chess players...

[RichD]

If an interview of job applicant reveals he\'s a
high rated chess player - or maybe it\'s on his
resume - is that a point in his favor? Or do you
regard it as an irrelevant hobby?

--
Rich

 

[Ricky]

On Monday, April 10, 2023 at 1:48:32 PM UTC-4, RichD wrote:

If an interview of job applicant reveals he\'s a
high rated chess player - or maybe it\'s on his
resume - is that a point in his favor? Or do you
regard it as an irrelevant hobby?

It would not be of much significance to me. I would be much more interested in the specifics of what he has done in his job and what he might have potential for in the future.

There are many ways to measure intelligence, which is what a high chess rating would show. However, this does not necessarily correlate with job skills. Few jobs are all technical. There are many personal traits that need to be considered as well.

--

Rick C.

- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[bitrex]

On 4/10/2023 1:48 PM, RichD wrote:

If an interview of job applicant reveals he\'s a
high rated chess player - or maybe it\'s on his
resume - is that a point in his favor? Or do you
regard it as an irrelevant hobby?

--
Rich

Annoying, the credential is dubiously related but it\'s one more thing
you have to verify anyway to make sure you\'re not hiring a pathological
liar.

See e.g. Google and James Damore who claimed the same but just made it
up, if only they\'d done due diligence on that guy it would\'ve saved them
quite a bit of headache.

 

[Martin Brown]

On 10/04/2023 18:48, RichD wrote:

If an interview of job applicant reveals he\'s a
high rated chess player - or maybe it\'s on his
resume - is that a point in his favor? Or do you
regard it as an irrelevant hobby?

How high a rating? If they are at GM+ then they may not need your job or
could be away for a fair proportion of the time playing at tournaments.

If you can test their ability it isn\'t a bad indicator of high pattern
matching intelligence, very good memory and having started at an early
age. It is a fair indicator of strong visuo-spatial abilities too.

Test them against a few progressively more difficult test positions
chosen from CT_Art if you want to separate the wheat from the chaff
(other sources of hard chess puzzles with correct answers are available).

https://www.chesshouse.com/products/ct-art-4-0-download

You have probably heard of Roger Penrose the physics Nobel laureate but
you may not have heard of his less famous chess prodigy brother Jonathan
(or their father who was also famous in his own right).

https://en.chessbase.com/post/the-penrose-family-scientists-and-chess-players

So I guess in employment it depends a lot on how distracted by pursuit
of chess they are as to whether or not they are a good bet to employ.

--
Martin Brown

 

[bitrex]

On 4/10/2023 3:07 PM, Martin Brown wrote:

On 10/04/2023 18:48, RichD wrote:
If an interview of job applicant reveals he\'s a
high rated chess player - or maybe it\'s on his
resume - is that a point in his favor?  Or do you
regard it as an irrelevant hobby?

How high a rating? If they are at GM+ then they may not need your job or
could be away for a fair proportion of the time playing at tournaments.

We\'re trying to convince RichD to not claim to be a \"high rated chess
player\" on his resume okay

 

[Lasse Langwadt Christensen]

mandag den 10. april 2023 kl. 20.22.41 UTC+2 skrev bitrex:

On 4/10/2023 1:48 PM, RichD wrote:
If an interview of job applicant reveals he\'s a
high rated chess player - or maybe it\'s on his
resume - is that a point in his favor? Or do you
regard it as an irrelevant hobby?

--
Rich
Annoying, the credential is dubiously related but it\'s one more thing
you have to verify anyway to make sure you\'re not hiring a pathological
liar.

See e.g. Google and James Damore who claimed the same but just made it
up, if only they\'d done due diligence on that guy it would\'ve saved them
quite a bit of headache.

yeh, people who don\'t know how to shut up and follow the religion and
think they should actually research and answer honestly on such matters
of religion is nothing but trouble

 

[bitrex]

On 4/10/2023 3:20 PM, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:

mandag den 10. april 2023 kl. 20.22.41 UTC+2 skrev bitrex:
On 4/10/2023 1:48 PM, RichD wrote:
If an interview of job applicant reveals he\'s a
high rated chess player - or maybe it\'s on his
resume - is that a point in his favor? Or do you
regard it as an irrelevant hobby?

--
Rich
Annoying, the credential is dubiously related but it\'s one more thing
you have to verify anyway to make sure you\'re not hiring a pathological
liar.

See e.g. Google and James Damore who claimed the same but just made it
up, if only they\'d done due diligence on that guy it would\'ve saved them
quite a bit of headache.

yeh, people who don\'t know how to shut up and follow the religion and
think they should actually research and answer honestly on such matters
of religion is nothing but trouble

He was a problem employee who lied on his resume before all of that, not
really worth making a martyr of (though no doubt he thinks himself as
such.)

 

[Don Y]

On 4/10/2023 12:07 PM, Martin Brown wrote:

How high a rating? If they are at GM+ then they may not need your job or could
be away for a fair proportion of the time playing at tournaments.

I\'d wonder *why* they were looking for the sort of job being offered and why
their *past* job couldn\'t \"hold them\". I met a savant (arithmetic), once.
Aside from his *one* skill, he needed someone to hold his hand continuously to
get through the \"complexities\" of life (e.g., *bowling*!)

If you can test their ability it isn\'t a bad indicator of high pattern matching
intelligence, very good memory and having started at an early age. It is a fair
indicator of strong visuo-spatial abilities too.

Again, see above. \"Why are you applying for THIS job?\"

Test them against a few progressively more difficult test positions chosen from
CT_Art if you want to separate the wheat from the chaff (other sources of hard
chess puzzles with correct answers are available).

https://www.chesshouse.com/products/ct-art-4-0-download

You have probably heard of Roger Penrose the physics Nobel laureate but you may
not have heard of his less famous chess prodigy brother Jonathan (or their
father who was also famous in his own right).

https://en.chessbase.com/post/the-penrose-family-scientists-and-chess-players

So I guess in employment it depends a lot on how distracted by pursuit of chess
they are as to whether or not they are a good bet to employ.

In reviewing job applicants, I\'ve found \"personality\" often more of an
indicator than \"apparent skillset\".

I\'ve encountered folks who are incredibly skilled (but, usually in a very
narrowly-focused domain) who had little to contribute to anything outside of
their area of expertise. And, little *interest* in doing so. This can lead
to their self-isolation on a team. Or, their desire to try to fit every
problem to their \"hammer\".

I\'ve been more pleased with the applicants who show genuine *interest* in
problems/issues that are presented. Admittedly, it\'s hard to get a very
\"deep\" assessment of the problems you pose in such a short time; but, do
they ask the *right* sort of questions for the job? E.g., someone who
expresses awe at a product by inquiring as to it\'s SELLING PRICE is
probably not a good fit for an engineering position!

 

[Lasse Langwadt Christensen]

mandag den 10. april 2023 kl. 21.30.03 UTC+2 skrev bitrex:

On 4/10/2023 3:20 PM, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
mandag den 10. april 2023 kl. 20.22.41 UTC+2 skrev bitrex:
On 4/10/2023 1:48 PM, RichD wrote:
If an interview of job applicant reveals he\'s a
high rated chess player - or maybe it\'s on his
resume - is that a point in his favor? Or do you
regard it as an irrelevant hobby?

--
Rich
Annoying, the credential is dubiously related but it\'s one more thing
you have to verify anyway to make sure you\'re not hiring a pathological
liar.

See e.g. Google and James Damore who claimed the same but just made it
up, if only they\'d done due diligence on that guy it would\'ve saved them
quite a bit of headache.

yeh, people who don\'t know how to shut up and follow the religion and
think they should actually research and answer honestly on such matters
of religion is nothing but trouble
He was a problem employee who lied on his resume before all of that, not
really worth making a martyr of (though no doubt he thinks himself as
such.)

when someone asks questions that doesn\'t fit the ideology and exposes hypocrisy
A quick smear campaign is in order to discourage anyone else from doing such silly things

 

[Carl]

On 4/10/23 13:48, RichD wrote:

If an interview of job applicant reveals he\'s a
high rated chess player - or maybe it\'s on his
resume - is that a point in his favor? Or do you
regard it as an irrelevant hobby?

--
Rich

If nothing else it shows they possess one set of intellectual skills
that may or may not help with electronics, and that they put in the work
and time to earn that rating. Hopefully that perseverance would
transfer to the job.

--
Regards,
Carl

 

[bitrex]

On 4/10/2023 3:39 PM, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:

mandag den 10. april 2023 kl. 21.30.03 UTC+2 skrev bitrex:
On 4/10/2023 3:20 PM, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
mandag den 10. april 2023 kl. 20.22.41 UTC+2 skrev bitrex:
On 4/10/2023 1:48 PM, RichD wrote:
If an interview of job applicant reveals he\'s a
high rated chess player - or maybe it\'s on his
resume - is that a point in his favor? Or do you
regard it as an irrelevant hobby?

--
Rich
Annoying, the credential is dubiously related but it\'s one more thing
you have to verify anyway to make sure you\'re not hiring a pathological
liar.

See e.g. Google and James Damore who claimed the same but just made it
up, if only they\'d done due diligence on that guy it would\'ve saved them
quite a bit of headache.

yeh, people who don\'t know how to shut up and follow the religion and
think they should actually research and answer honestly on such matters
of religion is nothing but trouble
He was a problem employee who lied on his resume before all of that, not
really worth making a martyr of (though no doubt he thinks himself as
such.)

when someone asks questions that doesn\'t fit the ideology and exposes hypocrisy
A quick smear campaign is in order to discourage anyone else from doing such silly things

Far as I can recall nobody at Google liked him enough to hand in their
resignation over it, like \"This injustice will not stand, either he
stays or I go too.\"

Pretty sure somebody relevant has to actually like and respect you as a
person before anyone can run a \"smear campaign\", yeah? well, maybe
Google is just that woke.

 

[bitrex]

On 4/10/2023 3:57 PM, bitrex wrote:

On 4/10/2023 3:39 PM, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
mandag den 10. april 2023 kl. 21.30.03 UTC+2 skrev bitrex:
On 4/10/2023 3:20 PM, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
mandag den 10. april 2023 kl. 20.22.41 UTC+2 skrev bitrex:
On 4/10/2023 1:48 PM, RichD wrote:
If an interview of job applicant reveals he\'s a
high rated chess player - or maybe it\'s on his
resume - is that a point in his favor? Or do you
regard it as an irrelevant hobby?

--
Rich
Annoying, the credential is dubiously related but it\'s one more thing
you have to verify anyway to make sure you\'re not hiring a
pathological
liar.

See e.g. Google and James Damore who claimed the same but just made it
up, if only they\'d done due diligence on that guy it would\'ve saved
them
quite a bit of headache.

yeh, people who don\'t know how to shut up and follow the religion and
think they should actually research and answer honestly on such matters
of religion is nothing but trouble
He was a problem employee who lied on his resume before all of that, not
really worth making a martyr of (though no doubt he thinks himself as
such.)

when someone asks questions that doesn\'t fit the ideology and exposes
hypocrisy
A quick smear campaign is in order to discourage anyone else from
doing such silly things

Far as I can recall nobody at Google liked him enough to hand in their
resignation over it, like \"This injustice will not stand, either he
stays or I go too.\"

I mean, I\'d have handed in my resignation over it. But if Google hired
me I\'d immediately resign anyway so I guess that doesn\'t count for much.

 

[Lasse Langwadt Christensen]

mandag den 10. april 2023 kl. 21.57.50 UTC+2 skrev bitrex:

On 4/10/2023 3:39 PM, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
mandag den 10. april 2023 kl. 21.30.03 UTC+2 skrev bitrex:
On 4/10/2023 3:20 PM, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
mandag den 10. april 2023 kl. 20.22.41 UTC+2 skrev bitrex:
On 4/10/2023 1:48 PM, RichD wrote:
If an interview of job applicant reveals he\'s a
high rated chess player - or maybe it\'s on his
resume - is that a point in his favor? Or do you
regard it as an irrelevant hobby?

--
Rich
Annoying, the credential is dubiously related but it\'s one more thing
you have to verify anyway to make sure you\'re not hiring a pathological
liar.

See e.g. Google and James Damore who claimed the same but just made it
up, if only they\'d done due diligence on that guy it would\'ve saved them
quite a bit of headache.

yeh, people who don\'t know how to shut up and follow the religion and
think they should actually research and answer honestly on such matters
of religion is nothing but trouble
He was a problem employee who lied on his resume before all of that, not
really worth making a martyr of (though no doubt he thinks himself as
such.)

when someone asks questions that doesn\'t fit the ideology and exposes hypocrisy
A quick smear campaign is in order to discourage anyone else from doing such silly things
Far as I can recall nobody at Google liked him enough to hand in their
resignation over it, like \"This injustice will not stand, either he
stays or I go too.\"

afair several threatened to and said such silly things like they hadn\'t been able to work for days because of anger

It tells something when an autist engineer writes a memo and instead of explaining why and how he\'s wrong
they oust him

 

[Martin Brown]

On 10/04/2023 20:13, bitrex wrote:

On 4/10/2023 3:07 PM, Martin Brown wrote:
On 10/04/2023 18:48, RichD wrote:
If an interview of job applicant reveals he\'s a
high rated chess player - or maybe it\'s on his
resume - is that a point in his favor?  Or do you
regard it as an irrelevant hobby?

I\'d be more suspicious of someone who had no hobbies at all. If he has
an ELO rating in competition I don\'t see any harm in saying so.

How high a rating? If they are at GM+ then they may not need your job
or could be away for a fair proportion of the time playing at
tournaments.

We\'re trying to convince RichD to not claim to be a \"high rated chess
player\" on his resume okay

OK. It wasn\'t clear to me which way around it was.

I assumed he was interviewing an applicant who had made that claim.

I\'d say it was a double edged sword - some interviewers in the
electronics business might also be highly rated chess players...
so he\'d better not be bluffing.

--
Martin Brown

 

[bitrex]

On 4/10/2023 4:17 PM, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:

mandag den 10. april 2023 kl. 21.57.50 UTC+2 skrev bitrex:
On 4/10/2023 3:39 PM, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
mandag den 10. april 2023 kl. 21.30.03 UTC+2 skrev bitrex:
On 4/10/2023 3:20 PM, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
mandag den 10. april 2023 kl. 20.22.41 UTC+2 skrev bitrex:
On 4/10/2023 1:48 PM, RichD wrote:
If an interview of job applicant reveals he\'s a
high rated chess player - or maybe it\'s on his
resume - is that a point in his favor? Or do you
regard it as an irrelevant hobby?

--
Rich
Annoying, the credential is dubiously related but it\'s one more thing
you have to verify anyway to make sure you\'re not hiring a pathological
liar.

See e.g. Google and James Damore who claimed the same but just made it
up, if only they\'d done due diligence on that guy it would\'ve saved them
quite a bit of headache.

yeh, people who don\'t know how to shut up and follow the religion and
think they should actually research and answer honestly on such matters
of religion is nothing but trouble
He was a problem employee who lied on his resume before all of that, not
really worth making a martyr of (though no doubt he thinks himself as
such.)

when someone asks questions that doesn\'t fit the ideology and exposes hypocrisy
A quick smear campaign is in order to discourage anyone else from doing such silly things
Far as I can recall nobody at Google liked him enough to hand in their
resignation over it, like \"This injustice will not stand, either he
stays or I go too.\"

afair several threatened to and said such silly things like they hadn\'t been able to work for days because of anger

It tells something when an autist engineer writes a memo and instead of explaining why and how he\'s wrong
they oust him

A scenario where an autistic engineer tells his superiors \"I\'ve noticed
there\'s a lot of employees who probably shouldn\'t be here in this
company. Prove me wrong\" and they reply \"You\'re not wrong! You\'re fired.
Thanks for bringing this issue to our attention.\"

maybe isn\'t the type of humor an autistic engineer would \"get\" too good,
but a lot of other people would probably find it pretty funny.

 

[bitrex]

On 4/10/2023 4:28 PM, Martin Brown wrote:

On 10/04/2023 20:13, bitrex wrote:
On 4/10/2023 3:07 PM, Martin Brown wrote:
On 10/04/2023 18:48, RichD wrote:
If an interview of job applicant reveals he\'s a
high rated chess player - or maybe it\'s on his
resume - is that a point in his favor?  Or do you
regard it as an irrelevant hobby?

I\'d be more suspicious of someone who had no hobbies at all. If he has
an ELO rating in competition I don\'t see any harm in saying so.

How high a rating? If they are at GM+ then they may not need your job
or could be away for a fair proportion of the time playing at
tournaments.

We\'re trying to convince RichD to not claim to be a \"high rated chess
player\" on his resume okay

OK. It wasn\'t clear to me which way around it was.

I assumed he was interviewing an applicant who had made that claim.

I\'d say it was a double edged sword - some interviewers in the
electronics business might also be highly rated chess players...
so he\'d better not be bluffing.

Saying you\'re 6\' tall on your online dating profile when you\'re really
only 5\'11\" and a quarter, or saying you helped sell 20k units last year
on a resume when the grand total was actually only 19,487, are the kind
of fibs that make the world go \'round.

Lying about credentials, however, is very serious business and I\'d never
hire anyone who \"bluffed\" about a credential as straightforward to
verify as chess rankings, even though it\'s \"only\" chess rankings and not
something directly related to the job description doesn\'t make it any
better.

Maybe worse, at least lying about an employment-related credential is in
some sense understandable as goal oriented, but what kind of asshole
would lie about their chess ranking when it\'s not even required?

So you have to check to ensure you\'re not dealing with that kind of
asshole, even if you figure it\'s a small chance you are.

 

[Don Y]

On 4/10/2023 2:04 PM, bitrex wrote:

Saying you\'re 6\' tall on your online dating profile when you\'re really only
5\'11\" and a quarter, or saying you helped sell 20k units last year on a resume
when the grand total was actually only 19,487, are the kind of fibs that make
the world go \'round.

Lying about credentials, however, is very serious business and I\'d never hire
anyone who \"bluffed\" about a credential as straightforward to verify as chess
rankings, even though it\'s \"only\" chess rankings and not something directly
related to the job description doesn\'t make it any better.

Maybe worse, at least lying about an employment-related credential is in some
sense understandable as goal oriented, but what kind of asshole would lie about
their chess ranking when it\'s not even required?

So you have to check to ensure you\'re not dealing with that kind of asshole,
even if you figure it\'s a small chance you are.

Underlying all that is the assumption that the interviewer actually *cared*
about the claim(s) being made.

A friend\'s son creates crossword puzzles (yeah, I guess *someone* has to
do it). He (friend) commented about how pleased his son was to have made his
first *symmetric* crossword (I hadn\'t realized that this is actually a
goal -- until he put a name on it). If he came in for an interview and
I chatted with him, I\'d wonder why he had so much time on his hands to
devote to designing *a* puzzle (and how many of these he might be able to
do in a year)-- that one could likely write a piece of code to do faster
and more repeatably!

I was an Eagle scout. I\'ve never disclosed that on a job application or
resume; OTOH, when applying to colleges, there\'s not much that a teenager
can claim to have \"done\" -- so, appropriate in that context.

Show me a system/circuit/code-fragment that you\'ve created and let me
\"quiz\" you on that; if you can\'t answer *ALL* of my questions, then I\'m
going to have serious doubts as to your grasp of The Truth.

[I had an applicant come in and present a large piece of code as his own.
I recognized the product. And, personally knew the REAL developer.
Without looking up from reviewing the listing (cuz my facial expression
would betray me), I asked \"What part of this did Ernesto di Plunoberry
(fictitious name intended to draw attention the the oddness of the
actual author\'s name) write?\" *Silence* ]

Let \"Personnel\" sort out the verifiable claims (education, age, past
work history, etc.) and ignore the rest -- except as trivia.

 

[John Larkin]

On Mon, 10 Apr 2023 10:48:27 -0700 (PDT), RichD
<r_delaney2001@yahoo.com> wrote:

If an interview of job applicant reveals he\'s a
high rated chess player - or maybe it\'s on his
resume - is that a point in his favor? Or do you
regard it as an irrelevant hobby?

I\'d ask him if he thinks the chess skill relates to the job. That
would be interesting.

Some chess champs are very weird.

 

[Clive Arthur]

On 10/04/2023 18:48, RichD wrote:

If an interview of job applicant reveals he\'s a
high rated chess player - or maybe it\'s on his
resume - is that a point in his favor? Or do you
regard it as an irrelevant hobby?

--
Rich

\"That must take up a lot of your time?\"

--
Cheers
Clive

 

[Ricky]

On Monday, April 10, 2023 at 3:46:32 PM UTC-4, Carl wrote:

On 4/10/23 13:48, RichD wrote:
If an interview of job applicant reveals he\'s a
high rated chess player - or maybe it\'s on his
resume - is that a point in his favor? Or do you
regard it as an irrelevant hobby?

--
Rich
If nothing else it shows they possess one set of intellectual skills
that may or may not help with electronics, and that they put in the work
and time to earn that rating. Hopefully that perseverance would
transfer to the job.

What makes you think this would \"transfer\" in any useful way? Clearly, chess is a hobby for such people, and so, is done out of pleasure seeking. Much more appropriate would be seeing electronics as a hobby on a resume. If you love your work, you are much more likely to be good at it. Enjoying something that is only loosely related is much less likely to indicate an applicant that will do well.

--

Rick C.

+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209