So should such puzzles be illegal in technical interviews -- at least until the supporting research is done and widely accepted?
One could argue that such content questions discriminates against certain groups of people without supporting research showing such memorizing ability is necessary for programming.
So should such questions be illegal in technical interviews --- at least until the supporting research is done and widely accepted?
But that still ignores the issue about whether puzzle solving and programming ability are highly correlated.
(Assuming you're working at a firm that actually develops software, instead of handing a template to some code-monkeys and telling them to use off-the-shelf Microsoft or Java widgets and assemble them into something vaguely resemblant. But the latter firms don't really use puzzles anyway. They hire based on degrees and certifications.)
If you think that they'd make superior employees, nothing is stopping you from employing them. If you're correct, that will give you a significant advantage over employers who make the wrong choice. Why aren't you willing to make money from being correct?
In a world without such laws, what you say applies.
The whole point of a job interview is discrimination.
Now granted I have read a few studies indicating that it is possible to derive puzzles in such a way that to weed out certain demographics. One could argue the same thing based on what college someone went to and when based on the published numbers from that school and logical analysis. Should asking what college you went to and when be illegal?
As it stands right now, "puzzle solving ineptness" is not one of the groups of people protected by the equal opportunity act.
Other groups may be affected as well.
You could make a good case that success on puzzle questions has a decent correlation with success as a programmer--that is, the ability to solve puzzles is probably a BFOQ for programmers, so it's safe from a legal standpoint.
Questions like these often are about the questioner than anything else. If I were to ask "Should it be illegal for McKinsey to demand an MBA from Harvard before hiring people?" , it probably reveals more about my attitudes than anything else.
What made you consider such an idea? Any negative experiences with puzles in an interview? I am genuinely curious.As you might guess, I don't think much of technical interviews, especially the ones with puzzles.
This would be at the level of what the early internet hippies promised, way back in the beginning :)
A timed test of where you have to do a lot of boring math problems like long-multiplication and division of large sums. I hate boring math, but figured I didn't want to be an accountant, so I didn't stress out over it.
Another timed test where you're given character sequences, and you have to guess what comes next. That was the one all us hackers in the group of interviewees were bragging about after the test. "Oh yeah? I got through all but the last two!", that sort of thing.
We were told our results were not a condition of employment (though this was during the interview process) and they would be kept in our employee profiles, but we couldn't ever find out how we did.
Or perhaps 'Vexatious Litigator News'.
But for 'Hacker News', not so much.
http://www.eeoc.gov/facts/qanda.html
You'll see a number of groups identified at various points. Lists of them usually start with something like "race, color, religion..." These are known as 'suspect classifications' and discrimination is often not possible except where a suspect class is involved.
Suspect classes themselves have been defined by the Supreme Court via 14th amendment rulings, and include specific criteria that determine what level of scrutiny is applied to the law. If a victim is not a member of a suspect class, then it will be very difficult to prove discrimination. (Though it can happen, for example Gay Marriage in MA)
Companies have a great deal of freedom to 'discriminate'(defined in global scope) in hiring practices, though their ability to 'discriminate'(defined in legal scope) is limited for good reason.
(I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. I also don't think puzzle tests should count as discrimination.)
Disagreement should not be dealt with by force, it should be dealt with by persuasion, (and with competition). The only exception is when force would happen no matter what we do (ie, they want to assault or defraud someone, then force takes place whether we stop them or not).
When people want to peacefully do things we think are bad, like discriminate, or watch Desperate Housewives, or buy homeopathic medicine, the best thing to do is leave them alone. Do we really want the Government monitoring and judging our peaceful economic choices? The only thing at stake with discrimination is it prevents cooperation between certain people. But so what? I do not have a right to have others work with me; such things should be purely voluntary. And there are still plenty of better, non-discriminating people to work with.