Maybe we should just let computers decide who gets a job

Hot Air.com ^ | November 28, 2015 | JAZZ SHAW

[BenLurkin]

Firms that are populated only by high-achieving test takers could run the risk of becoming full of people who are all the same from similar schools, or with the same types of education, similar personality traits, or the same views.

So what?

The company is in business to make money -- it should get the best team available.

Even if they all went to the same college.

[Objective Scrutator]

Why not cut the government down to a size at which it can be run entirely by computers? A single computer can easily replace 100 retarded government union bureaucrats who are paid $300,000 each.

[central_va]

What is being described in the article is totally illegal.

Please read the SCOTUS decision in Griggs vs Duke Power Co.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

They are asking HR people not managers to make the hiring decisions and they wonder why they are not able to make quality picks?

Really?

They are that dense?

HR people should only be allowed to hire for the HR department. They have no idea how the other departments work or what they need. They have no idea of the nuances of personality that you look for in a lab tech and how that differs from what you look for in a salesman.

They can measure skills somewhat but unless they spend a great deal of time in a department they have no idea what is needed to fit into that department.

[Myrddin]

When hiring software developers for my projects, it is common practice to do a group interview with the candidate and current team members. That reduces redundancy of questions asked and gauges the ability of the candidate to fit and work with the team. Often we have a few candidates in the running and whittle down to the best fits. To get to the group interview, you have to already meet the requirements to do the job. Successful hires have a responsibility to acquire a clearance at the requisite level within 6 months of hire (although some wiggle room is permitted with respect to DISA processing schedules).

[Vince Ferrer]

First of all, algorithms already have an enormous influence on hiring. If you apply to a job online at most companies today, those jobs have dozens to hundreds of people applying for them. HR departments are not large enough to give every applicant a lengthy consideration. 75% of resumes are never read. The ones that do get read get flagged by the company's application scanning algorithms first, and forwarded to a human.

Secondly, the article danced around one of the big reasons why a company would use discretion, racial and gender quotas. The government will never stop social engineering, but they find it too distasteful to be obvious about it. So they would never require software to pick a certain percentage from bucket A and a certain percentage from bucket B. They need to be discrete, so they have to keep humans in the loop.

[usconservative]

They are asking HR people not managers to make the hiring decisions and they wonder why they are not able to make quality picks?

Not sure what size companies you're used to working for, but every large company over 5,000 employees that I've been with since 1997, HR *does* make all hiring and firing decisions and "managers" are responsible to simply "manage" their resources.

Yep, that's why it SUCKS to work in a big company in America these days.

[Nifster]

Computers already scan your resume to see if you have right buzz words in it

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

I used to work for a mega-corp.

Yes, I know exactly who decides who gets hired and that is why I am against them being allowed to do so.

One hire was a young lady who had the most annoying voice it has ever been my misfortune to hear. We were taking orders by phone and her shrieking would drown out what the customer was saying. It was no surprise that order errors shot through the roof.

They decided that it would be wise to hire a militant vegan for a department that had opening day as their floating holiday.

They hired a germa-phobe to take blood samples from livestock.

[Lazamataz]

First of all, algorithms already have an enormous influence on hiring. If you apply to a job online at most companies today, those jobs have dozens to hundreds of people applying for them. HR departments are not large enough to give every applicant a lengthy consideration. 75% of resumes are never read. The ones that do get read get flagged by the company's application scanning algorithms first, and forwarded to a human.

Apparently I've got a good resume. I never HAVE to apply for a job. I get three to ten pitches of people coming to me trying to hire me, every single week.

[nopardons]

And they’re all little liberal snowflakes? LOL

[BenLurkin]

As long as we’re making money — who cares?

[wetgundog]

Computers are racist because they were programmed by white privileged people. /sarc.

[nopardons]

Oh come on...not all of the Millennials are worthless wussy little brats, but many are !

[Rashputin]

Well sure, and the folks who have a neat computer model of the environment that absolutely proves global warming is real and CO2 is the problem can program the computers that will make the decision !!

Great idea !!!

[lastchance]

“The tests included not only questions about technical and cognitive skills, but also questions to assess personality..”
AKA as MMPI which should be reviewed and graded only by a trained mental health professional who has the test taker as a patient or will be submitting the test results to the patient’s doctor. It is a gross invasion of privacy to make a psych eval part of the initial screening process for potential hires.

[proxy_user]

There are a few HR recruiters with a very high level of skill in interviewing and picking people.

I will give two examples.

My father was the personnel director of a sales organization, and his main task was to recruit college seniors who would make good salesmen. Obviously, any mistakes would be very expensive in terms of wasted training, time, and salary. He was so skilled the president of the company trusted him totally, and gave him complete freedom to hire whoever he thought would be suitable.

In the late 80s, when I was working in the computer field, I attended a two-day course in personnel interviewing with my boss, my boss’s boss, and a number of other managers. As part of the course, the teacher would interview one of us, and then we would interview each other. The teacher was so good it he could find out everything about you with a few simple questions in twenty minutes. The class was miles behind; it was like a bunch of 18-handicappers practicing golf with a PGA pro. Nobody could believe the level of skill this guy had.

[V K Lee]

Not to wander off the beaten trail, but why not take it to computers to decide just who would be ideal as our next President? There was a SiFi story written years ago with this plot. Haven’t a clue of author nor title. Highly intelligent and quality individuals attempted to out-smart the computer. If no individual was found, the computer (naturally) took the position.

*Colossus: The Forbin Project* used this plot roughly in the movie. Rather than President the computer(s) took over the national security issues.

If computers can play chess why not. We’ve given the position to won with far less experience.

[rawcatslyentist]

that type of diversity, too, has been proven to be an increasingly important factor in overall firm performance.

So they say, but they also say a lot that aint so.