Pre-Employment Skill Set and Aptitude Tests? 106
stumbler asks: "I just had a lengthy conversation with my boss and co-workers about the value of giving skill set tests (programming ability) and aptitude tests (like reasoning or logical ability) to technical employees before they are hired. (We currently have no such tests.) For those that work in companies that require pre-employment tests, have you seen an impact in the quality of technical employees hired?"
no value (Score:3, Insightful)
Some I gave during interviews (Score:2)
Re:Some I gave during interviews (Score:5, Funny)
Then there's the grammar test....
Re:Some I gave during interviews (Score:2)
SB
Re:Some I gave during interviews (Score:3, Insightful)
to most of us that type of stuff isn't very useful.. sure alot of us have done it at some stage (high school) but what bearing does asking such questions actually have on how well i can do my totally unrelated work...
if perhaps you were asking simple algorithmic questions... maybe boolean algebra simplification then i could see some benefit..
Re:Some I gave during interviews (Score:3, Insightful)
I was taught how to derive the quadratic theorem in my freshman year in high school. Unfortunately, it was only a one hour lecture, and the knowledge was never, ever used again in the subsequent twenty five years. I don't think I could pass your test. But fortunately, I don't have any bosses stupid enough to make it a job req
Re:Some I gave during interviews (Score:3, Insightful)
Pretty stupid test for an interview. I'm top performer in my current team de
Re:Some I gave during interviews (Score:1)
I must disagree. It's certainly not difficult for someone used to the problem domain, but I'm not being hired for the problem domain of mathematics. I'm being hired as a programmer.
Re:Some I gave during interviews (Score:1)
Re:Some I gave during interviews (Score:2)
The first thing I would say to you is 'what quadratic theorem'? There is a quadratic formula, but no such thing as a quadratic theorem.
our usual test (Score:2, Funny)
at my current job... (Score:2, Interesting)
Perhaps the reason I got hired by the company was not necessarily my performance on the tests, but when I told them later on in the interview that (truthfully) I had enjoyed taking the tests, and liked solving logic puzzles i
whoops (Score:1)
Re:at my current job... (Score:1)
they forgot one... (Score:2)
I guess they didn't give you a spelling test...
*wink* *wink*
at my work (Score:3, Interesting)
our tax rate is 6%. anyone who cannot answer, what's the tax amount on a 100$ sale, we will never hire..
answers vary, one accounting major looking for a summer job answered "about 60$" and called the next day to apologize, needless to say, he wasn't hired...
a simple test can be the most effective....
Re:at my work (Score:5, Interesting)
OR
we give them a short set of multi-choice questions, and see a few patients with them.
We find that the quantitative test (MCQ) separates out the complete no-hopers (like your test, but probably a bit more reliable as there are 50 questions), and that the qualitative test (watching them work) helps differentiate the good candidates.
Re:at my work (Score:1)
I worked one summer as a roadie for a live-rock-and-roll production company, and the majority of the interview had to do with skills like knot-tying, cable coiling, equipment identification in a sea of red herrings in a short period of time, that kind of thing, which of course tells you who can do the work and who can't. how
Skill testing makes adifference.short-term. (Score:2, Informative)
The geography test was basically a national map with dots on it and a list of place names, including several fairly obscure ones. If you scored less than 75% you didn't get the job.
My employer no longer tests these things. This has resulted in a lower grade of new-starter, but if they're intelligent they learn, and if they
Yes. (Score:1)
Not at all... (Score:1)
skill set? isn't that a saw? (Score:1)
I am presently working a 4 - 8 strech in tech support as a co-op ter
The only thing that matters is ability to produce (Score:2)
I've conducted a few interviews where I poked and prodded to determine ability, but that one hour is rarely enough. You can always find someone who can talk a great game, but in the end cannot produce (or cannot produce to expectations)
In the end, I think the best result is to offer said individual an
best one for a programmer (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:best one for a programmer (Score:2)
After all, if they forget a semicolon, they're not going to print out their code and read it in order to fix it.
Tim
Re:best one for a programmer (Score:5, Interesting)
Then tell them to make this code work, and see what they do. That will give you a pretty accurate idea of several things:
1) How quick-thinking they are - I know people who have "the skills" but apply them oh-so-slowly they're a frustration for their co-workers. Watching them code is like watching paint dry. Unsurprisingly they're also slow in other parts of day-to-day worklife interaction.
2) How they react to a frustrating problem - debugging someone else's code can be very frustrating. You can probably weed out the guys who get really annoyed and fretting... they'll probably end up pulling a heart attack on you during a stressful phase of the project! (note: that is actually discrimination based on health so you will get sued if you don't hire someone based on that. So don't do it, ok?)
3) How good they are at debugging. Having talented debuggers is useful on any project...
Sounds like a brilliant test to me... maybe because I would have passed it very nicely
Daniel
Re:best one for a programmer (Score:2)
Also, if it is a new IDE for them, seeing how fast they learn to make use of at least its basic features will give you an idea of how quickly they learn.
Daniel
Re:best one for a programmer (Score:2)
I think this is silly. The skills you really want in a programmer are the ability to keep up to date in new technologies, write clean code (that doesn't have weird bugs in te first place) and have a good idea of how to structure a program so that is easy to maintain. In fact, a really good programmer may well be poor at unravelling bugs because he has little experience in debugging - his code doesn't need a lot of debugging.
Re:best one for a programmer (Score:1)
Re:best one for a programmer (Score:1)
Create a reference point (Score:5, Interesting)
Give the same tests to your current employees and try to correlate the results. You'll undoubtably find a few patterns amongst your excellent employees that differ from your mediocre employees. The more results you collect from candidates that you know are horrible along with your employees, the better you'll be able to customize the feedback for your exact environment.
In a previous job, I found that all of our core software developers did fantastically on a general cognitive test (IQ-like), but that most did horribly on behavioral tests -- they were all "Likely to be insecure with their work". In fact, potential candidates that were also "Likely to be insecure" often matched the personality profile that worked in our group. So, test your own employees and see what happens if you highlight candidates that perform similarly to those employees that excel, rather than taking the simplistic approach of "a bad score must be bad!" with prospective employees.
You may find that if you give a variety of tests to 20 candidates, ranging from specific skillset assessment to leadership profiles, that you can at least take a harder look at the 3-5 candidates that score poorly across the board -- if they're barely above average (or worse) and they don't test well, that's not a great sign. Conversely, you could hire someone because they do a great job on all of the tests, but that would be equally horrible -- lots of people are good at taking tests and bad at producing actual work.
Assuming a handful of people with equal qualifications, why take the risk? Especially in this job market, there are too many people out there that not only have the right skills and behavior that can also do well on the corresponding tests.
Re:Create a reference point (Score:1)
Re:Create a reference point (Score:2)
I wouldn't mind taking the tests. Especially if they were to give me percentage values (how I relate in various traits to the average population, the average of
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Great way to start on a bad note. (Score:2)
Usually those things are all in writing, in the offer letter.
Re:Great way to start on a bad note. (Score:2)
Doesn't sound a whole lot different than hiring an employee. Eventually, you have to put your faith in that person or company and assume what they are telling
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Great way to start on a bad note. (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Like Adventure style games (Score:4, Insightful)
When was the last time you solved a real-world problem in a few minutes with someone looking over your shoulder who already knew the "correct" answer?
There is no reliable algorithm or heuristic for hiring the best people, but some companies are comforted by introducing pseudo-rigor into the process.
Re:Like Adventure style games (Score:1)
Look at their past work (Score:1)
Re:Look at their past work-OT USB (Score:1)
Re:Look at their past work (Score:2)
Can you imagine being a Windows developer and taking some of the code with you to fill your portolio? "Here's some 10,000 lines of random Windows code. No, you can't really be sure that it's the source to Windows. No, it won't really run on its own. No, you ca
Re:Look at their past work (Score:2)
I too would think that a portfolio of past work would demonstrate to a prospective employer that I can engineer software. I have published thousands of lines of Java and C++ code on my web site www.bearcave.com [bearcave.com].
What constantly strikes me as odd is that people I've interviewed with are more or less unwilling to look at my work (note that this work belongs to me and has been done on my own time). And those who do interviews that consists largely of programming problems [bearcave.com] still insist in having me code
A few jobs... (Score:2)
For programming? It's great. In java, you should be able to explain polymorphism, for example, or how to prevent memory leaks even with garbage collection, etc.
This is opposed to an interview, where you can ask more off the wall questions. A test is really only a bar - do you have the basic knowledge or are you bluffing? The interview will select the good people.
Re:A few jobs... (Score:2)
Ignoring the bad grammar, what sort of answer are you expecting here? I can't think of any answer for this off the top of my head... Is it just to remember to delete objects when you are finished with them, or am I missing something?
Re:A few jobs... (Score:2)
You are definitely missing a whole heck of a lot.
Problems with memory leaks in Java are the result of setting up conditions in your program that make the garbage collector think that an object never goes out of use. A typical example is a stack used by an object that persists over the life of the application that keeps growing as the application runs. Objects with references on the stack are never GC'ed be
Re:A few jobs... (Score:2)
And I know it's a sort of 'begging the question' statement, but that's what I meant by "remember to delete objects when you are finished with them".
I was thinking that perhaps there are certain conditions where it fails. Like how reference GC's fail with circular references.
Re:A few jobs... (Score:2)
It's not a memory leak, per se. Java doesn't have what's commonoy known as memory leaks. More appropriate would be the term "memory loitering". No object is ever put in a state where it cannot be gc'ed - only where they will not be gc'ed.
Re:A few jobs... (Score:2)
Re:A few jobs... (Score:2)
Java doesn't have that problem.
There is only one case I know of when Java GC fails, and it's pretty rare. If you create a 32 bit primitive int that has the same value as the address of an object, the GC won't delete the object. It's pretty rare for that to happen, and has been fixed in Hotspot.
Re:A few jobs... (Score:2)
Interesting what you said about the second part, I didn't know about that. Makes sense.
My company issues a programming test... (Score:2, Interesting)
Give them an actual, current problem (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Give them an actual, current problem (Score:2)
However, after discovering a new online "hacking" challenge [try2hack.nl], I've started thinking that in some situations - appropriate on-the-spot challenges might be worth doing (note: my field is comp security, so this example is appropriate). Such examples would give the interview candidate an opportunity to demonstrate
Misdirection (Score:1, Interesting)
Nothing too misleading , such as a different town, just be a few streets out.
People who then show up at your office are obviously good at solving simple technical problems.
People who make it to the interview on time get bonus points.
For fun, give them some paperwork to fill out at the end of the interview and say "I just have to duck out and check on something - back in a tick".
Leave and time how long it takes for them to wander out of the office in search of so
Re:Misdirection (Score:2)
Leave and time how long it takes for them to wander out of the office in search of someone... 15 minutes to half an hour's a pretty good baseline.
A similar test is to keep the person waiting in the lobby for a long time and have the secretary observe him...how impatient he gets. A bad temper will easily be revealed if the person has to sit and wait for just 10
That is not a test. (Score:2)
Re:That is not a test. (Score:1)
Oh great. (Score:3, Insightful)
To me it would look like you are disorganized and frankly could not care to work with a company with such messy outlook.
Re:Oh great. (Score:3, Funny)
To me, that would look like you are somewhat inflexible and unable to cope with last-minute changes or pressure.
And the fact that you are unwilling to wait it out for something that your interviewer has to deal with that might *just* possibly be more important than your interview suggests that you value yourself a little too highly
Anyhow, the comments I have mad
Re:Misdirection (Score:4, Insightful)
It cuts both ways though. If I was applying to a company that hired people incapable of giving the correct address, I'd think twice. Likewise, if a company deliberately misled me as part of the interview process, it would be harder to believe anything else they said.
And the most you've done is prescreened people who can use Mapquest. Whoop-DEE-doo.
"For fun, give them some paperwork to fill out at the end of the interview and say "I just have to duck out and check on something - back in a tick". Leave and time how long it takes for them to wander out of the office in search of someone... 15 minutes to half an hour's a pretty good baseline."
Most of the interviews I've been to have had a specified time limit (or have been happy to tell me when asked). A lot of people don't have time to waste on interviews: they're either taking time away from their current job, or have the day off. Why waste their time "for fun"? Wasting 15-30 minutes of interview time is stupid when you could be doing something productive (like talking to them).
Re:Misdirection (Score:2)
Re:Misdirection (Score:1)
Re:Misdirection (Score:2)
They may have been desparate for staff, and willing to pay any price, but with that attitude, I had no interest in working for them.
It verifies resumes (Score:3, Interesting)
I guess I have an abnormal hatred of dishonesty, but I think the best use of these tests is too weed out the flat out liars or those that 'bend the truth' a bit too much regarding their skills.
So, my point is simply that, yes, these types of tests are quite useful for verifying resumes, but not a whole lot else.
Re:It verifies resumes (Score:1, Interesting)
If you look into any C++ book from a few years ago, you'll see ways of coding hello world that will not compile on a modern setup. There are plenty of smart coders around today that know C++ very well, but who have worked on an environment that protects them from language instability, and might get tripped up by library issues on a hello world on a new platform
Re:It verifies resumes (Score:2)
I was also over simplifying by saying 'write hello world'. Our real skills test doesn't even have that. It has 3 to 4 questions in each category. I would only consider you to have "overstated" knowledge of one of those categories if you a
Re:It verifies resumes (Score:2)
It is definatly good to weed out those who are either exagerating or just not good judges of their own skills.
Of course, HR departments brought some of the exaggerations on themselves by requiring cantidates to have X years experiance in X-3 year old technologies. That's closely related to HR departments that get the actual requirements, then throw in a few shiny objects that will NEVER be needed.
Applicant should have 12+ years experiance in Java and C++, MS degree or better. Position: help desk, $10/ho
Backfires... (Score:2, Interesting)
Presumably, they will be smugly certain that it was something outside of the brain trust that caused the
Re:Backfires... (Score:2)
Thank you!! I was trying to think of the right phrase to describe the complete worthlessness of these tests. I try to educate my own company about the pointlessness of these tests and I am having some success. I try to recommend alternative questions that uncover a candidate's true experiences. Questions like, "tell me about a difficult technical problem you faced and
aptitude more important than skillset (Score:1)
I am a director for a small, niche ISV. I use a skillset test to guage how quickly someone new can be productive. What I find more important is the verbal questions that I give in the interview. I find out how long they have been in a certian technology then I ask questions to determine how deep they are in it. We pass on those that take a long time to learn a new technology.
IBM makes you take the IPATO (Score:2)
Re:IBM makes you take the IPATO (Score:2)
If I were writing an aptitude test (Score:1)