So my questions for Tildes are: what interview techniques have you learned/found that are good indicators of success in the candidate? have you ever had any interviewer training that you felt was...
So my questions for Tildes are:
what interview techniques have you learned/found that are good indicators of success in the candidate?
have you ever had any interviewer training that you felt was worthwhile?
if interviewing is just a crap shoot because an hour isn't enough time to determine fitness, what methods would you use instead?
I am an engineer who has managed the day-to-day of team operations off and on through my career, although I prefer being an individual contributor. I've been asked to interview candidates before, but I have never received any training for interviewing (or management, for that matter).
In "winging it", I basically try to get a feel for the person's character and work ethic. Usually the technical interview has been someone else's task. But my track record for being an interviewer is pretty bad. People I voted against that were hired anyway turned out to be good, and people I advocated for turned out to be terrible. Also, I have learned that the "gut feel" interview is a huge source of unconscious bias.
I have an interview process that has worked well for me. Obviously, it really starts with writing the position description and making sure you are actually putting in the right required skills and...
I have an interview process that has worked well for me. Obviously, it really starts with writing the position description and making sure you are actually putting in the right required skills and work experience that the team and position needs. Assuming that is the case, I interview as follows:
I convene an interview committee.
We build two sets of questions, one for a simple phone screen, and a second set for an in person.
For every question, we have to identify exactly what it is we are hoping to learn by asking it. We brainstorm better questions to learn the information, and assess whether that piece of information is necessary or duplicated.
for every question, we construct 5 example answers scored as 5) very good, 4) good 3) mixed 2) poor, and 1) very poor.
we make sure to focus questions that assess ability and willingness to learn rather than simple application of skill or memorized information. We also try to focus on actual interest in the subject area.
the review team conducts and scores the candidates, and each reviewer assigns a numerical score for each answer, and is given a notes section at the bottom to record their thoughts.
the scored sheets are sent to me as the final decision maker. I review the numerical scores and the notes. I rank the candidates, and if there is a close call, or a tie, I might instruct the committee to do a finalist round where they come in to meet the larger team at a lunch event or some such.
I avoid meeting the candidates in most situations to avoid bias. Sometimes I do meet them but in general I don't.
So there you go. It's simple but works well for me. Make sure to know why you are asking a question, and that you know what a good or a bad answer is. This helps you give clarifying instructions if the candidate has questions. Focus on willingness to learn rather than memorized information or even specifics skills, to a point. Quantify answers but let reviewers write out a few thoughts. Keep your final decision maker unbiased.
Edit: For additional reading, I suggest Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow. A behavioral psychologist, he won the nobel prize in economics with his longtime research partner. In his book he lays out the heuristics our brains use in processing information, and gives insights into overcoming their biases and shortcomings. In one example he gives was his early career work where he redesigned the promotion/selection process for certain units/officers in the IDF in the 70s. He improved the success rate of those selected. I modified his method to an interview format, but kept the main elements such as using quantitative measures instead of qualitative, and shielding the final decision maker from their own biases. I've used this method to hire entire new teams before, and I mentored many of these individuals into their own leadership positions in various organizations, including directors, VPs, and senior contributors.
Thank you, this is super detailed and seems like it could be really effective. I also think it dovetails nicely with @gaywallet's comment. Also, for anyone following up on the suggestion, the...
Thank you, this is super detailed and seems like it could be really effective. I also think it dovetails nicely with @gaywallet's comment.
Also, for anyone following up on the suggestion, the Kahneman book is called Thinking Fast and Slow. Definitely putting it on my list.
One last note: the only section of the book that hasn't quite held up is the section on priming and nudges. Since the book came out much research fraud was discovered in that branch of science,...
One last note: the only section of the book that hasn't quite held up is the section on priming and nudges. Since the book came out much research fraud was discovered in that branch of science, and Kahneman's has revised his opinion largely concluding that the effects of priming are small and short acting.
I feel like adding an employee to the team is a big deal, and getting the right candidate is a great long-term investment — so on those grounds, I think you should be able to argue for as much...
I feel like adding an employee to the team is a big deal, and getting the right candidate is a great long-term investment — so on those grounds, I think you should be able to argue for as much time to prepare a good process as needed.
Zero disagreement. But, in my experience: unless you’re willing to lead an effort like this yourself (and quite possibly on 1-2 days notice), it doesn’t happen.
Zero disagreement. But, in my experience: unless you’re willing to lead an effort like this yourself (and quite possibly on 1-2 days notice), it doesn’t happen.
At this point in my career I've rewritten the interview questions and methodology for five separate teams that I've worked on. I've participated in several hundred interviews as the interviewer...
At this point in my career I've rewritten the interview questions and methodology for five separate teams that I've worked on. I've participated in several hundred interviews as the interviewer and have read extensively on the subject. So I have a bit of knowledge I can share.
There is no "technique" that works well other than one of structure and replicability. This is what all the research has to show on interviews - the best interviews (the ones in which skill for the actual job is assessed and consistently return the same results to candidates regardless of interviewer) are ones which have a ton of structure. There's an entire process to ensuring you have designed the interview in the most effective way and it starts by understanding what skills the job entails. I dug up a short powerpoint I put together a few years ago with just a few sources (by no means exhaustive) to explain at a high level how to make this work.
Honestly, not really. I found that taking to the literature and looking for best practices that exist (ones that are actually studied and have results which prove their efficacy) was the most effective way to learn how to give good interviews. There's a lot of literature out there, you just have to know how to look for it.
Absolutely not! An hour is more than enough time to figure out quite a lot about people, and certainly enough time to have a good idea if they're a good candidate or not. Obviously the more time you have the better, but a well controlled process will tell you quite a lot about candidates in a short period of time. But there's a high cost to get there - it involves figuring out what the job actually entails, multiple rounds of question development, and some discussions with all the people interviewing to make sure you're all more or less on the same page. Perhaps most importantly, it's exceedingly difficult to get people to actually follow what the literature says is best for interviews. People have very strong views on what they think works or the flexibility they feel they need during an interview to make them worthwhile. Winning them over to a new methodology is really difficult, even when they are in scientific fields such as medicine which look to literature to set best practices all the time. Even though I redid the process for 5 different teams, I had to make huge deviations from the best practices because people had strong feelings about many parts of the process or simply did not wish to go through certain necessary steps to develop a better process.
Same here. These days, I just try to avoid interviewing as much as I can. Luckily, that’s usually possible. Overtime, I have learned a specific set of traits that I think correspond to doing well...
I am an engineer who has managed the day-to-day of team operations off and on through my career, although I prefer being an individual contributor. I've been asked to interview candidates before, but I have never received any training for interviewing (or management, for that matter).
Same here. These days, I just try to avoid interviewing as much as I can. Luckily, that’s usually possible. Overtime, I have learned a specific set of traits that I think correspond to doing well at my specific company (e.g., being able to grind a problem out), but I’m not sure that my track record is much better than yours.
Yeah. The more I see, the more I think everyone is just making it up as they go, and that luck/opportunity governs success enough that no obvious "best" way wins out. I think engineering education...
Yeah. The more I see, the more I think everyone is just making it up as they go, and that luck/opportunity governs success enough that no obvious "best" way wins out.
I think engineering education would be greatly improved by adding some some business/office skill classes. I would still take Eye Contact and Small Talk 101 if offered.
idk as someone who helped my sister with her quizzes when she got her bachelor's and master's in business admin, I have a pretty low opinion of business classes. I think a lot of engineers are...
idk as someone who helped my sister with her quizzes when she got her bachelor's and master's in business admin, I have a pretty low opinion of business classes. I think a lot of engineers are really lacking in so-called soft skills but I'm dubious about existing formalized courses being very useful there.
I would absolutely (and very happily) take some basic management and interviewing training. Any sort of guidance / corporate culture / etc. would be super welcome over “I dunno, just figure it...
I would absolutely (and very happily) take some basic management and interviewing training. Any sort of guidance / corporate culture / etc. would be super welcome over “I dunno, just figure it out”.
It feels like if they wanted me to be good at this, they’d provide this sort of basic information. Otherwise it’s just another task in the “I already have way too many things going on” mill
I worked at a company for a few years that did interviews in 3 stages. I personally "interviewed" dozens of people this way during my time there. First was a mass interview where each candidate...
I worked at a company for a few years that did interviews in 3 stages. I personally "interviewed" dozens of people this way during my time there.
First was a mass interview where each candidate was randomly paired with another candidate and given a simple task to work on together for 15 min. All the candidates were told exactly what was going to happen in advance, and also exactly what we where looking for and the criteria they were being judged on.
The candidate pair-ups were then re-randomized and repeated 2 more times and then they all went home. The task worksheets where thrown away and the employees all sat around and discussed what they observed about each candidate. They were evaluated on how they conducted themselves during a collaborative task. i.e. "can you share your pencil" and other basic "kindergarten skills" that make someone pleasant to work with.
The second was a day-long "interview" where a candidate came into the office and worked for an entire day (paid). They worked paired[1] the entire day, with one person in the morning and a different person in the afternoon. This served 2 purposes very well. Primarily it was a test of "can I tolerate this person for an entire day". Secondarily it was a real-world test of technical skills, the willingness to ask questions and say "I dont know", and how fast someone could pick up new knowledge.
The third part was a "3 week trial" where they literally just came and worked (paid) for 3 weeks. Which is a really stupid way to "interview" someone who almost certainly has other obligations.
There where a lot of advantages of this system and several distinct disadvantages. The major advantage was that you could pretty easily filter people who where jerks, or even just unpleasant. The major disadvantage is that people like people who are similar to themselves, so there was a very strong self-selection bias.
The major thing that I've taken away from my time at that job was that the main thing I look for when interview people is if they are pleasant to work with. I cannot teach people to not be assholes. I can teach them technical skills. So I look for a certain minimum level of technical skill, but if it comes down to 2 candidates and one has less technical skill and the other more knowledgeable but kind of a jerk, I will 100% pick the nicer one.
1 - Meaning they shared a keyboard and mouse the entire time and worked collaboratively. But that's a topic for a different post.
Did you find it hard to recruit candidates who already had job? I admire that this time was paid (it would be crazy if it wasn't, and probably illegal in the US, but I've heard of crazier), but I...
Did you find it hard to recruit candidates who already had job? I admire that this time was paid (it would be crazy if it wasn't, and probably illegal in the US, but I've heard of crazier), but I still can't imagine how someone could take 3 weeks away from their current job for this process.
Also, I wonder if three weeks is enough to get a sense of peoples actual work? Maybe I can see it for junior people who are expected to slot into a sprint with a backlog of small bugs to fix, but for someone in more of a creative or high level position, that would still be the within the onboarding/ramp-up phase everywhere I've been.
Most places I have been have a 90 day probationary period which seems like a more realistic timeline, but that's definitely outside the interview and after the hire decision.
It definitely was, the 3 week thing was a huge barrier to recruiting anyone who already had a job. And even for those who didn't the uncertainty of it often deterred some very qualified...
It definitely was, the 3 week thing was a huge barrier to recruiting anyone who already had a job. And even for those who didn't the uncertainty of it often deterred some very qualified candidates. This was also on top of the vast majority of the developers (90% of a team of 30) being contractors. Up until the last year I was there, when they finally figured out that was a super shady thing to do and made everyone normal W2 waged employees. But I digress.
As for the on-boarding, I mentioned pairing in the previous post. I neglected to mention that wasn't just an interview technique. All developers where expected and required to pair (2 people per computer) at all times, no exceptions.
There is a very long list of reasons both for and against working this way, but for the purposes of your question about on-boarding it's great. Working alongside someone the entire day every day and having them patiently walk you through the code base, answer questions, give context and backstory about decisions, all without having to stop and interrupt someone else is incredible. You also get a pretty good feel for how good of a developer someone is when they're helping you design code and debug in real time.
I believe that there probably are pros to working this way, but I literally rolled into a ball like an armadillo when I read that. The first rule of introvert club is: there is no introvert club....
I neglected to mention that wasn't just an interview technique. All developers where expected and required to pair (2 people per computer) at all times, no exceptions.
I believe that there probably are pros to working this way, but I literally rolled into a ball like an armadillo when I read that.
The first rule of introvert club is: there is no introvert club. Thank goodness.
It can be very intimidating, and it's definitely not for everyone, but you might be surprised at yourself if you ever have the chance to try it. The vast majority of developers at that job all...
It can be very intimidating, and it's definitely not for everyone, but you might be surprised at yourself if you ever have the chance to try it. The vast majority of developers at that job all described themselves as introverts, and yet worked in this highly social way. It turns out if you're an introvert, but you and the other person are given a very specific task to do, on a topic that you both enjoy, it's not nearly as overwhelming as most social situations.
Similar to how at a fan convention people who would normally not be social, can suddenly be very social, because they know everyone else around them shares an intense interest in a very specific topic. Are we all still awkward as hell? Of course, but nobody cares!
Both companies I've run interviews for have done almost exclusively technical interviewing. They've had people shadow more experienced interviewers before trying to lead an interview, and have had...
Both companies I've run interviews for have done almost exclusively technical interviewing. They've had people shadow more experienced interviewers before trying to lead an interview, and have had well-defined standard interview questions for us to use, with suggestions on how to make them easier or harder on the fly if the candidate is doing very bad or very good. I'm surprised to learn this isn't standard. Engineering is much easier to do this for than e.g. delivery drivers, because there's a clear way to just make up an appropriately small unit of work and just work through it with the candidate to watch their thought processes.
Personally, I think non-technical interviews are mostly bullshit. You're measuring how well the person can make up answers they think you want to hear.
(I am still really bad at interviewing, and try to avoid it. I suspect there's a Kind Of Person who's good at interviewing people, and my particular sort of neurospicy isn't that.)
When I did interviewing there were two "parts" to the interview - skills and fit. Skills is one way. If the job requires some level of knowledge in a subject before they even get started, I ask...
When I did interviewing there were two "parts" to the interview - skills and fit.
Skills is one way. If the job requires some level of knowledge in a subject before they even get started, I ask skills questions about 80/20 related to the job/other. This way I can get a good idea if they have a grasp on the skills needed to do the job, but also make sure there is some level of general understanding of a subject overall.
Fit is more complicated, and goes both ways. For fit I might try to find out what their idea of work/life balance is like, or ask questions about how they prefer to interact with others, whether that's clients or colleagues. I'm not only trying to figure out if the existing team would benefit from having them around, but also trying to determine whether they'll get what they want from the job. This is tougher because people lie in interviews to make themselves sound better. Interviewers lie to make jobs sound better too, but I really think that works against them much worse than lying to get a job does. So I try to be as straight-forward as possible about where we are flexible and where we can be more rigid.
I haven't done a lot of interviewing, but I have done some, and here's my take on it. This is very much from a technical (colleague) perspective than a management (superior/subordinate)...
I haven't done a lot of interviewing, but I have done some, and here's my take on it. This is very much from a technical (colleague) perspective than a management (superior/subordinate) perspective.
We go through a technical exercise with the candidate, and we have them talk through what they're doing. With this, some important things are revealed: technical aptitude, how they think through a problem, and how well they can communicate with peers to either explain (if they get it) or get help with (if they don't). A big thing with this is that their technical unfitness for the position can't be hidden. If you don't know the language, standard libraries, common tooling, you can't fake that at this stage. The technical exercise should be streamlined so it's mostly (or exactly) the same for each candidate, so you're comparing fairly.
Besides that, I think that it's (too?) hard to tell from just interviewing whether someone won't be interpersonally toxic in the workplace. People can put up an act when interviewing. So, to hire nice, non-toxic people, it really helps to have internal references, who can vouch for their non-toxicity, which they'll have witnessed and experienced over the course of N years working with them in the past.
To incentivize referrals, the company can (should) offer financial reward for successful hires. e.g. if your referral is still with us 1 month after hiring, you get $X000. X can be arrived at by thinking about how much it costs in persons * hours * salary to go through interviewing and hiring what turns out to be a bad candidate, plus degraded performance of the team due to a bad teammate.
I think the best interview I went through as a candidate took about 7 hours - from 9:30am to 4:30pm. Consistently I’ve found that the longer interview processes help to filter for the highest...
I think the best interview I went through as a candidate took about 7 hours - from 9:30am to 4:30pm. Consistently I’ve found that the longer interview processes help to filter for the highest quality candidates. Granted, just making something long clearly won’t be sufficient. But I think if you have a 2 hour process and feel like you know what you’re doing, adding more people to the loop - maybe a lunch session with an employee, or an extended work history review during a walk downtown - will make the process more worthwhile. I don’t think that a ton of stages before the on-site are helpful. But a quick phone screen and a technical screen are enough. Sometimes I read complaints online where someone doesn’t want to do a 3 hour interview process. Do you really want to work somewhere that only vets candidates for 60 minutes?!
I’ve ran interviews a few dozen times. Never had any training besides shadowing another interviewer for a few sessions beforehand. It’s important to make sure the candidate is comfortable. If you bring them out there and use all of this time to evaluate them it would be a huge waste for them to underperform because they’re nervous.
I don't think they cropped it - looking at their pictures, it seems like they opened the link inside of some other app instead of a regular browser, so the top panel of Chrome Custom Tabs...
I don't think they cropped it - looking at their pictures, it seems like they opened the link inside of some other app instead of a regular browser, so the top panel of Chrome Custom Tabs overlapped the titles of the questions so they couldn't see them.
(Which is just one more reason for why "open in external browser" should always be the default instead of whatever the hell this embedded chrome things is)
From the original post. I really don't see how a personality screen is prejudicial. At least in the normal definition of the word.
But the infuriating part is how blatantly prejudicial this type of thing is as a candidate pre-screen (or as any step before or aftering hiring someone).
From the original post.
I really don't see how a personality screen is prejudicial. At least in the normal definition of the word.
They use the big five, which according to Wikipedia, measures Not all cultures value the same things, or express them the same way. Someone from a culture where group cooperation above...
They use the big five, which according to Wikipedia, measures
conscientiousness (efficient/organized vs. extravagant/careless)
Agreeableness (friendly/compassionate vs. critical/judgmental)
neuroticism (sensitive/nervous vs. resilient/confident)
openness to experience (inventive/curious vs. consistent/cautious)
extraversion (outgoing/energetic vs. solitary/reserved)
Not all cultures value the same things, or express them the same way. Someone from a culture where group cooperation above individualism is going to be marked as "solitary/reserved" and judged negatively simply because they're not American style extroverted. And also, for some people, contientiousness is a neurological condition, not a personality trait. Just throwing two out there.
True, though in an interview one is trying to find an ideal candidate for a role within a company with an existing culture. Trying to create a culturally neutral survey is not the same thing as...
Not all cultures value the same things, or express them the same way. Someone from a culture where group cooperation above individualism is going to be marked as "solitary/reserved" and judged negatively simply because they're not American style extroverted.
True, though in an interview one is trying to find an ideal candidate for a role within a company with an existing culture. Trying to create a culturally neutral survey is not the same thing as trying to find the best candidate to fill a role.
The problem with a personality test (if this one is even "real" in any scientific sense, which I doubt) is that likely has cultural biases in it that cause people from one culture to score...
The problem with a personality test (if this one is even "real" in any scientific sense, which I doubt) is that likely has cultural biases in it that cause people from one culture to score significantly different than people from another. So instead of measuring something about personality, they are probably measuring alignment with a certain set of majority cultural values. If they use those results in hiring, they will end up with a less diverse workforce.
The data is pretty clear that diverse teams are more effective, so there are good business reasons to want to avoid this, but there are also social/ethical reasons to promote diversity (at least in my opinion).
A book that really helped me understand the way that "company culture" can exclude minorities is Authentic Diversity by Michelle Silverthorn. It is business oriented, and it gives a lot of concrete suggestions I found helpful.
There certainly are good reasons to hire for diversity, but I suspect they don't apply universally — showing up and fitting in with the group's camaraderie is a huge part of many blue collar jobs....
There certainly are good reasons to hire for diversity, but I suspect they don't apply universally — showing up and fitting in with the group's camaraderie is a huge part of many blue collar jobs.
Regardless, it certainly would be better to have personality tests that actually just measure personality. The ones we have now seem pretty close to junk science. Thanks for the book recommendation, I'll check it out!
It seems like there are a few questions here Is the personality test accurate and valid? The OCEAN personality model itself is well-supported with evidence about work outcomes and life expectancy....
It seems like there are a few questions here
Is the personality test accurate and valid?
The OCEAN personality model itself is well-supported with evidence about work outcomes and life expectancy. On the other hand, does this "blue people" AI test accurately measure someone's personality? Unclear.
How do cultural biases affect someone's 'score' in Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism?
It would be really cool do see if there are different versions of the big-5 assessment for use in different cultures -- because like you say the answer to questions in an assessment would seem to be informed by cultural expectations as well as personality traits.
Should companies be allowed to use the results of personality assessments to inform their hiring decisions, when there is a chance they are a stand-in for assessing fit with majority culture?
I would argue probably not!
Should personality tests be allowed for use when people have already been hired, for professional development?
I would argue 'yes', since the person has already been hired, personality is malleable, and the OCEAN traits do seem to affect work effectiveness, life expectancy, etc., However we've probably all been to a workshop where something like this was not helpful, so depending on the quality of the training it could be less-than-helpful. Although it seems like there is a fine line between training for things like "openness" and "conscientiousness" while also training for a diverse culture, where different people might experience those things differently, and be excluded by a majority who doesn't feel like they do.
Very true, but I don't view that as a prejudiced decision. If anything, doing a test like this is fairer - if you score in the target range, it doesn't matter what your background is. And on the...
Very true, but I don't view that as a prejudiced decision. If anything, doing a test like this is fairer - if you score in the target range, it doesn't matter what your background is.
And on the flip side, if the job needs a highly conscientious person and a neurodivergent person tests low in conscientiousness, it's not prejudiced to not hire them. It might be bad business sense to build a homogeneous team, but that's a different story.
So, I have seen variations on this theme before and have come to my own conclusion about the root intent behind it, which I am confident is meant to be obscure. I do not believe this actually...
So, I have seen variations on this theme before and have come to my own conclusion about the root intent behind it, which I am confident is meant to be obscure.
I do not believe this actually gives real, objective data on personality. That isn't the point.
The purpose of these bizarre, bullshit 'tests' and series of hoops candidates are forced to jump through is to filter out people who won't accept being abused and select for desperation.
A person who is willing to call this out for what it is and refuse to participate is filtered out.
A person who is financially desperate and has little choice but to accept what is dumped on them and jump through all these hoops is selected for, leaving the companies using these tools with a filtered pool of candidates far more likely to work for the lowest pay and accept being exploited.
After I clawed my way out of poverty and solidified myself in a better position of financial security (no debt, low expenses and money in the bank) I found myself in a position to not accept being treated like this and refused to participate in these kind of filtering tools.
And you know what? I still got contracts, I still got jobs. I found myself in the position of telling people "I'm sorry, but I don't see a good purpose in doing this and I have other demands on my time" and "no, I'm not willing to agree to these contract clauses as they are blatantly lopsided - can you please explain why you want me to waive my right to any legal proceeding and resolve any dispute through your in-house arbitration? That is clearly not only not in my favor, but also effectively hands you complete power in any dispute." These are parts of conversations I had with the owners of companies I did work for - admittedly small companies, not giant corporations - and it worked out in my favor. I still worked with them, still got paid, didn't have to jump through these bizarre hoops and got my contracts amended to versions that didn't cause me to cringe in disgust.
So that's my take on these practices. They are the current evolution of one of the tools being used to exploit people and filter out those who would object to being exploited.
I agree that this test sucks in a major way, but I'm pretty sure the point of it is, in some corporate, overly politically correct way, it's trying to make a test that anyone can take regardless...
I agree that this test sucks in a major way, but I'm pretty sure the point of it is, in some corporate, overly politically correct way, it's trying to make a test that anyone can take regardless of if they speak English or Spanish if they're white, black, yellow, green (or blue).
I think that's the source of the blue people and weird script, but I don't think that's the fundamental problem with the test -- it just makes it look more bizarre. The test is fundamentally...
I think that's the source of the blue people and weird script, but I don't think that's the fundamental problem with the test -- it just makes it look more bizarre. The test is fundamentally fucked up because it's just personality astrology for businesses, like the MNPI and its ilk.
Yeah, it looks like all the images are actually supposed to be captioned. So either something went wrong in OPs browser and it didn't load the captions, or OP was trying to make the test seem more...
Yeah, it looks like all the images are actually supposed to be captioned. So either something went wrong in OPs browser and it didn't load the captions, or OP was trying to make the test seem more bizarre and harder to understand than it really is, by scrolling down a bit before taking the screenshots in order to hide said captions. The test imagery is still kinda bizarre, but with the captions it looks like a pretty straightforward personality test, and it's not quite as weird as it's being portrayed. See examples here:
Big 5 again huh. So, as a candidate, what are they looking for? I just lie and pretend I'm Type A, extroverted, overly friendly, curious go getter like the marketing execs, right?
Big 5 again huh.
So, as a candidate, what are they looking for?
The Big 5 assessment measures a person’s Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism
I just lie and pretend I'm Type A, extroverted, overly friendly, curious go getter like the marketing execs, right?
I had a boss at an old job who was obsessed with Meyers-Briggs personality tests. He even had his own personality type "INTJ" as a customized license plate on his BMW. I didn't really fit in well...
I had a boss at an old job who was obsessed with Meyers-Briggs personality tests. He even had his own personality type "INTJ" as a customized license plate on his BMW. I didn't really fit in well with the company culture--it was in the advertising industry and all of the higher-ups, including INTJ boss, were very alpha male and money-oriented. It felt kind of dirty to me the whole time I was working there, and I'm fairly certain that I was made fun of behind my back by INTJ boss and some of the other managers on more than one occasion.
Anyway, one day INTJ boss decides everyone on our team should take Meyers-Briggs tests and share the results. I didn't have much of an opinion on Meyers-Briggs at the time, other than a mild suspicion that it was probably bullshit but harmless, so I went along with it and answered all the questions as honestly as I could.
It still makes me smile when I recall the brief expression of my-world-is-shattered cognitive dissonance on INTJ boss's face when I let him know that, according to his test, I was also an INTJ.
MNPI is basically just horoscopes for people who think they're too smart for horoscopes and people who get super uppity and condescending about either drive me up a wall -- and I say that as...
MNPI is basically just horoscopes for people who think they're too smart for horoscopes and people who get super uppity and condescending about either drive me up a wall -- and I say that as someone who's loved taking personality tests since I was a kid. Like, categorizing things is fun, if you like a certain system of categories, fine, but the second it turns into a superiority thing it stops being harmless and starts being assholery.
I wonder when someone's going to unironically asking for your Hogwarts house in a job interview. I guess it's probably already happened somewhere...
I conduct two types of interviews, the hiring manager or recruiter communicates ahead of time what type of interview I'm expected to do. Technical: Our technical interviews are pretty light. In...
I conduct two types of interviews, the hiring manager or recruiter communicates ahead of time what type of interview I'm expected to do.
Technical: Our technical interviews are pretty light. In this capacity I mostly ask deep questions about the technical projects they have listed. About barriers and how they navigate those. We aren't a tech company and I never interview for IT so generally I'm looking more for learning aptitude and a baseline set of technical skills. Since my background is math and I'm generally interviewing analyst types it's usually more methodological than engineering oriented. This is more rigorous if I'm the hiring manager. I'm generally not the hiring manager but I report to everyone's boss so it's more or less a check that the candidate will be able to deliver the stuff that trickles down from the executive team.
Cultural: We have a very structured cultural interview. I get asked to do these regularly, occasionally I'm asked to spend a couple hours on the weekend to do a bunch (to accommodate travel schedules). This is a final go/no-go interview conducted after rounds of technical interviews and when the hiring manager has proposed the candidate for hire. In these we don't discuss technical skills at all. Rather we ask questions related to character traits the business wants in the population: humility, honesty, discipline, etc. It's a committee of three from across the business at least one level above the candidate position.
What I'm generally looking for:
Does the depth they talk about their projects mirror the level of ownership indicated on their resume?
How transparent are they about barriers and their navigation of those? This can be hard in an interview so I usually tee up the question with an example of a time I failed spectacularly.
What types of hobbies do they pursue outside of work? I don't expect people to be passionate about work. But I like to see some kind of hobby that requires some kind of discipline or team work. Sure that trait might not show up at work but they have the capacity for it.
What did they study and why? If their academic background doesn't mirror the field they are in, what prompted them to make the change? I like to see some kind of curiosity, embrace of a challenge, desire to learn.
I haven't received any formal interview training either. I did teach university math for a long time so really what I'm looking for are the personality types that did well in my classes.
Edit: I think our cultural interview process is pretty good. More for expectation setting. The candidate also asks plenty of questions of people across the business at a variety of levels. Answers from the committee have always been honest and really set the tone. In particular work/life balance; it isn't something the business actively enforces but with discipline I think most of us are able to make it work. Would I like a more relaxed environment? Definitely. But I've never been dinged for maintaining my boundaries.
Well, Tildes isn't intended to be a "reddit-free place". I posted the link here because I assumed that it can lead to some interesting discussion instead of the casual "lmao blue people" comments...
Well, Tildes isn't intended to be a "reddit-free place". I posted the link here because I assumed that it can lead to some interesting discussion instead of the casual "lmao blue people" comments that it got on Reddit.
So my questions for Tildes are:
I am an engineer who has managed the day-to-day of team operations off and on through my career, although I prefer being an individual contributor. I've been asked to interview candidates before, but I have never received any training for interviewing (or management, for that matter).
In "winging it", I basically try to get a feel for the person's character and work ethic. Usually the technical interview has been someone else's task. But my track record for being an interviewer is pretty bad. People I voted against that were hired anyway turned out to be good, and people I advocated for turned out to be terrible. Also, I have learned that the "gut feel" interview is a huge source of unconscious bias.
I have an interview process that has worked well for me. Obviously, it really starts with writing the position description and making sure you are actually putting in the right required skills and work experience that the team and position needs. Assuming that is the case, I interview as follows:
So there you go. It's simple but works well for me. Make sure to know why you are asking a question, and that you know what a good or a bad answer is. This helps you give clarifying instructions if the candidate has questions. Focus on willingness to learn rather than memorized information or even specifics skills, to a point. Quantify answers but let reviewers write out a few thoughts. Keep your final decision maker unbiased.
Edit: For additional reading, I suggest Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow. A behavioral psychologist, he won the nobel prize in economics with his longtime research partner. In his book he lays out the heuristics our brains use in processing information, and gives insights into overcoming their biases and shortcomings. In one example he gives was his early career work where he redesigned the promotion/selection process for certain units/officers in the IDF in the 70s. He improved the success rate of those selected. I modified his method to an interview format, but kept the main elements such as using quantitative measures instead of qualitative, and shielding the final decision maker from their own biases. I've used this method to hire entire new teams before, and I mentored many of these individuals into their own leadership positions in various organizations, including directors, VPs, and senior contributors.
Thank you, this is super detailed and seems like it could be really effective. I also think it dovetails nicely with @gaywallet's comment.
Also, for anyone following up on the suggestion, the Kahneman book is called Thinking Fast and Slow. Definitely putting it on my list.
One last note: the only section of the book that hasn't quite held up is the section on priming and nudges. Since the book came out much research fraud was discovered in that branch of science, and Kahneman's has revised his opinion largely concluding that the effects of priming are small and short acting.
Hah, what a typo. I'm jetlagged and not quite on all cylinders. Thanks for catching that!
That’s fantastic… and assumes you’re given time to prep extensively for an interview :).
I feel like adding an employee to the team is a big deal, and getting the right candidate is a great long-term investment — so on those grounds, I think you should be able to argue for as much time to prepare a good process as needed.
Zero disagreement. But, in my experience: unless you’re willing to lead an effort like this yourself (and quite possibly on 1-2 days notice), it doesn’t happen.
At this point in my career I've rewritten the interview questions and methodology for five separate teams that I've worked on. I've participated in several hundred interviews as the interviewer and have read extensively on the subject. So I have a bit of knowledge I can share.
Same here. These days, I just try to avoid interviewing as much as I can. Luckily, that’s usually possible. Overtime, I have learned a specific set of traits that I think correspond to doing well at my specific company (e.g., being able to grind a problem out), but I’m not sure that my track record is much better than yours.
Wild that they let us do this, eh?
Yeah. The more I see, the more I think everyone is just making it up as they go, and that luck/opportunity governs success enough that no obvious "best" way wins out.
I think engineering education would be greatly improved by adding some some business/office skill classes. I would still take Eye Contact and Small Talk 101 if offered.
idk as someone who helped my sister with her quizzes when she got her bachelor's and master's in business admin, I have a pretty low opinion of business classes. I think a lot of engineers are really lacking in so-called soft skills but I'm dubious about existing formalized courses being very useful there.
I would absolutely (and very happily) take some basic management and interviewing training. Any sort of guidance / corporate culture / etc. would be super welcome over “I dunno, just figure it out”.
It feels like if they wanted me to be good at this, they’d provide this sort of basic information. Otherwise it’s just another task in the “I already have way too many things going on” mill
I worked at a company for a few years that did interviews in 3 stages. I personally "interviewed" dozens of people this way during my time there.
First was a mass interview where each candidate was randomly paired with another candidate and given a simple task to work on together for 15 min. All the candidates were told exactly what was going to happen in advance, and also exactly what we where looking for and the criteria they were being judged on.
The candidate pair-ups were then re-randomized and repeated 2 more times and then they all went home. The task worksheets where thrown away and the employees all sat around and discussed what they observed about each candidate. They were evaluated on how they conducted themselves during a collaborative task. i.e. "can you share your pencil" and other basic "kindergarten skills" that make someone pleasant to work with.
The second was a day-long "interview" where a candidate came into the office and worked for an entire day (paid). They worked paired[1] the entire day, with one person in the morning and a different person in the afternoon. This served 2 purposes very well. Primarily it was a test of "can I tolerate this person for an entire day". Secondarily it was a real-world test of technical skills, the willingness to ask questions and say "I dont know", and how fast someone could pick up new knowledge.
The third part was a "3 week trial" where they literally just came and worked (paid) for 3 weeks. Which is a really stupid way to "interview" someone who almost certainly has other obligations.
There where a lot of advantages of this system and several distinct disadvantages. The major advantage was that you could pretty easily filter people who where jerks, or even just unpleasant. The major disadvantage is that people like people who are similar to themselves, so there was a very strong self-selection bias.
The major thing that I've taken away from my time at that job was that the main thing I look for when interview people is if they are pleasant to work with. I cannot teach people to not be assholes. I can teach them technical skills. So I look for a certain minimum level of technical skill, but if it comes down to 2 candidates and one has less technical skill and the other more knowledgeable but kind of a jerk, I will 100% pick the nicer one.
1 - Meaning they shared a keyboard and mouse the entire time and worked collaboratively. But that's a topic for a different post.
Did you find it hard to recruit candidates who already had job? I admire that this time was paid (it would be crazy if it wasn't, and probably illegal in the US, but I've heard of crazier), but I still can't imagine how someone could take 3 weeks away from their current job for this process.
Also, I wonder if three weeks is enough to get a sense of peoples actual work? Maybe I can see it for junior people who are expected to slot into a sprint with a backlog of small bugs to fix, but for someone in more of a creative or high level position, that would still be the within the onboarding/ramp-up phase everywhere I've been.
Most places I have been have a 90 day probationary period which seems like a more realistic timeline, but that's definitely outside the interview and after the hire decision.
It definitely was, the 3 week thing was a huge barrier to recruiting anyone who already had a job. And even for those who didn't the uncertainty of it often deterred some very qualified candidates. This was also on top of the vast majority of the developers (90% of a team of 30) being contractors. Up until the last year I was there, when they finally figured out that was a super shady thing to do and made everyone normal W2 waged employees. But I digress.
As for the on-boarding, I mentioned pairing in the previous post. I neglected to mention that wasn't just an interview technique. All developers where expected and required to pair (2 people per computer) at all times, no exceptions.
There is a very long list of reasons both for and against working this way, but for the purposes of your question about on-boarding it's great. Working alongside someone the entire day every day and having them patiently walk you through the code base, answer questions, give context and backstory about decisions, all without having to stop and interrupt someone else is incredible. You also get a pretty good feel for how good of a developer someone is when they're helping you design code and debug in real time.
I believe that there probably are pros to working this way, but I literally rolled into a ball like an armadillo when I read that.
The first rule of introvert club is: there is no introvert club. Thank goodness.
It can be very intimidating, and it's definitely not for everyone, but you might be surprised at yourself if you ever have the chance to try it. The vast majority of developers at that job all described themselves as introverts, and yet worked in this highly social way. It turns out if you're an introvert, but you and the other person are given a very specific task to do, on a topic that you both enjoy, it's not nearly as overwhelming as most social situations.
Similar to how at a fan convention people who would normally not be social, can suddenly be very social, because they know everyone else around them shares an intense interest in a very specific topic. Are we all still awkward as hell? Of course, but nobody cares!
Both companies I've run interviews for have done almost exclusively technical interviewing. They've had people shadow more experienced interviewers before trying to lead an interview, and have had well-defined standard interview questions for us to use, with suggestions on how to make them easier or harder on the fly if the candidate is doing very bad or very good. I'm surprised to learn this isn't standard. Engineering is much easier to do this for than e.g. delivery drivers, because there's a clear way to just make up an appropriately small unit of work and just work through it with the candidate to watch their thought processes.
Personally, I think non-technical interviews are mostly bullshit. You're measuring how well the person can make up answers they think you want to hear.
(I am still really bad at interviewing, and try to avoid it. I suspect there's a Kind Of Person who's good at interviewing people, and my particular sort of neurospicy isn't that.)
When I did interviewing there were two "parts" to the interview - skills and fit.
Skills is one way. If the job requires some level of knowledge in a subject before they even get started, I ask skills questions about 80/20 related to the job/other. This way I can get a good idea if they have a grasp on the skills needed to do the job, but also make sure there is some level of general understanding of a subject overall.
Fit is more complicated, and goes both ways. For fit I might try to find out what their idea of work/life balance is like, or ask questions about how they prefer to interact with others, whether that's clients or colleagues. I'm not only trying to figure out if the existing team would benefit from having them around, but also trying to determine whether they'll get what they want from the job. This is tougher because people lie in interviews to make themselves sound better. Interviewers lie to make jobs sound better too, but I really think that works against them much worse than lying to get a job does. So I try to be as straight-forward as possible about where we are flexible and where we can be more rigid.
I haven't done a lot of interviewing, but I have done some, and here's my take on it. This is very much from a technical (colleague) perspective than a management (superior/subordinate) perspective.
We go through a technical exercise with the candidate, and we have them talk through what they're doing. With this, some important things are revealed: technical aptitude, how they think through a problem, and how well they can communicate with peers to either explain (if they get it) or get help with (if they don't). A big thing with this is that their technical unfitness for the position can't be hidden. If you don't know the language, standard libraries, common tooling, you can't fake that at this stage. The technical exercise should be streamlined so it's mostly (or exactly) the same for each candidate, so you're comparing fairly.
Besides that, I think that it's (too?) hard to tell from just interviewing whether someone won't be interpersonally toxic in the workplace. People can put up an act when interviewing. So, to hire nice, non-toxic people, it really helps to have internal references, who can vouch for their non-toxicity, which they'll have witnessed and experienced over the course of N years working with them in the past.
To incentivize referrals, the company can (should) offer financial reward for successful hires. e.g. if your referral is still with us 1 month after hiring, you get $X000. X can be arrived at by thinking about how much it costs in persons * hours * salary to go through interviewing and hiring what turns out to be a bad candidate, plus degraded performance of the team due to a bad teammate.
(Sorry if some of this is obvious.)
I really admire this self-awareness.
I think the best interview I went through as a candidate took about 7 hours - from 9:30am to 4:30pm. Consistently I’ve found that the longer interview processes help to filter for the highest quality candidates. Granted, just making something long clearly won’t be sufficient. But I think if you have a 2 hour process and feel like you know what you’re doing, adding more people to the loop - maybe a lunch session with an employee, or an extended work history review during a walk downtown - will make the process more worthwhile. I don’t think that a ton of stages before the on-site are helpful. But a quick phone screen and a technical screen are enough. Sometimes I read complaints online where someone doesn’t want to do a 3 hour interview process. Do you really want to work somewhere that only vets candidates for 60 minutes?!
I’ve ran interviews a few dozen times. Never had any training besides shadowing another interviewer for a few sessions beforehand. It’s important to make sure the candidate is comfortable. If you bring them out there and use all of this time to evaluate them it would be a huge waste for them to underperform because they’re nervous.
The
OP on reddit cropped all those photos to removephotos were incomplete, removing the actual question being asked of the candidate.https://old.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/1ap1345/i_applied_for_a_software_role_at_fedex_and_was/kq4h5hc/
(Edited: OP may have cropped for karma, or maybe OP was viewing the test in some webview that didn't show the question header.)
I don't think they cropped it - looking at their pictures, it seems like they opened the link inside of some other app instead of a regular browser, so the top panel of Chrome Custom Tabs overlapped the titles of the questions so they couldn't see them.
(Which is just one more reason for why "open in external browser" should always be the default instead of whatever the hell this embedded chrome things is)
That makes the test even more stupid, lol.
True, my comment could have been a little more generous. Editing.
From the original post.
I really don't see how a personality screen is prejudicial. At least in the normal definition of the word.
They use the big five, which according to Wikipedia, measures
Not all cultures value the same things, or express them the same way. Someone from a culture where group cooperation above individualism is going to be marked as "solitary/reserved" and judged negatively simply because they're not American style extroverted. And also, for some people, contientiousness is a neurological condition, not a personality trait. Just throwing two out there.
True, though in an interview one is trying to find an ideal candidate for a role within a company with an existing culture. Trying to create a culturally neutral survey is not the same thing as trying to find the best candidate to fill a role.
The problem with a personality test (if this one is even "real" in any scientific sense, which I doubt) is that likely has cultural biases in it that cause people from one culture to score significantly different than people from another. So instead of measuring something about personality, they are probably measuring alignment with a certain set of majority cultural values. If they use those results in hiring, they will end up with a less diverse workforce.
The data is pretty clear that diverse teams are more effective, so there are good business reasons to want to avoid this, but there are also social/ethical reasons to promote diversity (at least in my opinion).
A book that really helped me understand the way that "company culture" can exclude minorities is Authentic Diversity by Michelle Silverthorn. It is business oriented, and it gives a lot of concrete suggestions I found helpful.
There certainly are good reasons to hire for diversity, but I suspect they don't apply universally — showing up and fitting in with the group's camaraderie is a huge part of many blue collar jobs.
Regardless, it certainly would be better to have personality tests that actually just measure personality. The ones we have now seem pretty close to junk science. Thanks for the book recommendation, I'll check it out!
It seems like there are a few questions here
The OCEAN personality model itself is well-supported with evidence about work outcomes and life expectancy. On the other hand, does this "blue people" AI test accurately measure someone's personality? Unclear.
It would be really cool do see if there are different versions of the big-5 assessment for use in different cultures -- because like you say the answer to questions in an assessment would seem to be informed by cultural expectations as well as personality traits.
I would argue probably not!
I would argue 'yes', since the person has already been hired, personality is malleable, and the OCEAN traits do seem to affect work effectiveness, life expectancy, etc., However we've probably all been to a workshop where something like this was not helpful, so depending on the quality of the training it could be less-than-helpful. Although it seems like there is a fine line between training for things like "openness" and "conscientiousness" while also training for a diverse culture, where different people might experience those things differently, and be excluded by a majority who doesn't feel like they do.
Very true, but I don't view that as a prejudiced decision. If anything, doing a test like this is fairer - if you score in the target range, it doesn't matter what your background is.
And on the flip side, if the job needs a highly conscientious person and a neurodivergent person tests low in conscientiousness, it's not prejudiced to not hire them. It might be bad business sense to build a homogeneous team, but that's a different story.
So, I have seen variations on this theme before and have come to my own conclusion about the root intent behind it, which I am confident is meant to be obscure.
I do not believe this actually gives real, objective data on personality. That isn't the point.
The purpose of these bizarre, bullshit 'tests' and series of hoops candidates are forced to jump through is to filter out people who won't accept being abused and select for desperation.
A person who is willing to call this out for what it is and refuse to participate is filtered out.
A person who is financially desperate and has little choice but to accept what is dumped on them and jump through all these hoops is selected for, leaving the companies using these tools with a filtered pool of candidates far more likely to work for the lowest pay and accept being exploited.
After I clawed my way out of poverty and solidified myself in a better position of financial security (no debt, low expenses and money in the bank) I found myself in a position to not accept being treated like this and refused to participate in these kind of filtering tools.
And you know what? I still got contracts, I still got jobs. I found myself in the position of telling people "I'm sorry, but I don't see a good purpose in doing this and I have other demands on my time" and "no, I'm not willing to agree to these contract clauses as they are blatantly lopsided - can you please explain why you want me to waive my right to any legal proceeding and resolve any dispute through your in-house arbitration? That is clearly not only not in my favor, but also effectively hands you complete power in any dispute." These are parts of conversations I had with the owners of companies I did work for - admittedly small companies, not giant corporations - and it worked out in my favor. I still worked with them, still got paid, didn't have to jump through these bizarre hoops and got my contracts amended to versions that didn't cause me to cringe in disgust.
So that's my take on these practices. They are the current evolution of one of the tools being used to exploit people and filter out those who would object to being exploited.
I agree that this test sucks in a major way, but I'm pretty sure the point of it is, in some corporate, overly politically correct way, it's trying to make a test that anyone can take regardless of if they speak English or Spanish if they're white, black, yellow, green (or blue).
I think that's the source of the blue people and weird script, but I don't think that's the fundamental problem with the test -- it just makes it look more bizarre. The test is fundamentally fucked up because it's just personality astrology for businesses, like the MNPI and its ilk.
It turns out each of the photos had a title/caption at the top that Reddit-OP either completely missed or intentionally omitted from the screenshots.
Yeah, it looks like all the images are actually supposed to be captioned. So either something went wrong in OPs browser and it didn't load the captions, or OP was trying to make the test seem more bizarre and harder to understand than it really is, by scrolling down a bit before taking the screenshots in order to hide said captions. The test imagery is still kinda bizarre, but with the captions it looks like a pretty straightforward personality test, and it's not quite as weird as it's being portrayed. See examples here:
https://www.traitify.com/animated-assessments
So just another reddit outrage nothing burger.
Big 5 again huh.
So, as a candidate, what are they looking for?
I just lie and pretend I'm Type A, extroverted, overly friendly, curious go getter like the marketing execs, right?
I had a boss at an old job who was obsessed with Meyers-Briggs personality tests. He even had his own personality type "INTJ" as a customized license plate on his BMW. I didn't really fit in well with the company culture--it was in the advertising industry and all of the higher-ups, including INTJ boss, were very alpha male and money-oriented. It felt kind of dirty to me the whole time I was working there, and I'm fairly certain that I was made fun of behind my back by INTJ boss and some of the other managers on more than one occasion.
Anyway, one day INTJ boss decides everyone on our team should take Meyers-Briggs tests and share the results. I didn't have much of an opinion on Meyers-Briggs at the time, other than a mild suspicion that it was probably bullshit but harmless, so I went along with it and answered all the questions as honestly as I could.
It still makes me smile when I recall the brief expression of my-world-is-shattered cognitive dissonance on INTJ boss's face when I let him know that, according to his test, I was also an INTJ.
MNPI is basically just horoscopes for people who think they're too smart for horoscopes and people who get super uppity and condescending about either drive me up a wall -- and I say that as someone who's loved taking personality tests since I was a kid. Like, categorizing things is fun, if you like a certain system of categories, fine, but the second it turns into a superiority thing it stops being harmless and starts being assholery.
I wonder when someone's going to unironically asking for your Hogwarts house in a job interview. I guess it's probably already happened somewhere...
I conduct two types of interviews, the hiring manager or recruiter communicates ahead of time what type of interview I'm expected to do.
Technical: Our technical interviews are pretty light. In this capacity I mostly ask deep questions about the technical projects they have listed. About barriers and how they navigate those. We aren't a tech company and I never interview for IT so generally I'm looking more for learning aptitude and a baseline set of technical skills. Since my background is math and I'm generally interviewing analyst types it's usually more methodological than engineering oriented. This is more rigorous if I'm the hiring manager. I'm generally not the hiring manager but I report to everyone's boss so it's more or less a check that the candidate will be able to deliver the stuff that trickles down from the executive team.
Cultural: We have a very structured cultural interview. I get asked to do these regularly, occasionally I'm asked to spend a couple hours on the weekend to do a bunch (to accommodate travel schedules). This is a final go/no-go interview conducted after rounds of technical interviews and when the hiring manager has proposed the candidate for hire. In these we don't discuss technical skills at all. Rather we ask questions related to character traits the business wants in the population: humility, honesty, discipline, etc. It's a committee of three from across the business at least one level above the candidate position.
What I'm generally looking for:
I haven't received any formal interview training either. I did teach university math for a long time so really what I'm looking for are the personality types that did well in my classes.
Edit: I think our cultural interview process is pretty good. More for expectation setting. The candidate also asks plenty of questions of people across the business at a variety of levels. Answers from the committee have always been honest and really set the tone. In particular work/life balance; it isn't something the business actively enforces but with discipline I think most of us are able to make it work. Would I like a more relaxed environment? Definitely. But I've never been dinged for maintaining my boundaries.
Interesting, there is another link on the Tides front page with the same test: https://tildes.net/~life/1e88/service_jobs_now_require_bizarre_personality_test_from_ai_company_404_media_investigation_of_reddit
Granted, that “personality test” truly is bizarre but is this what we’re going to do on Tildes - link to Reddit posts?
If you don't wish to see Reddit posts you can always filter out
source.reddit.This isn’t an anti-reddit site, imo if the link is conducive to conversation then it’s fine.
Well, Tildes isn't intended to be a "reddit-free place". I posted the link here because I assumed that it can lead to some interesting discussion instead of the casual "lmao blue people" comments that it got on Reddit.