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from the boss-wants-to-see-how-you-handle-pressure? dept.
I recently applied for a job in Silicon Valley.
The recruiter had me take a battery of tests that measured my verbal, mathematical and visual aptitude. I'd guess it was a mini-IQ test; it wasn't a mini-MMPI. As a result of the tests I was invited to interview onsite.
At the end of the interview the manager declared that he wanted me to take some tests.
His tests were brain teasers he had downloaded from a random website. The brain teasers had nothing to do with the work I was interviewing for. He seemed to ignore the battery of sophisticated tests I had been subjected to, and to believe that he could do better.
What is the REAL purpose of using brain teasers during an employment interview?
Is it just to make the candidate feel stupid? Are any of these people qualified to interpret the results? Are any of them industrial psychologists? Or is this all about power and control?
Please advise.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 05 2018, @08:02PM (3 children)
DEAR Mr Fiaccone,
After interviewing with you on the phone, last Friday ... when I did not hear from anyone by the end of last week, following up on your declared intent to bring me in for an interview ... I followed through on plans previously made, to visit my daughter, at college, and to pick berries, in remote Northern California, for canning.
I did this, in part, because of the dismissive way you suggested that interviewing me, after I had dared to spend three years less than fully employed, was some sort of a "risk". Exactly what sort of risk does one undertake by hiring a seasoned UNIX engineer with three decades of verifiable experience and employment? I seriously wondered if you would even call your recruiter and ask her to schedule an interview; IE, could I even trust you to do what you said you would do? That "trust" thing cuts both ways, you see.
(As previously discussed, Mr Fiaccone ... I didn't work for a few years because my daughter was hospitalized for six months, just after I started working at Roche Molecular Systems. Then, a few weeks later, my mother died. Roche immediately terminated my contract; since then, despite many job applications, and a few phone interviews, I haven't had any work. Although it's tempting to assume that I bear some sort of responsibility for this state of affairs, it has been my observation that the sorts of jobs I was used to filling had been filled with H1Bs, and the industry had no interest in hiring Americans. When we talked about H1Bs, Mr Fiaccone, you got very flustered - just sayin'.)
So when I got the email Monday morning, that Actiance wanted to interview me Monday afternoon, I was not able to comply. We arranged for Tuesday afternoon (today). I got up before 5 AM and drove around 300 miles back to the Bay Area to meet with Actiance, this afternoon.
Let me say that normally I impose a requirement for 72 hours' notice for an in-person interview. I bent over backwards to meet with you. But we were never introduced; and you were not even on the agenda.
(Let me add that trying to schedule AND carry out an interview, all on the same day, is a mark of something, I'm not sure what. Desperation? Maybe. I should have taken that as a warning.)
The first portion of my interview was free of defects. Harun handed me over to Hrushi. Hrushi and I met. I sketched some diagrams for Hrushi. I showed him some source code. We discussed some difficult situations I'd been in and finessed solutions to. I gave Hrushi a copy of my full resume, so we could talk about the Big Picture.
Then Harun took over the interview.
I found Harun was constantly interrupting me. No, really! I'm a court-appointed foster parent. I've been professionally trained in managing shared conversational spaces. Harun was constantly talking over me. It was very rude. It was so rude that I explicitly asked him to stop interrupting me. I've never done that before.
He lectured me about an egoless workplace but unless I miss my guess, Harun has a big 'un.
Harun also lectured me about how terrible the 65% efficiency of network interface cards was before his previous employer, SGI, exposed the bad, bad, NIC architecture imposed upon the free world by Bill Gates.
Because Harun did not demonstrate any skills or knowledge associated with chip-level electronics analysis (which I would recognize, because my younger brother is a component-level electronics engineer, self-taught - he was formerly known as Kilo-Kilo-Six-India-Xray) ... I can say with confidence that Harun had nothing to do with this discovery, and in any case I do not see the relevance of a chip level architectural defect, to my role as applications support engineer, unless I am expected to remotely diagnose functionality down to the chip level.
Harun also spent a lot of time reciting the story of how he had been hired as a manager, someplace, and how the very first thing he had done - after watching his direct reports work, for eight weeks, on trying to upgrade some functionality, and fail - was to call a meeting of everyone. He spent the better part of an hour trying to get me to say that calling a big meeting was the only solution to the problem, even though, as a non-manager, I would not have any such option, and would be putting my employment at risk by ordering people who did not report to me, around. Harun insisted that everyone was equally empowered to be a whistleblower, there, at Actiance, and that being a whistleblower, and demanding meetings, would be part of my duties, there, at Actiance. Needless to say, I did not agree.
Because I would not agree, Harun told me that he concluded that I did not have the sort of initiative that he was looking for - this, despite being a senior UNIX systems administrator, having just spent the past thirty years resolving problems that tended to span my employers' entire software stacks, crossing organizational boundaries in hot pursuit of solutions, for R&D organizations, hospitals, banks, and dot-coms.
Between the interruptions and the ongoing oneupsmanship, we never got around to looking at any source code or talking about UNIX.
Harun never got around to explaining exactly what Actiance's product or service even was! He was too busy reliving his glory days at SGI.
And that bothers me. That's NOT why I came, dude! What a waste of time.
Harun concluded by saying that he had a "test". He went and got it from his desk - he had not brought it into the room with him. (Why not?) It was two problems. He said he was following his boss' (you?) instructions in giving me these two tests - that it wasn't his idea.
Before I introduce these two tests, I am going to take this moment to point out that highly skilled automotive mechanics solve problems all day, every day, and nobody forces them to engage in stupid brain teasers for the privilege of earning a living. Why not?
So here's how Silicon Valley's best and brightest (Alan Fiaccone, that is) tests the technical capacity of their candidates:
#1: There are nine marbles. Equally big, equally heavy, except for one, which is a little heavier. How would you identify the heavier ball if you could use a pair of balance scales only twice?
#2: You have two strings and a lighter. Each string takes one hour to burn, but they burn at variable rates. So, for example, after 30 minutes, you have no idea how much string is burned. Using the two strings and the lighter to determine exactly when 45 minutes have passed.
What relevance do these questions have to the work at hand?
Maybe, MAYBE you could make an argument that question #1 is actually a test to see if the candidate knows what a bubble sort is. I know what a bubble sort is - but only because my brother went to MIT, and it was a topic of discussion.
I don't have the bubble sort algorithm memorized, I'm not a computer programmer, and when I do need algorithms I either develop them myself or I look them up.
Personally, I don't mind an occasional puzzle, but I'm a visual thinker, and I'm not going to apologize for it.
KLOPS' testing picked that up, because KLOPS' testing includes tests that are visual, tests that are verbal, and tests that are numeric. Your tests are only verbal.
KLOPS' testing was probably intended to estimate my IQ, and I'll estimate that it estimated my IQ as being between 130 and 140. That doesn't mean I'm right but it does mean that you'd be stupid to ignore what I have to say.
And so, I ask you, Senior Director of IT: WHAT WERE YOU TESTING?
Don't give me that bullshit about how you were testing my resistance to adversity. If you were, then my email, here and now, would get me top scores. And it isn't. So enough rhetoric. What do you THINK you are doing? Teach me.
Don't give me that bullshit about how you "wanted to see how I would solve a problem". Testing isn't a spectator sport. I'm not taking tests to entertain you. You're not qualified to interpret the results. You have no degrees in industrial psychology. Just quit it.
Please explain to me what you thought you were measuring, why KLOPS' metrics weren't good enough for you - and what you were using as a baseline for your measurements.
Lacking evidence to the contrary, I'm going to suggest that the only thing these sorts of tests prove, is how smart the manager giving the test is, and how stupid the candidate is. It's an equalizer, used by managers who feel inadequate to the very people they manage.
Or is a test to see if I am willing to subordinate myself to authority figures?
If so, it is absurd. Your manager, Harun, is trying to recruit people with initiative (or so he says). And yet, you have him imposing tests upon your candidates, to test to see if they are willing to subordinate themselves to authority. Doesn't that seem a little, well, schizophrenic? Which do you want? Independent thinkers ... or obedient zombies? Make up your fucking mind.
I had a Google HR person ask me, once, what 2 to the 64th power was. I mean, really - WHAT WAS HE TESTING? All it did was piss me off and end the interview. That's not what he was being paid for.
My conclusion is that Actiance needs a massive injection of brains. And integrity. Smart people, honest with themselves, not stuck on themselves ... and more smart people, not stuck on themselves, to MANAGE.
I didn't see the people staffing the help desk, and I'll bet that's no accident - I'll bet they were all H1Bs.
In exiting, I could not help but also notice that Actiance management had created their Help Desk by cramming tables and computer displays for maybe ten people into a crowded footprint, about ten feet wide and maybe fifteen feet long.
My recommendation, Alan, is that you quit looking for someone who comes pre-trained in every single Apache Foundation project that exists (~300, I think). You chose to give the opportunity to learn these new technologies, to people not even from this country. Now, you're OUTRAGED that you cannot find people trained in these technologies. Figure it out. Everyone else who is technically minded, has.
And ... ditch those stupid Romper Room tests. They make your management look like a bunch of children.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 05 2018, @10:52PM
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 05 2018, @10:55PM
Asking what 2^64 is, is how Google's HR people piss off old people so the don't have to hire them.
He *WAS* doing *EXACTLY* what he was being paid to do.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 06 2018, @11:04AM
Wow. I'm glad you vented here, to us. Thank you. That sounds like terrible treatment, and we soylentils can learn from your pain. Consolations. I hope the berries were delicious and canned well.