some of the other methods lack.
2) (If possible) Hire the engineer and HR person at the same time and have the HR candidates evaluate the engineering candidates. Then run Knuth's stable marriage algorithm (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stable_marriage_problem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stable_marriage_problem) to pick the best candidates for each.
- secretasiandan 15y ago1) The secretary problem does NOT assume a large number of candidates. In fact, your odds go down as the number of candidates go up. 2) The secretary problem DOES assume you can't go back once you've evaluated a candidate. This is not the case for prospective employees. Edit: s/passed on/evaluated/
- Jun8 15y agoI meant the 1/e neat solution (where the summation is replaced by an integral) assumes the large number. Otherwise, the sum can be evaluated directly, but no closed form solution exists. I don't get your second statement, though, what do you mean by the "odds"? The 1/e solution is asymptotic.
- cpeterso 15y ago> Hire the engineer and HR person at the same time and have the HR candidates evaluate the engineering candidates. Demetri Martin's "Important Things" TV show had a comedy sketch about two interview candidates inadvertently interviewing each other, each thinking the other candidate was the hiring manager. :) http://www.comedycentral.com/videos/index.jhtml?videoId=268664 http://www.comedycentral.com/videos/index.jhtml?videoId=2686...