Testing people's knowledge - Deepstash
A Job Seeker's Guide

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How to write an effective resume

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How to prepare for a job interview

A Job Seeker's Guide

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Testing people's knowledge

If you're a skilled interviewer, you know you can get around people faking their expertise: by testing people's knowledge and skills. But many interviewers don't even know what kind of knowledge and skills they're looking for.

So they ask brain teasers, like, "How many paperclips would fill Yankee Stadium," or "How many elevators are there in America?" Those kinds of questions can stump candidates and make interviewers feel clever. 

262

1.26K reads

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Even algorithms can be biased

The calculations may be run by computers, but they're based on data generated by humans, and there's plenty of evidence that computers often learn to discriminate against marginalized groups.

255

1.13K reads

Asking different questions to each candidate

One of the mistakes interviewers make is asking different questions to each candidate. That makes it impossible to compare apples to apples. You end up trying to contrast strawberries, bananas, and grapes. 

The solution is a structured interview. ...

273

978 reads

Interviewer biases

No matter how good your questions are, you still pick up more noise than signal, and one of the most distracting noises is interviewer biases.

Interviewers make up their minds about who they're going to hire, if they like this candidate in front of them **dat...

268

928 reads

The interview process is broken

The interview process is broken

Rigorous research across nearly a century suggests that if you try to rank the performance of a hundred candidates based on interviews, you'll be lucky if you get eight of them in the right spot. Job interviews are stuck in the past.

The failings of job interviews hurt all...

269

1.58K reads

Behavioral and situational questions

Structured interviews are based on two kinds of questions: behavioral and situational. 

  • Behavioral questions are generally, "Tell me about a time when you were in this situation and what you did." 
  • Situational questions are especially...

275

1.02K reads

The idea of "cultural fit"

These ideas of this cultural fit, "Do you fit with me?" often overwhelmed people's assessments of people's abilities to do the job.

The beneficial kind of cultural fit is not about who can swap lacrosse stories with you, or even who you're excited to hang out with. Want is...

256

900 reads

Faking it

Candidates try to tell interviewers what they want to hear. Actually faking is more common than lying. Faking is stretching the truth to enhance or protect your image, or to ingratiate yourself with the interviewer.

There's evidence that when college seniors interview f...

266

1.42K reads

The work sample

This is a relevant piece of work candidates have done, or one they do as part of the application process.

Work samples can be as simple as they are powerful. They can showcase the candidates' skills and values in real-time, in a concrete way that structured interviews and m...

258

912 reads

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rachegraham

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