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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (102133)	1/27/2009 3:29:52 PM
From: one_less	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542834

I read some research on self selection a few years back. Employers self select when hiring and promoting. Your suggestion would make good corporate policy.

To: epicure who wrote (102133)	1/27/2009 6:20:57 PM
From: cosmicforce	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542834

<develop a test to find people> When all one has is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. What you describe is exactly what IBM did. I don't know if they still do it. Making everyone wear suits and pass IQ tests didn't make employees great, but it ensures employees have intelligence. They also had a brutal top-down management interview process that many people felt was just intimidation to see who wimped out. Intelligence alone clearly isn't enough Common sense, moderate risk taking, social skills, etc. all go along way. Some might even say intuitive smarts are the most important part, which are particularly hard to measure. So, while IQ is possibly important, I really doubt that IQ alone makes someone successful. You need many kinds of people - finding reasonably smart people that can interface with and motivate not-so-smart people is absolutely required, but actually not very a common skill. The kind of objectivity I was talking about was retrospective evaluations of results achieved. That's the only measure of a person - their deeds and accomplishments, which rarely show up on a qualifying exam. Unless someone is dumb as dirt, the IQ part probably can't be used for anything more than a what software geeks use to call a "clip filter", like the bar at the amusement park's roller coaster.

To: epicure who wrote (102133)	1/28/2009 7:37:41 AM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 542834

If we really cared about hiring the best people we'd figure out (as objectively as possible) who the best employees are, and then develop a test to find people like that- in terms of intelligence, and ability. That can be accomplished via picking people like ourselves. Picking people like ourselves is not necessarily a negative. Personal anecdote. I hired a lot of computer programmers and systems analysts in my day and had a lot of success. I did that by picking people like me, in a certain way. I recognized that most computer programmers at the time were Meyers-Briggs "SP." Detail-oriented linear thinkers. I also recognized that I had risen from the ranks because I was a macro thinker so it fortuitously turned out that I had the capacity for handling greater complexity and scope. I discovered all this in retrospect after the difference between my division and others became so conspicuous--we put up systems bigger, better and faster than anyone else--that I was asked by my boss to chop on all professional hires, not just for my own vacancies and to hire all interns. After I had moved into management, I apparently instinctively looked for that trait set in those I hired. What I got was designers, not plodders. Hiring people like me worked in this case. It seems that I could spot that particular potential in applicants intuitively. Others might be able to do the same for other traits that have proven key for them in other arenas. But I don't know how you could test for such traits let alone apply the principle objectively. Perhaps we should just have the most successful people doing the hiring and picking people like themselves.