3 Apr
2006
3 Apr
'06
8:11 a.m.
At 09:33 AM 4/3/2006, Jim Battle wrote:
If they get it right, is it because they've heard
it before or because they are clever? If they get it wrong, does it mean that they
aren't smart? I've also found in most situations there isn't an oversupply of
applicants. Tossing them out based on a trick question is capricious.
Companies feel free to waste entire days with applicants this way.
It's rude.
You think they'd worry about false negatives and false positives,
the frequency of which I would think would increase as the
questions get trickier and the applicants get smarter.
It relies too heavily on the smartness of the interviewer, too.
Phrase the question icorrectly and you'll get a "wrong" answer.
Interpret the answer incorrectly or fail to recognize a second
correct answer, boom, this method goes out the window and now
you've rejected a very smart fish.
And it's not as if the companies are pulling these questions out of
their own brains. They're cribbing them from other sources. It's as
if applicants need to study the canon of tricky questions as well as
the fundamentals they're based on.
All this for the pleasure of "And if you don't think it's acceptable
to ask you to work on Saturdays, then don't bother showing up
for work again on Sunday morning."
- John