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Comment by kube-system | Hacker News Reader

Not that I agree with it, but maybe they ask those kinds of questions because they want people who will just answer the damn questions, rather than argue with them over it.

> High School: I got kicked out of AP English for insubordination in high school.

...is this evidence that the filter is bad, or evidence that the filter is working?

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Is this evidence that the applicant is bad, or good?

This story is real, but I understand if you don't believe it: The year I finished school, all but one of my school's English Lit students failed the state exam (TEE). The only one that passed was the guy coming bottom of the class.

Depends on what kind of applicant they're looking for. In some roles you may want someone who is not afraid to challenge rules and conventions, in some roles, rules and conventions exist for very important reasons. The preferred balance varies per organization/team/role etc, just as it does for any other attribute of someone's style of work.

That stood out to me too. This could be very valuable information, in the employer's opinion, to make their choice.

The author's counterpoint might be that there are a lot of similar behavioral/subordination/personal-history questions that they could have asked, but didn't, because, as TFA discusses, a lot of stuff you did when you were barely starting to be an adult doesn't matter after a few years.

The problem with the hiring process is that there's no one correct way to do it.

What consistently confuses me is why any highly marketable professional would be frustrated about an organization filtering in a way that they disagree with. If you can tell that an organization is not for you in the application form, that's literally the best time to find out. I don't know why anyone would want to go into business with people who they disagree with on how to run a business.

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