| ▲ | diob 2 days ago |
| It's because coding interview questions aren't so much assessing job skills as much as they are thinly veiled IQ tests. I think if it was socially acceptable they'd just do the latter. |
|
| ▲ | tptacek 2 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| Plenty of companies administer IQ tests. The reason everyone doesn't is that it doesn't work well. |
| |
| ▲ | callingbull a day ago | parent [-] | | Nothing works well but IQ tests predict job performance better than anything else. | | |
| ▲ | kasey_junk a day ago | parent [-] | | Do you have a citation? | | |
| ▲ | callingbull a day ago | parent | next [-] | | Schmidt et al., 2016 The Validity and Utility of Selection Methods in Personnel Psychology: Practical and Theoretical Implications of 100 Years of Research Findings | |
| ▲ | tptacek a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | Also, an explanation for why more companies aren't doing them given their effectiveness? They're extremely easy to administer. | | |
| ▲ | callingbull a day ago | parent [-] | | Possibly legal and reputational risks, considering some groups do badly on IQ tests. | | |
| ▲ | tptacek a day ago | parent [-] | | No, this is a message board canard. IQ tests are used at a variety of large companies with deep pockets for discrimination settlements. If there were real legal risks, that wouldn't be the case. | | |
| ▲ | callingbull a day ago | parent [-] | | There are real risks for companies without deep pockets (for settlements or public relations). People I know, responsible for hiring, have told me they won't use IQ tests because of how it would come across, so the concern at least exists but how widespread is the question. | | |
| ▲ | kasey_junk a day ago | parent [-] | | Your citation addresses it. Less than 1% of employment lawsuits are about selection criteria and employers win over 90% of them. They suggest GMA tests are _more_ defensible than other approaches. The most interesting thing in that paper is that years of experience performed so poorly. It’s in the lowest cohort. Worse than “interests” or more general “biographical data”. | | |
| ▲ | callingbull a day ago | parent [-] | | There is still the reputational risk of using selection methods with widely known disparate outcomes. Other methods also have disparate outcomes, but most of the criticism is directed at IQ tests. I've heard "IQ tests are culturally biased" but never "work sample tests are culturally biased", and I'll guess that's the experience of most hiring managers too. | | |
| ▲ | kasey_junk 20 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Have you ever heard or read a newspaper article, or can you cite an actual example of any company actually suffering reputation harm for administering iq tests? Your citation suggests candidates view GMA tests _favorably_. Most hiring managers believe experience matters in hiring as well, perhaps that’s the belief that keeps them from using iq tests. For what it’s worth, IQ tests are biased (see duyme’ adoptive studies for a drastic economic impact). That largely is orthogonal to if they are predictive in the ways your citation outlines. | |
| ▲ | tptacek a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | Somehow these reputational risks accrue to the median hiring company, but not to the global brands like PepsiCo and Proctor & Gamble that do GMA testing already. I maintain: this is a message board trope. | | |
| ▲ | adastra22 a day ago | parent [-] | | Surely you can understand that the hiring needs and reputational risk of a tech startup and Pepsi are different? | | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| ▲ | vasco 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| A lot of companies have IQ like tests, in particular big consulting companies like McKinsey and so on. |
| |
| ▲ | frankfrank13 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | McK's case interview is just as game-able as HackerRank style interviews. There are entire consulting clubs at many colleges that teach this exact interview style. It's true that it's harder (but not impossible) to use AI to help, but calling it an IQ-like test is true only as much as any other technical interview. That being said, McK did create an entire game that they claim can't be studied for ahead of time. If the intention is to test true problem solving skills, then maybe that's roughly equivalent to a systems interview, which is hard(er) to cheat . | | |
| ▲ | SJC_Hacker 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > That being said, McK did create an entire game that they claim can't be studied for ahead of time. If the intention is to test true problem solving skills, then maybe that's roughly equivalent to a systems interview, which is hard(er) to cheat . Sure, right up until someone leaks it | | |
| ▲ | frankfrank13 a day ago | parent [-] | | Maybe, but they have hundreds! And new ones every quarter! Having done both systems and case interviews I can say that leaking is not as big a problem as with coding interviews. Sure you can memorize how to build Netflix/Zoom, or how to analyze P&L for a sandwich shop, but those interviews depend on interviewers throwing in complications or asking clarifying questions. |
| |
| ▲ | adastra22 a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | IQ tests are just as gamable. |
| |
| ▲ | codr7 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | And they're losing all but the worst candidates because of it, which explains a lot. |
|
