"Interviews are a terrible predictor of performance"

[Flannel Boy]

So says Google. They're using biodata as a quantitative way to find good employees.

Desperate to hire more engineers and sales representatives to staff its rapidly growing search and advertising business, Google — in typical eccentric fashion — has created an automated way to search for talent among the more than 100,000 job applications it receives each month. It is starting to ask job applicants to fill out an elaborate online survey that explores their attitudes, behavior, personality and biographical details going back to high school.

The questions range from the age when applicants first got excited about computers to whether they have ever tutored or ever established a nonprofit organization.

The answers are fed into a series of formulas created by Google’s mathematicians that calculate a score — from zero to 100 — meant to predict how well a person will fit into its chaotic and competitive culture.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/03/technology/03google.html

[brawndolicious]

any surprise?

[Flannel Boy]

any surprise?

Yeah, Drinky hasn't responded yet.

[Van Cruncheon]

gee, SHOKKU. For fifty bucks and a fifth of scotch I coulda told them that interviews are even more useless than general education when it comes to job performance, and that ethics, diligence, and discipline matter FAR more in the cultivation of a successful employee. A dedicated, disciplined, ethical employee will get training targeted at his job and will maintain his or her skills, moreso than a multi-degree'd slob with no real job experience and no credible sense of self-discipline. The only thing an interview is good for is determining basic intellectual horsepower -- CAN they learn the job in a timely and sufficient fashion.

[Flannel Boy]

Seems like it would be difficult to asses an applicants ethics and diligence until after he or she has already been hired.

[Van Cruncheon]

yeah, that's sort of the conundrum, innit?

however, you CAN talk to previous employers, or give them a contract/trial gig first, or spend your interview time asking questions about said ethics/discipline instead of asking "lol how u reverse a sequence of bits in 3 operations or less lol"

the standard interview really is a tradition, not a necessity -- the best information comes from interacting with the applicant, period, not from the answers to the questions

[Flannel Boy]

So, are you going to hire me or not? 

[Van Cruncheon]

not with THAT face!

[Flannel Boy]

not with THAT face!

Could be worse.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[close]

[Vizzys]

HES GOT A BOMB!

[Van Cruncheon]

oh sweet JESUS, my eyes

[drozmight]

I thought I had flat bombed the interview for my current job. The guy stopped talking to me after a while and just made up something work-related for me to do, left to smoke, came back and I had pretty much done it I guess. But I still thought they wouldn't hire me because of my inability to form words.

[Wobedraggled]

Acing an interview is easy, that's why it's a horrible basis for actual work performance.

I could probably bullshit my way into any job, could i do any job though? fuck no.