> A secondary goal of the “behavioral interview” is personality homogenization where companies want to enforce not hiring anybody “too different” from their current mean personality engram. Yet, the tech industry is historically full of weird divergent people doing great things for their own reasons (though, due to just basic population growth over the past 20 years, there are tens of millions more “normie computer people” now offsetting all the smaller pool of original “weird computer people”). When you start enforcing personality bubbles outside of what somebody can do, you’re just doing some sort of weird economic eugenics thing (make programming weird again!).
I think that's only half the truth. Tech in the "good old days" heavily selected for a particular personality engram, and it still does today, but that engram has shifted.
There was a time when, as I'm told, turning up in a suit to a facebook interview was a big negative, and wearing exactly the right kind of gray t-shirt was a bonus. They were very much filtering for culture, but back then they were filtering for "nerd culture". Nowadays, they're filtering for a different culture - call it "normie computer people" if you like. The amount to which personality bubbles are being enforced hasn't varied, just the bubble has shifted.
If it's true that the weird computer people are better programmers / engineers / system architects than the normies, there should be an opportunity to beat the market on average here.
I did get told at one gig that I was almost not hired for the sin of showing up to the interview in a black collared shirt and jeans. They might have been taking the mickey out of me, though.
I mean, I thought it was the Silly Valley dress code! Heck, I'm pretty sure I wore sandals with socks!
I think that's only half the truth. Tech in the "good old days" heavily selected for a particular personality engram, and it still does today, but that engram has shifted.
There was a time when, as I'm told, turning up in a suit to a facebook interview was a big negative, and wearing exactly the right kind of gray t-shirt was a bonus. They were very much filtering for culture, but back then they were filtering for "nerd culture". Nowadays, they're filtering for a different culture - call it "normie computer people" if you like. The amount to which personality bubbles are being enforced hasn't varied, just the bubble has shifted.
If it's true that the weird computer people are better programmers / engineers / system architects than the normies, there should be an opportunity to beat the market on average here.