psychometric evaluation

Ah, the “I can’t justify my existence, so I’ll point at the machine” HR starting kit.

Remember, proprietary research is not science. And proprietary research is what these psychometric tests are based on, at best.

I avoid any company that requires a software test before the interview.

I worked for a company that introduced them after I joined, I collected evidence all of the companies top performers wouldn’t have joined since we all had multiple offers and having to do the test would put people off applying. The scores from it didn’t correlate with interview results so it was being ignored by everyone. Still took 2 years to get rid of it.

The best place used STAR (Situation Task Action Result) based interviews. The goal was to ask questions until you got 2 stars.

I thought these were great because it was more varied and conversational but there was a comparable consistency accross interviewers.

You would inevitably get references to past work and you switch to asking a few questions about that. Since it was around a situation you would get more complete technical explanations (e.g. on that project I wrote an X and Y was really challenging because of Z).

I loved asking “Tell me about something your really proud off”. Even a nervous junior would start opening up after that question.

After an hour interview you would end up with enough information you could compare them against the company gradings (junior, senior, etc…).

This was important because it changed the attitude of the interview. It wasn’t a case of if the candidate would be a good senior dev for project X, but an assessment of the candidate. If they came out as a lead and we had a lead role, lets offer them that.

Ah yes, the anti weird test. That’s how you get all of the autistic people and POCs out of the recruitment pool.

Also, there were some candidates who managed to get 95% and above — but would then just be absolutely awful during the interview — we would later discover that they were paying someone to complete the technical test on their behalf.

Yeah my company shot itself in the foot by replacing technical interviews with an online test and hiring a bunch of cheaters. After a while we started doing a zoom interview where we’d go over the code they supposedly wrote and ask them to explain it to us. Even that simple step made it obvious who had or hadn’t actually written the code they were talking about. I’m pretty sure a few candidates had somebody talking in one ear and/or typing to them on a separate screen.

Anyone who codenses candidates down to a “score” or a "number is doing it wrong.

So the psychometric “analysis” test simply serves to put shade on any decision the interviewing team makes from upper management, and a cover for being borderline discriminatory?

"When we decided to give the test to the development team (about 15 developers) — most of them got scores that were lower than our threshold (45%), despite them all being rock-solid developers. Also, there were some candidates who managed to get 95% and above — but would then just be absolutely awful during the interview — we would later discover that they were paying someone to complete the technical test on their behalf.

There is no substitute for taking the time to sit down and talk to someone."

That’s pretty good advice. Interesting read.

she later told me that I was anti-authoritarian and more likely to do what I thought was right rather than what I had been instructed to do. I am still baffled to this day about how that is an undesirable attribute

It isn’t unless you’re a corporation trying to keep employees down.

A lot of other people who took the test got largely the same result as when they joined the company — my results had worsened (by the HR Manager’s standards) — she later told me that I was anti-authoritarian and more likely to do what I thought was right rather than what I had been instructed to do. […]

She mentioned that my chances of securing the job upon re-interviewing at the company were slim due to my psychometric profile.

What a nice thing to say to one of your senior employees. HR people really are something else. They could’ve easily lost him that day because of some random bullshit.

One of the first things I did when I lead my department was tell HR that I want veto power to anybody they added to my team.

Rejected. They said they need to be in the loop.

I then said I want the power to help filter applications.

Rejected. They didn’t want me to feel “burdened”, and even when I said it’s important, they rejected.

I went to the CTO to hire a handful engineers without HR approval. I needed them for a specific project, and going through HR would take weeks. He approved and we went above HR’s stupid hiring process.

It’s a endless battle against HR.