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Comment by mjevans | Hacker News Reader

Evaluating potential is difficult. Measure something that isn't in a thin history summary. Measure stuff you have an opportunity to see without human bias or algorithms that are easily gamed? Measure, what is a desirable outcome?

As someone who's been looking for a job that will take a chance on how I can grow to full their needs rather than already being a perfect match; I would really love someplace that had a 'career pivot' entry track and not just a recent / about to grad track.

Maybe something like a 1 week, then 1 month (3 more weeks), then 3 months (total), then every 3rd month evaluation track for working the job in a 'temp to hire' sense with a 1 year cutoff so they can't just keep hiring 'perma temps' like in the past.

I understand there's risks, and I understand it's very hard for both sides. However there's a ton of untapped potential and corporations are the ones who aren't offering a way of tapping it.

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> Evaluating potential is difficult. Measure something that isn't in a thin history summary.

Ivy League schools in the US have been doing this for rather a long time now. Whether they are any good at it is subject to significant debate, but they certainly like to pretend that they can evaluate it. Their evaluations tend to show a strong belief in the hereditary properties of "potential", which is not well established in actual objective research.

They mostly do it by measuring the family bank accounts!

Measuring potential isn’t particularly difficult. Everyone from the NFL to the US military does an adequate job of it.

Of course it’s not perfect, but it’s literally good enough for government work.

Most tests for potential are easily gamed by people who are taught how to pass the test, or simply avoided by people whose wealth and social status allows them to avoid the test.

For example: When I was 18 I was completely overlooked by the NFL because I had never played gridiron football. Had I been coached professionally for 10 years I may have been a star.

I sat in an interview for an army officer scholarship once, acutely aware that the man testing me had an accent that made it clear he was from a higher social class than me. He mentioned that I was not properly prepared for the meeting, but I was given no notes as to what to prepare. I was told later that in the private schools that feed the majority of candidates to this route, that they coach their pupils specifically for this test.

So I would like to hear a test for potential that is not easily gamed by wealthy people

In our present society, gaming the test is part of the test.

Whether it's learning the social mores of the institution you're trying to join, or grinding test prep, or whatever else.

Is that ideal? Probably not, but like I said nothing's perfect.

How do you game the color of your skin? How long does it take to game your accent in a second or third language?

Nepotism, obviously.

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