How to Hire a Winner? Try a Game of Ping Pong

http://www.inc.com/minda-zetlin/how-to-make-better-hiring-decisions-ping-pong.html?cid=sf01002

by promocha • 12 years ago

30 47 12 years ago

inc.com

csbrooks• 12 years ago

This is a great way to make sure you only hire people who are just like you.

I'm not a fan.

huherto• 12 years ago

I guess if they published their interview technique it becomes useless.

0xdeadbeefbabe2• 12 years ago

Maybe they secretly know it isn't that useful after all.

jrs235• 12 years ago

Yes, perhaps they want to see what potential hires just try to game the interview process.

nsxwolf• 12 years ago

What kind of weird world do you people live in? This is obnoxious. Only one person has ever said no? I'd have made it two.

Paul_S2• 12 years ago

Maybe that's the only thing this test genuinely tests for. Maybe they don't want employees who let pride get in the way of doing what they are told.

ch4s35• 12 years ago

Then you would be awful to work for. People should take pride in what they do, and you shouldn't ask them to do demeaning things.

I mean, if you run a cleaning service or fix septic tanks... people know what they're in for.

josephschmoe• 12 years ago

This sounds like a great way to find people desperate enough to commit legally questionable acts.

hrktb• 12 years ago

I don't know if it's really a matter of pride, it just feels random, even with the explaination. The candidate is also evaluating the company, and I understand people not willing to work for companies that have evaluation practice they're not OK with (there is the risk the same kind of thinking goes for other evaluations as well)

binaryapparatus3• 12 years ago

Three. If they are talking to me half of their problems is already solved, whether they know it or not. Need dancers? Hire dancers and don't waste my time then...

neumann• 12 years ago

I would be totally up for the ping-pong game, and enjoy it.

Out of habit I would also escalate my skill as the 'tester', but that's because I only like competition when its my level. I would also start analysing whether this is more than just a one on one personality match experiment - which I welcome, but ideally with my future manager/coworkers.

If they admitted to filming it, I would thank them for the game, tell them it creeped me out and tell my friends at the pub about the most f*cked up company interview that I ever had.

codyb2• 12 years ago

The world constantly changes. Currently it is not a societal construct that people play ping pong at job interviews. If the study proves fruitful, perhaps in decades to come, it will be.

The real question is why the opportunity to play some friendly ping pong seems so obnoxious to you. Who cares? Why not dismiss the negativity and just have fun playing some ping pong?

Perhaps the study will lead to something, if so, sweet! You helped out!

Perhaps it won't, okay, well the only way to succeed is to risk failure.

But either way you got to engage your brain and play ping pong and meet people and do something out of the ordinary. It seems like something to be embraced.

baddox2• 12 years ago

I'd have said yes, because I enjoy ping pong. But I certainly wouldn't go along with the crazy stuff, like having it videotaped for analysis, answering a questionnaire about my playing ability and aggressiveness, etc. It's pretty clear that, despite saying the opposite, they are literally judging people by their ability.

But if you replace ping pong with something similar that I'm not interested in and don't enjoy, then I would probably say no.

Glyptodon• 12 years ago

I'd rather play ping pong than spend 4 hours programming on a white board. Though maybe that makes me a bad programmer? Ha ha.

0xdeadbeefbabe2• 12 years ago

Haven't you ever heard of a nerd? False positives on this test could lead you to hire the wrong nerd after all. I've heard there are people more interested in the obfuscated C competition than anything in the physical world including filling out surveys etc.

Paul_S2• 12 years ago

At this point I can't even tell anymore if this is some subtle sarcastic commentary on how ridiculous interviews can get or a real way to hire employees. I no longer care. When I'm looking for work I'm game for anything. I'll perform interpretative dance if you happen to think this reveals my true personality, I don't see the harm (at least to me). Any judgements you make based on it will be purely justifications you come up with for the decision you have already made based on other things - probably whether or not you like or trust me. I'm all right with that.

Consultant32452• 12 years ago

Poe's Law

asdfologist• 12 years ago

What's wrong with it? It's optional (one candidate refused), and candidates can have fun doing it, so it could be a win-win.

aResponder1• 12 years ago

It promotes a fun-first work environment.

Nicholas_C2• 12 years ago

"Afterward, Bellenfant watches and evaluates, along with a statistician from Vanderbilt, a psychologist from Vanderbilt, and the president of the Nashville Table Tennis Club."

Seems a little overkill, but I like the idea in general.

"One young woman recently interviewed for an intern position. 'During the recruiting process she displayed a high level of confidence and enjoyed making people laugh,' Bellenfant says. In the original questionnaire, she rated her excitement level at the prospect of playing at 13 (on the scale of 1-10), and her ping pong skill level at seven.

When she played, it became obvious that she'd overestimated her abilities. 'We would have put her at two or three,' he says. Yet in the questionnaire after the game, she rated her skill level at six. 'She maintained that high level of confidence, which we think is a positive thing,' Bellenfant says. The company hired her, and he predicts she will be a strong performer."

Wouldn't being ridiculously over confident like this player be a negative sign? That seems like the kind of person who would power through things by themselves and do it completely wrong while being convinced it's right.

ch4s35• 12 years ago

I thought that was weird too.

knurdle• 12 years ago

I thought the same thing. Sounds like a classic case of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Maybe they haven't heard of it.

baddox2• 12 years ago

How can you even call that "overconfident" without knowing the methodology she's using for her rating? Does 7/10 mean "I'm better at ping pong than 70% of the world's population," or "I'm better at ping pong that 70% of people who self-identify as ping pong players," or some other methodology?

tormeh• 12 years ago

It could be for a position where confidence and excess positivity is good, like sales.

Nicholas_C2• 12 years ago

Very true. I did not consider that.

BSousa• 12 years ago

I come from a family of table tennis players (mother was national champ, cousin national champ, I only got to be regional champ). I can honestly say, table tennis is a sport where almost everyone overestimates their experience.

A professional game is completely different than an hobby one, and 99% of the people only saw hobby players playing or those crazy fun plays in youtube where someone is volleying like crazy for some spectator fun.

binaryapparatus3• 12 years ago

Any company that demonstrates this kind of thinking is actually only interested in drones willing to follow whatever orders are at the table.

"We don't know what data we're getting but it is interesting"? Dance my minions!

Reminds me on that "It's fucking startup" quasi enthusiastic story from the other day https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7619439

codyb2• 12 years ago

Or alternatively, any company that demonstrates this kind of thinking is only interested in people not as cynical as you.

;-).

Jeez, can't anything just be fun and interesting?

And aren't those companies that give you a task to do just to get an interview (I've encountered this before) that the company will probably code review and put into production far more insidious? It seems to me the "Work for free before we even really talk to you" crowd of companies is looking for drones more than the company interested in a unique way of evaluating the way a person interacts with other people in a competitive and out of the ordinary situation.

binaryapparatus3• 12 years ago

Or alternatively, any company that demonstrates this kind of thinking is only interested in people not as cynical as you.

Very possible, I don't hide my despise toward meaningless evaluating and team building techniques. If you are running a company in need of my skills you need me as cynical as I can get because you need no-bs results.

Jeez, can't anything just be fun and interesting?

It can but this is not friendly team building game. This is committee evaluating candidate play. Can't see fun in that.

ch4s35• 12 years ago

"If they rated themselves a seven in skill level before the games and now they see themselves as a three, maybe they learned something ... On the other hand, a candidate who rated him or herself as a three originally and a seven after the game may show hard self-judgment."

"We would have put her at two or three," he says. Yet in the questionnaire after the game, she rated her skill level at six. "She maintained that high level of confidence, which we think is a positive thing," Bellenfant says. The company hired her, and he predicts she will be a strong performer."

What? Overrating your skill shows that you lack self-judgement, this girl overrated her own skill so they hired her. This whole thing seems ludacris. I mean, yeah I'm game for whatever to get a job, but this article just defies reason to the point of seeming delusional.

Harelin• 12 years ago

Makes you wonder how truthful she was about the core competence she was hired for.

ch4s35• 12 years ago

indeed.

joelrunyon• 12 years ago

This whole thing seems ludacris.

Ludacris --> rapper.

Ludicrous --> unreasonable.

ch4s35• 12 years ago

yeah, I caught that after I posted it, but decided that ludacris fit the sentiment, so I didn't bother editing it.

cratermoon• 12 years ago

Overrating your skill

Classic Dunning–Kruger effect. Why would a company want to hire incompetent people who don't even know they are incompetent?

chris_mahan2• 12 years ago

Forrest Gump?

hythloday• 12 years ago

"We found we were just too likely to positively evaluate disabled people, offer them a job and then find they had all sorts of costly health problems", said the study author. "As a small growing company we can't afford that sort of drain, so this roots them out before we get to that stage".

drcongo• 12 years ago

I'd give this comment 10 upvotes if I could.

deedubaya• 12 years ago

Wanna hire a real stud? I mean, someone who will really perform?

Hire a hooker, and REALLY get to know your potential employee.

pramanat• 12 years ago

Reminds me of Gulliver's Travels where the Emperor of Lilliput appoints court officials by their rope dancing skills.

http://www.shmoop.com/gullivers-travels/the-lilliputians.htm...

hiharryhere• 12 years ago

That's an amazing reference. 10 points

logfromblammo• 12 years ago

Is this April 1st? No?

The simple truth is this: people have no idea how to hire good people, or even how to evaluate their existing employees to see who is good and who is not.

And it is especially difficult when the prospective employees know the stakes. If they don't present a particular image well enough, they won't get the job. Every single person that comes in for an interview is acting out a role--the person they think you want to hire. If you invent a tactic to see the real person behind the role, it only works for a short time, until people know you use it and adapt accordingly.

This is why the Monty Python sketch with the job interviewer ringing the bell and counting down loudly still holds up. That was from 1969. Nineteen sixty-nine. If you re-made it today, you could even keep the same punchline!

WalterBright2• 12 years ago

I'd flunk that job interview.

I dislike ping pong in particular. I find it dull. I long ago lost interest in winning at dull, pointless games.

eogas• 12 years ago

Are you a robot?

WalterBright2• 12 years ago

Why yes, I am. The sack-of-meat Walter Bright was replaced years ago by myself, the latest D-9000 computer. He was always jeopardizing the mission.

chris_mahan2• 12 years ago

Bruce Lee (with numchucks--look it up on youtube, it's freaking amazing)

joesmo• 12 years ago

Amusing. I think driving would be a terrible activity to practice this with. Ping pong works because it's generally a neutral activity in life like any sport. Ping pong does not present imminent, potentially-fatal dangers or anything even close. Also, most people do not have strong preexisting opinions about it. On the other hand, driving is an intense activity where the consequences are life or death and any driver will have strong preexisting opinions about it. Would it be fair to say I'm an aggressive person who can't keep their cool if I yell profanities at the person who almost killed me a moment ago? That's ridiculous. The activities are definitely not interchangeable. Finally, what would they make of my skill rating of one both before and after the game? Would it be interpreted as a lack of confidence or will my failure to score be redeeming (Yes, I suck that much)?

How to Hire a Winner? Try a Game of Ping Pong

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