5 ms·
It's been known for a long time that standard interviews are a poor indicator of future job performance, so probably any analyses of data regarding behavioural
by anjc 12y ago
It's been known for a long time that standard interviews are a poor indicator of future job performance, so probably any analyses of data regarding behavioural modes, a person's intrinsic motivators, cultural fit etc, will do a slightly better job. Presumably all of this will still be subordinate to an on-the-job trial anyway, though.
It'd worry me that, although this guy says you need to increase behavioural diversity but minimise value diversity, that you're effectively just minimising the pool of potential employees, rather than figuring out ways that a larger pool of people could fit. Or in other words, whether it's Myers-Briggs, Belbin's roles, IQ tests etc, it seems that evaluation tools are trying to quantify the diversity of people, and pick off, with increasing accuracy, the exact archetype that aligns with organisational goals. But if you assume that people are diverse, and that employment roles are diverse, and that there's a large pool of both, would it not be a better idea to focus on quantifying the differences in attributes required for your employment roles, so as to maximise your pool of potential applicants?
I'm willing to bet that someone who's slobbish and lazy and unpleasant could play a valuable role if you could quantify the requirements and goals of positions in your company, for example. And does value alignment matter for all roles in all companies, or is it just a phenomenon arising in the last decade, being an intuitive way to maximise employee investment and increase profit? Why would financial staff need to want to 'change the world' or some bullshit to work at crappy Startup X?
- e12e 12y ago> I'm willing to bet that someone who's slobbish and lazy and unpleasant could play a valuable role if you could quantify the requirements and goals of positions in your company, for example. Yeah, but the positions of CEO and HR are usually filled at an early stage...
- rmc 12y agoif you could quantify the requirements and goals of positions in your company That hits on one big problem I see with all this: How do you know what the company actually wants? All/Loads of companies claim to want the same thing, and have the same vision of "changing the world". But some companies are run by abusive wankers who want cheap developers who'll be happy working 24/7 for low money. You can tell by the company's actions, not their words. If the only pay peanuts, then they only want cheap labour. Will this big data be turned around to the company, so employees can see what sort of place the company is?
- mkr-hn 12y ago> Will this big data be turned around to the company, so employees can see what sort of place the company is? This sounds like what Glassdoor does. Even small local companies get reviews on it.
- notahacker 12y agoAn individualised test that advises you to steer clear of a company because you're way less deferential to management than their typical successful hire, or provides helpful hints that they're much more laissez faire than your previous employers is potentially a lot more useful than a review site (which like any review site can easily be abused by astroturfers or ex-employees fired for good reason).
- kremlin 12y agoI was also hoping to see the analysis apply both ways to some degree. Rather than simply having a paying company ask you to find the best fit, is it not better to have something akin to a dating service, where you're not just finding the best fit for one party; you're trying to find the best fit for all parties. An employee who's not a great fit for Company A may be a perfect fit for Company B -- this, ideally, is the sort of value I see from these ideas, rather than just ending with 'He's not a great fit for company A'.
- politician 12y agoWell, that might be nice, but I wouldn't expect to see it happen. The company formed to collect this data, Q, is a B2B play that will want both Companies A and B to pay for each individual assessment. Persons P and Q will not want to pay for the reverse service, and even if they were so inclined, Q's client base won't really be large enough to make it worthwhile. In other words, hand-wavy big data aside, this is yet another HR tool.
- jqm 12y agoI wish there were an easy way for people to be exposed to more companies and companies to be able to survey a broader range of people without the commitments of a formal revue process and the recruitment scam. I really think this informal "who you know" is how many jobs actually happen. Something like speed dating but for employment.
- Malarkey73 12y agoI'm not a regular interviewer but I've been on a panel for a few recently. For one job in particular the standout candidate on paper gave the worst interview I have ever seen. He was arrogant, confrontational, couldn't answer simple questions and was half an hour late - and not apologetic at all. He was just weirdly and inexplicably unpleasant to everyone. Perhaps he would have been great in some role or would have aced a psychological test .. but I'm glad we did an interview so we could reject him out of hand. I'm sure there is a place for widespread empirical evaluations .. but ultimately if you are employing someone to work with you there has to be space to say: "Err, No! - I don't care what the computer says".
- silverbax88 12y agoOr he took one look at the place, decided he (or she) did not want the job and tanked the interview.
- Malarkey73 12y agoWe're all lovely people and we served nice coffee and delicious biscuits.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- bryan_rasmussen 12y agoeww, biscuits!
- hyperpape 12y agoI confess, I don't see how that would make it reasonable to act like an incompetent jerk. You can "pass" the interview and decline the job offer.
- ams6110 12y agoOr just politely say, "Now that I'm here, I can really see this is not the opportunity for me. Let's not waste any more time. Good day."
- Retric 12y agoThe best people are rarely going to sit though an on-the-job trial or the classic tech 6+ hours of interviews over 3+ days. More importantly the single most important part of the hiring process takes place after the fact. If you don't take care of your people and deal with people that are a poor fit minor changes in how you higher quickly becomes meaningless. On the other hand if you can manage people appropriately then you can almost randomly higher people and get by simply because your filtering based on a long term on-the-job trial after the fact.