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Puzzles are definitely odd birds. I myself have gotten into a literal screaming match try to push my belief that they never should be used in interviews. The bu

by jmount 1y ago

Puzzles are definitely odd birds. I myself have gotten into a literal screaming match try to push my belief that they never should be used in interviews. The bulk of that was an interviewer said the interviewee was "clearly confused when they were asked a puzzle" yet refused to agree that may evidence the presentation of the puzzle may in fact be confusing (and not measuring anything). I can't speak for Winkler, but both he and Jaynes implicitly separate the reading of the puzzle from the work. Winkler start his book with a few awful "reading trick ones", but in the explanations gives a few reading directions to try and avoid that going forward. I happen to know he meant "on a Tuesday." But a correct solution to a different read would be a correct solution even if it doesn't match the book text. I don't think he was trying to set a text trap, it is just hard to be clear, concise, and unambiguous at the same time. (Even "on a Tuesday" isn't completely clear if it means "all I am telling you was the day of week was Tuesday" versus "it was a very specific Tuesday, that I am not telling.")

exmadscientist 1y ago
The value of puzzles in interviewing is never about reaching the solution. It is about seeing how candidates deal with tricky situations that stretch them a bit, because that happens all the time on the job. It should almost always be done interactively, so you can see what clarifications and extra information they ask for, when and how they give up, and if they're dumb enough to say HR violations out loud (it does happen). This does require a rather skilled interviewer, so the benefits may well not be worth it. But it can be very interesting information to have.
- teekert 1y ago
  Or whether you watch Veritasium and just know you can jump out of that blender because weight scales with the cube of height and muscle power scales quadratically.
- frankharrison 1y ago
  They don’t really tell you how someone works or thinks though. They just show you that the candidate thinks in one of a certain number of ways. If they can’t answer it could be down to a range of factors, that one hadn’t foreseen. The “thinking ways” that allow one to solve the problem can be considered to be socio-normative and neuro-typical; normally these fit white patriarchal modalities. The mental modalities that make it harder to solve such problems are those related to sequence memory weaknesses, comprehension weaknesses, stress factors, attention weaknesses, social differences, exposure, culture, education. So dyslexics, ADHD, Autistics, socio deprived (poorer backgrounds), may struggle with tums like this that assume a consistent world view - when in fact they likely have other strengths in problem solving. It’s not a one size fit all. Additionally like IQ, ability to solve these types of problem is down to either natural ability or practise in the domain - that is you can increase your IQ by training against the core elements IQ tests look at. I tend to get candidates to take me through something they know well, or love, or have solved, and then I ask them about how they did it. This shows me genuinely how good they’ll be at the job in hand.. and is why my teams are actually diverse.

by jmount 1y ago

exmadscientist 1y ago

The value of puzzles in interviewing is never about reaching the solution. It is about seeing how candidates deal with tricky situations that stretch them a bit, because that happens all the time on the job. It should almost always be done interactively, so you can see what clarifications and extra information they ask for, when and how they give up, and if they're dumb enough to say HR violations out loud (it does happen). This does require a rather skilled interviewer, so the benefits may well not be worth it. But it can be very interesting information to have.

teekert 1y ago
Or whether you watch Veritasium and just know you can jump out of that blender because weight scales with the cube of height and muscle power scales quadratically.
frankharrison 1y ago
They don’t really tell you how someone works or thinks though. They just show you that the candidate thinks in one of a certain number of ways. If they can’t answer it could be down to a range of factors, that one hadn’t foreseen. The “thinking ways” that allow one to solve the problem can be considered to be socio-normative and neuro-typical; normally these fit white patriarchal modalities. The mental modalities that make it harder to solve such problems are those related to sequence memory weaknesses, comprehension weaknesses, stress factors, attention weaknesses, social differences, exposure, culture, education. So dyslexics, ADHD, Autistics, socio deprived (poorer backgrounds), may struggle with tums like this that assume a consistent world view - when in fact they likely have other strengths in problem solving. It’s not a one size fit all. Additionally like IQ, ability to solve these types of problem is down to either natural ability or practise in the domain - that is you can increase your IQ by training against the core elements IQ tests look at. I tend to get candidates to take me through something they know well, or love, or have solved, and then I ask them about how they did it. This shows me genuinely how good they’ll be at the job in hand.. and is why my teams are actually diverse.