7 ms·
How to Hire a Winner? Try a Game of Ping Pong
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- csbrooks 12y agoThis is a great way to make sure you only hire people who are just like you. I'm not a fan.
- huherto 12y agoI guess if they published their interview technique it becomes useless.
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 12y agoMaybe they secretly know it isn't that useful after all.
- jrs235 12y agoYes, perhaps they want to see what potential hires just try to game the interview process.
- nsxwolf 12y agoWhat kind of weird world do you people live in? This is obnoxious. Only one person has ever said no? I'd have made it two.
- Paul_S 12y agoMaybe that's the only thing this test genuinely tests for. Maybe they don't want employees who let pride get in the way of doing what they are told.
- ch4s3 12y agoThen you would be awful to work for. People should take pride in what they do, and you shouldn't ask them to do demeaning things. I mean, if you run a cleaning service or fix septic tanks... people know what they're in for.
- josephschmoe 12y agoThis sounds like a great way to find people desperate enough to commit legally questionable acts.
- hrktb 12y agoI don't know if it's really a matter of pride, it just feels random, even with the explaination. The candidate is also evaluating the company, and I understand people not willing to work for companies that have evaluation practice they're not OK with (there is the risk the same kind of thinking goes for other evaluations as well)
- binaryapparatus 12y agoThree. If they are talking to me half of their problems is already solved, whether they know it or not. Need dancers? Hire dancers and don't waste my time then...
- neumann 12y agoI would be totally up for the ping-pong game, and enjoy it. Out of habit I would also escalate my skill as the 'tester', but that's because I only like competition when its my level. I would also start analysing whether this is more than just a one on one personality match experiment - which I welcome, but ideally with my future manager/coworkers. If they admitted to filming it, I would thank them for the game, tell them it creeped me out and tell my friends at the pub about the most f*cked up company interview that I ever had.
- codyb 12y agoThe world constantly changes. Currently it is not a societal construct that people play ping pong at job interviews. If the study proves fruitful, perhaps in decades to come, it will be. The real question is why the opportunity to play some friendly ping pong seems so obnoxious to you. Who cares? Why not dismiss the negativity and just have fun playing some ping pong? Perhaps the study will lead to something, if so, sweet! You helped out! Perhaps it won't, okay, well the only way to succeed is to risk failure. But either way you got to engage your brain and play ping pong and meet people and do something out of the ordinary. It seems like something to be embraced.
- baddox 12y agoI'd have said yes, because I enjoy ping pong. But I certainly wouldn't go along with the crazy stuff, like having it videotaped for analysis, answering a questionnaire about my playing ability and aggressiveness, etc. It's pretty clear that, despite saying the opposite, they are literally judging people by their ability. But if you replace ping pong with something similar that I'm not interested in and don't enjoy, then I would probably say no.
- Glyptodon 12y agoI'd rather play ping pong than spend 4 hours programming on a white board. Though maybe that makes me a bad programmer? Ha ha.
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 12y agoHaven't you ever heard of a nerd? False positives on this test could lead you to hire the wrong nerd after all. I've heard there are people more interested in the obfuscated C competition than anything in the physical world including filling out surveys etc.
- Paul_S 12y agoAt this point I can't even tell anymore if this is some subtle sarcastic commentary on how ridiculous interviews can get or a real way to hire employees. I no longer care. When I'm looking for work I'm game for anything. I'll perform interpretative dance if you happen to think this reveals my true personality, I don't see the harm (at least to me). Any judgements you make based on it will be purely justifications you come up with for the decision you have already made based on other things - probably whether or not you like or trust me. I'm all right with that.
- Consultant32452 12y agoPoe's Law
- asdfologist 12y agoWhat's wrong with it? It's optional (one candidate refused), and candidates can have fun doing it, so it could be a win-win.
- aResponder1 12y agoIt promotes a fun-first work environment.
- Nicholas_C 12y ago"Afterward, Bellenfant watches and evaluates, along with a statistician from Vanderbilt, a psychologist from Vanderbilt, and the president of the Nashville Table Tennis Club." Seems a little overkill, but I like the idea in general. "One young woman recently interviewed for an intern position. 'During the recruiting process she displayed a high level of confidence and enjoyed making people laugh,' Bellenfant says. In the original questionnaire, she rated her excitement level at the prospect of playing at 13 (on the scale of 1-10), and her ping pong skill level at seven. When she played, it became obvious that she'd overestimated her abilities. 'We would have put her at two or three,' he says. Yet in the questionnaire after the game, she rated her skill level at six. 'She maintained that high level of confidence, which we think is a positive thing,' Bellenfant says. The company hired her, and he predicts she will be a strong performer." Wouldn't being ridiculously over confident like this player be a negative sign? That seems like the kind of person who would power through things by themselves and do it completely wrong while being convinced it's right.
- ch4s3 12y agoI thought that was weird too.
- knurdle 12y agoI thought the same thing. Sounds like a classic case of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Maybe they haven't heard of it.
- baddox 12y agoHow can you even call that "overconfident" without knowing the methodology she's using for her rating? Does 7/10 mean "I'm better at ping pong than 70% of the world's population," or "I'm better at ping pong that 70% of people who self-identify as ping pong players," or some other methodology?
- tormeh 12y agoIt could be for a position where confidence and excess positivity is good, like sales.
- 12y ago
- binaryapparatus 12y agoAny company that demonstrates this kind of thinking is actually only interested in drones willing to follow whatever orders are at the table. "We don't know what data we're getting but it is interesting"? Dance my minions! Reminds me on that "It's fucking startup" quasi enthusiastic story from the other day https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7619439 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7619439
- codyb 12y agoOr alternatively, any company that demonstrates this kind of thinking is only interested in people not as cynical as you. ;-). Jeez, can't anything just be fun and interesting? And aren't those companies that give you a task to do just to get an interview (I've encountered this before) that the company will probably code review and put into production far more insidious? It seems to me the "Work for free before we even really talk to you" crowd of companies is looking for drones more than the company interested in a unique way of evaluating the way a person interacts with other people in a competitive and out of the ordinary situation.
- binaryapparatus 12y ago> Or alternatively, any company that demonstrates this kind of thinking is only interested in people not as cynical as you. Very possible, I don't hide my despise toward meaningless evaluating and team building techniques. If you are running a company in need of my skills you need me as cynical as I can get because you need no-bs results. > Jeez, can't anything just be fun and interesting? It can but this is not friendly team building game. This is committee evaluating candidate play. Can't see fun in that.
- ch4s3 12y ago"If they rated themselves a seven in skill level before the games and now they see themselves as a three, maybe they learned something ... On the other hand, a candidate who rated him or herself as a three originally and a seven after the game may show hard self-judgment." "We would have put her at two or three," he says. Yet in the questionnaire after the game, she rated her skill level at six. "She maintained that high level of confidence, which we think is a positive thing," Bellenfant says. The company hired her, and he predicts she will be a strong performer." What? Overrating your skill shows that you lack self-judgement, this girl overrated her own skill so they hired her. This whole thing seems ludacris. I mean, yeah I'm game for whatever to get a job, but this article just defies reason to the point of seeming delusional.
- Harelin 12y agoMakes you wonder how truthful she was about the core competence she was hired for.
- ch4s3 12y agoindeed.
- joelrunyon 12y ago> This whole thing seems ludacris. Ludacris --> rapper. Ludicrous --> unreasonable.
- ch4s3 12y agoyeah, I caught that after I posted it, but decided that ludacris fit the sentiment, so I didn't bother editing it.
- cratermoon 12y ago> Overrating your skill Classic Dunning–Kruger effect. Why would a company want to hire incompetent people who don't even know they are incompetent?
- chris_mahan 12y agoForrest Gump?
- hythloday 12y ago"We found we were just too likely to positively evaluate disabled people, offer them a job and then find they had all sorts of costly health problems", said the study author. "As a small growing company we can't afford that sort of drain, so this roots them out before we get to that stage".
- drcongo 12y agoI'd give this comment 10 upvotes if I could.
- deedubaya 12y agoWanna hire a real stud? I mean, someone who will really perform? Hire a hooker, and REALLY get to know your potential employee.
- pramanat 12y agoReminds me of Gulliver's Travels where the Emperor of Lilliput appoints court officials by their rope dancing skills. http://www.shmoop.com/gullivers-travels/the-lilliputians.html http://www.shmoop.com/gullivers-travels/the-lilliputians.htm...
- hiharryhere 12y agoThat's an amazing reference. 10 points
- logfromblammo 12y agoIs this April 1st? No? The simple truth is this: people have no idea how to hire good people, or even how to evaluate their existing employees to see who is good and who is not. And it is especially difficult when the prospective employees know the stakes. If they don't present a particular image well enough, they won't get the job. Every single person that comes in for an interview is acting out a role--the person they think you want to hire. If you invent a tactic to see the real person behind the role, it only works for a short time, until people know you use it and adapt accordingly. This is why the Monty Python sketch with the job interviewer ringing the bell and counting down loudly still holds up. That was from 1969. Nineteen sixty-nine. If you re-made it today, you could even keep the same punchline!
- WalterBright 12y agoI'd flunk that job interview. I dislike ping pong in particular. I find it dull. I long ago lost interest in winning at dull, pointless games.
- eogas 12y agoAre you a robot?
- WalterBright 12y agoWhy yes, I am. The sack-of-meat Walter Bright was replaced years ago by myself, the latest D-9000 computer. He was always jeopardizing the mission.
- chris_mahan 12y agoBruce Lee (with numchucks--look it up on youtube, it's freaking amazing)
- joesmo 12y agoAmusing. I think driving would be a terrible activity to practice this with. Ping pong works because it's generally a neutral activity in life like any sport. Ping pong does not present imminent, potentially-fatal dangers or anything even close. Also, most people do not have strong preexisting opinions about it. On the other hand, driving is an intense activity where the consequences are life or death and any driver will have strong preexisting opinions about it. Would it be fair to say I'm an aggressive person who can't keep their cool if I yell profanities at the person who almost killed me a moment ago? That's ridiculous. The activities are definitely not interchangeable. Finally, what would they make of my skill rating of one both before and after the game? Would it be interpreted as a lack of confidence or will my failure to score be redeeming (Yes, I suck that much)?