3 ms·

I'm a broken record about this, but no, it's not illegal to administer IQ tests in white-collar employment, and it doesn't take a battery of compliance paperwor

by tptacek 3mo ago

I'm a broken record about this, but no, it's not illegal to administer IQ tests in white-collar employment, and it doesn't take a battery of compliance paperwork to do so. This is an Internet myth.

arjie 3mo ago
Well, you and rahimnathwani up there have convinced me. Now I have to go around and deprogram everyone I said this to...
- tptacek 3mo ago
  It's a really widespread myth, hard to fault anybody for believing it. There's even a kernel of truth to it (Griggs).
  - arjie 3mo ago
    Would you mind helping me understand what degree the truth is? More here about my confusion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49171999 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49171999
Terretta 3mo ago
Not only Internet. It's held view among risk-management-heavy enterprises, some of which might even insist, beyond the claim in this thread, that "any anbility assessment is illegal". To be fair, maybe someone in HR read it on Facebook or LinkedIn, showed risk management a (doesn't have to be real) legal risk they could head off. So they ban people evals, even for skilled trades. Not even brain teasers or IQ. Just: can applicant FizzBuzz? Verboten! This is how, in a mass job application world, enterprises end up with >80% of coders, all making 6 figures, that can't FizzBuzz. A hack to get the enterprise to assess is find the third party SWE test providers to big brand logos the board recognize, brands under the same risk governance / regulatory regimes, and ask "what do we know they don't?" First, the board know and respect those brands. Second, the question makes the board consider what they think about those in charge of the failing capabilities internally. This is something now both easy for the board to discuss, and obviously done by good references. Ok, let's try empirical evals. Countless such broken record warranting beliefs clanging around 100k employee enterprises. McKinsey, BCG, PWC, KPMG -- all they need to do to justify 8 figure bill for the year is undo any one of them.
- HeyLaughingBoy 3mo ago
  I can believe that. When we (devs) implemented an interactive design/coding screening questionnaire, we had an uphill battle to get HR to approve us giving it to candidates. Apparently, the company had an internal rule of "No tests." We got past it by convincing them that it didn't have pass/fail criteria: it was an evaluation of their thought process and programming ability.

by tptacek 3mo ago

I'm a broken record about this, but no, it's not illegal to administer IQ tests in white-collar employment, and it doesn't take a battery of compliance paperwork to do so. This is an Internet myth.

arjie 3mo ago

Well, you and rahimnathwani up there have convinced me. Now I have to go around and deprogram everyone I said this to...

tptacek 3mo ago
It's a really widespread myth, hard to fault anybody for believing it. There's even a kernel of truth to it (Griggs).
- arjie 3mo ago
  Would you mind helping me understand what degree the truth is? More here about my confusion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49171999 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49171999

Terretta 3mo ago

Not only Internet. It's held view among risk-management-heavy enterprises, some of which might even insist, beyond the claim in this thread, that "any anbility assessment is illegal". To be fair, maybe someone in HR read it on Facebook or LinkedIn, showed risk management a (doesn't have to be real) legal risk they could head off. So they ban people evals, even for skilled trades. Not even brain teasers or IQ. Just: can applicant FizzBuzz? Verboten! This is how, in a mass job application world, enterprises end up with >80% of coders, all making 6 figures, that can't FizzBuzz. A hack to get the enterprise to assess is find the third party SWE test providers to big brand logos the board recognize, brands under the same risk governance / regulatory regimes, and ask "what do we know they don't?" First, the board know and respect those brands. Second, the question makes the board consider what they think about those in charge of the failing capabilities internally. This is something now both easy for the board to discuss, and obviously done by good references. Ok, let's try empirical evals. Countless such broken record warranting beliefs clanging around 100k employee enterprises. McKinsey, BCG, PWC, KPMG -- all they need to do to justify 8 figure bill for the year is undo any one of them.

HeyLaughingBoy 3mo ago
I can believe that. When we (devs) implemented an interactive design/coding screening questionnaire, we had an uphill battle to get HR to approve us giving it to candidates. Apparently, the company had an internal rule of "No tests." We got past it by convincing them that it didn't have pass/fail criteria: it was an evaluation of their thought process and programming ability.