Anyone who deludes themselves that the hiring process at any big company is egalitarian has no understanding of how a corporation operates.
Would you fly on a plane built by a company which hires people based on an egalitarian process? I doubt it. You want to fly on a plane built by a company which understands that some jobs require outstanding design skills, some require outstanding mathematical modeling skills, some require exceptional communication skills, and some require top notch negotiating skills.
Any company hiring via an egalitarian process would be out of business in a year.
You want egalitarian? Look at the army. Height, weight, vision, never been incarcerated. Good to go. Anywhere else? Get used to the idea that someone is making a value judgement about how smart you are, how well you speak and write, how capable you are with ambiguity, whether you’ve demonstrated intellectual flexibility (here’s where all those humanities courses come in, all of you “business or bust” types) and whether you know what a standard deviation is and why it’s meaningful when looking at a deck of numbers.
Canuckguy, in the real world, performance is based not just on quantitative prowess / analytical skills but things like people motivation & development, fostering open communication, fostering teamwork, personal drive for results, personal leadership, idea leadership in the relevant function, adaptability, handling complexity, customer focus and business development. It’s just laughable that you think that only quant skills as measured by SATs or a similar standardized test are the only thing that’s important. It makes me wonder what kind of job you actually have - are you in management, or just a worker bee with numbers?
“You do realize that the jobs whose recruiting and hiring practices are described in those links are only a tiny percentage of the overall job market, right?”
I don’t think canuckguy realizes that at all. For some reason unbeknownst to me, people take these companies and extrapolate what they do as indicative of … well, something other than these are the methods these particular companies have found best to find the people who work for them. And the people who work for them are merely … people who work for McKinsey or BCG, not Anointed Superior Human Beings. I say this as someone who had a BCG offer (that I turned down) back in the day, and who works with McKinsey people and data all the time (in fact, McKinsey subcontracts out certain work to my company).
Cognitive ability is the single most important part of the equation, but there are other parts to the equation. Conscientiousness is also important. http://www.apa.org/research/action/who.aspx
I think you misunderstand what I meant by egalitarian in that post.
Of course. That is why I look at them in the first place. Elite firms, like elite colleges, have a disproportional impact on other firms and even society in general. That is why imitation is the highest form of flattery.
In his TED talk, Kuncel ( at 9:22) mentioned a study where SAT scores taken at age 13 can predict future performance not just in school but on the job as well. The difference in achievement of the top quarter of the top one percent vs. the bottom quarter of the top one percent is startling, 25 years out. He also talked about creativity and leadership (at 6:35) and how they are related to cognitive ability. That, I think, is the reason why the elite firms are asking for the SAT even years out of college.
One of my kids went through a very similar process as yours. I think they screened out a lot of applicants by computer, then they test, and finally interview. By the time they asked for references, she knew the job was hers. Official transcripts came last, even though she graduated seven years ago.
One final comment: I don’t mind people have opinions, but unless those opinions are grounded in empirical evidence, we just end up screaming at each other. What good is that?
“One of my kids went through a very similar process as yours. I think they screened out a lot of applicants by computer, then they test, and finally interview. By the time they asked for references, she knew the job was hers. Official transcripts came last, even though she graduated seven years ago.”
Yes, he also knew (as did we) an offer was imminent once they asked him for references. He has not been asked for his official transcript and the offer came in March.
My other child also got a new job late last year. Come to think of it, they both received substantial pay raises and a much better work environment.
It seems to take about 4-5 years of relevant experience for the cream to rise to the top. Before that, the employers can overwork and underpay them, much to my chagrin.
Looks like N America is finally getting back on track. The years have been tough on the kids and the parents alike.
Perhaps that is true on an aggregate basis. But it is a poor basis for making decisions hiring college graduates and experienced workers on an individual basis, since there is far more relevant and recent information available about each individual, and relatively few people take the SAT at age 13 anyway.
Sorry, but I have to wonder how much someone really understands what makes the greater business world tick, if they think this is all about major and stats. And, looking at want ads is such an incomplete way to measure opportunities or the many serious roles that need the best candidates possible.
So, adding to anecdotes, both of my girls were humanities, '13 and '14. Both are well employed in career business occupations, both well paid. In fact, the classics kid is in the tech arena. (Her first job was also tech related.) Not sure she even took a math class in college; I think she fulfilled her sci requirement with one course. Neither was asked by any employer for a transcript.
Their hs friend, who went to Harvard and works for Bain, started with an awe inspiring salary. During college, the number of tough and significant internships and projects she took on knocks me out. The kid is worthy. Btw, social studies concentrator.
This is all more sophisticated than, “I majored in this and here’s my transcript.” Put another way, just as some colleges want more than stats, many employers want that “more,” too.
ps. those studies seeking to predict performance are so often using stats to predict stats- SAT versus college grades or GPA against dollars earned. That can miss a huge part of what either a successful education or work life is about.
“Elite firms” do NOT have a “disproportionate influence” except in their own minds. McKinsey and BCG hire the way that works for them - and Boeing and Allstate and Nordstrom and Facebook and Proctor and Gamble and so forth hire the way that works for them. You are not in touch with the reality of business if you think that everyone else is just drooling over how McK and BCG do things. They are experts on identifying the people who fit best for their mission; they are not identifying The Top Talents in the world.
Different criteria are important for different positions, and different companies have different hiring practices. What may be appropriate for a banking company like Goldman Sachs, is not appropriate for the vast majority of others. For example, you brought up Google earlier as a company that was on the same page as you. In a NYT interview at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/business/in-head-hunting-big-data-may-not-be-such-a-big-deal.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&smid=tw-nytimesbusiness&partner=socialflow , the VP of People Operations at Google writes that their internal studies found that test scores were "worthless" as a criteria for hiring, as quoted below:
“One of the things we’ve seen from all our data crunching is that G.P.A.’s are worthless as a criteria for hiring, and test scores are worthless — no correlation at all except for brand-new college grads, where there’s a slight correlation.”
When I was looking for my first job after college, I interviewed with a dozen companies or so, including some large tech companies that typical grads find highly desirable. Not a single company asked for or even mentioned test scores during any point of the process, including ones that made job offers. Instead of test scores, typical employers emphasize experience and interviews. The employer survey at https://chronicle.com/items/biz/pdf/Employers%20Survey.pdf found that in all industries, the two most important factors for evaluating recent grads’ resumes were internships and employment during college, rather than academic criteria. Among academic criteria, college major was most important. However, employers treating college major as an important factor doesn’t mean that they care about it because major because has a weak correlation with intelligence. In many cases, college major is particularly important because of skills learned in college and/or relevance of college classes. For example, I work in engineering. If I search online for positions similar to mine, most say they require a degree in electrical engineering (usually grad degree) This requirement relates to learning about related electrical engineering material during college.
Is that really a surprise? Everything’s all about stats here. You can rank every school and program in absolute terms with top 20, top 50, top 100 schools. If you’re not in that group, you’re basically doomed.Even if [you’re top 100, if you’re not top 50 then you’re doomed too](Inferiority Complex - Parents Forum - College Confidential Forums).
It’s not surprising that people would apply the same kind of thinking and that same conceptual framework to everything else. There’s even perceived external validation for it in the form of those trade magazines that rank consulting firms, concepts like “Big Four” and “Big Six”, “Fortune 500”, etc. Those are phrases that are thrown around with the same tones of awe and reverence as “Ivy League”.
Is it BS? Yeah. But I’m not surprised that people think that way, especially here where the prestige of your group (whether it’s college or major or job) is equated with success.
Canuckguy, different abilities / forms of intelligence are important for different jobs within the SAME company. The emotional intelligence needed of my computer programmer is different from that needed of my vp of sales. And my graphics artists need an entirely different type of intelligence.
It is definitely true on the aggregate, and not on an individual basis. For firms like Bain, it is only an initial screen. It is also important to note they do layers of interview as well. The sequence- test first and interview last –is wise, in my opinion.
If taking a two hour test at age 13 can yield such results, I think SAT at 18 will yield even better results. I have advocated for a college exit exam because the results would be the best of all.
He was being flippant. Google hires from the right tail. This is precisely the result I would expect, statistically speaking.
You graduated from Stanford engineering. That tells me plenty. If I were the employer, I too would emphasize experience and interviews. If you graduated from Stanford in, let say, communication, I would want to see your SAT scores and your transcript, as Bain would.
The weakness in the study as I see it is this: there needs to be a finer distinction made among majors. Not all social sciences and humanities are easy; STEM majors differ in cognitive demand too.
I will need more time to look at the employer survey. It should be a great help for the students (and their parents) who are about to graduate.
So, what does a college exit exam tell you? How well the kid absorbed the lessons in classes? We already know there is a deficit in critical thinking skills. And, plenty of kids who graduate with nothing more than their college transcript- no par work experience to show them able, no internships to show they went beyond. You have to separate the pools you discuss. Same as in competitive college admissions. The 4.0 no rigor kid versus the 3.8 high rigor and engagement kid, who can think and problem solve beyond for that test or paper.
Also, you miss that major, where it means industry-specific training (the engineer needs to know engineering, for an engineering job,) means zip fo the rest of the valued skill sets. They hire based on how you can fill a job. Some folks spend too much time looking for statistical studies and the right proofs that shore up their opinions- and forget what the real world is about and what productivity really means to a corporation.
Why are you so obsessed with how Bain (or McK or BCG) does things? Bain’s mission is to find the right people for Bain’s unique set of needs. But people who work for Bain are not superior human beings or better than the entry level class at Proctor & Gamble or whatever. Why do you have such a “if Bain does it, it must be the best” mentality? They aren’t God.
I doubt you could be an art history major or a theater major or a classics major. What makes them “easier”? If they are so easy, then why don’t you lead the Metropolitan Museum of Art or write a symphony or perform on Broadway?
It was a serious response to the NYT interviewer’s question. He has made many similar statements in numerous other interviews. Most of a group being towards the right tail, does not prevent the possibility of correlation. For example, most students at highly selective colleges are towards the right tail, yet test scores at those schools do show a correlation with academic performance (the correlation gets quite small, if you filter for other factors such as GPA and course rigor). Yet Google’s internal studies found what he calls, “no correlation at all except for brand-new college grads, where there’s a slight correlation.”
Only a small portion of companies request SAT scores. What Bain does it not representative of the general experience for typical college grads, regardless of major.
While the mean SAT score varies with major, the individual SAT scores show much wider variation, particularly if you consider a wide variety of individual colleges with different levels of selectivity. For example, the page you linked mentions the average SAT score of social science majors is higher than the average SAT score of engineering majors, with both averaging near 1100 on M+V. While that may be true overall that engineering averages 1090 and social sciences averages 1110 in a particular group, there are also many engineers who score over 1300 on the SAT and many social science majors who score under 900. Assuming either major scores near 1100 will be ridiculously unreliable. Similarly if you try to estimate intelligence of individuals based on college major, your results will be even more unreliable. This type of guess score by major only works well if taking the average over a large group with previously known characteristics. Even if you do take averages over a group, when the group changes, the results can be completely different, as can be seen in how the GRE scores results show the opposite relation as SAT between social science majors and engineering majors, with engineering majors scoring highest on GRE and social science majors being among the lowest on GRE.
In your zeal to “tier” people, canuckguy, It apparently escapes you that a company hiring for a media position might prefer a Stanford communications grad over a Stanford engineering grad, and the same company hiring for an engineering position might prefer the Stanford engineering grad over the Stanford communications grad. It’s blunt and not very analytical to conclude that the engineering grad is always smarter or better than the comm grad. It seems like to you everything is a nail so hammers are always superior to screwdrivers.