

Why less competent may rate their own ability higher than more competent - sinc
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning_kruger_effect

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elblanco
Even more disconcerting, it can sometimes be very hard to tell the competent
from the incompetent until you have them in the door working for you.

I once worked with a guy (not in an engineering discipline) who could talk
circles around much more competent people. He knew all the buzz words, and
even knew most of the topics about one level deep. When he spoke, he spoke
with an absolute air of authority on whatever subject he was talking about. He
managed to convince division manager after division manager (he jumped around
a lot and it was a very large company) that past failures were just because of
circumstances out of his control.

However, he didn't actually know _anything_ and every project he was put in
charge of either failed disastrously, or was caught from the brink at the last
minute by colleagues who worked double shifts to do the project (which of
course allowed him to point to those same colleagues as incompetents that he
had to deal with on his project and hence the reason for failure).

The really sad thing is, I could never figure out if he knew he was grossly
incompetent and just spinning things to keep a job far above the level he
should have had, or actually believed the yarns he wove about what he knew.

~~~
billybob
I'm curious: is this not solved by a solid technical interview?

I would have guessed that if someone impresses HR, you could find out if they
really know their stuff by getting a KNOWN competent person to ask them lots
of hard technical questions, make them solve problems on the spot, etc.

A friend recently gave me a great example of how to do open-ended questions
and probe someone's knowledge: ask a question like "when you type in a web
address and hit enter, what happens?" The answer can range from "your computer
loads the page" to delving into DNS, IP routing, HTTP headers, server load
management, server-side processing, sessions, database access, cookies,
browser rendering, etc etc. If the candidate gives a simple answer, you can
continue to probe different areas to see how much they know in each one.

The trick is that the interviewer has to be competent enough to tell what the
candidate knows and whether he/she will BS rather than admit not knowing
something (which is also important to find out).

If you don't already have anyone competent enough to conduct the interview -
maybe you're hiring your first programmer - you could temporarily hire someone
who comes highly recommended to help you with the interview process.

So, was this guy vetted like this on technical merits, or did he just talk
impressively to non-technical people? I'm curious to know how he slipped
through.

~~~
elblanco
It wasn't exactly a technical field. It's amazing how many fields outside of
development are very nearly impossible to test in a meaningful way. For
example, hiring a sales vp, if done at the same level of problem solving as
most tech interviews I've seen, would have to result in a 30% sales increase
for the company. You basically have to just see what they say, if they sound
like they can tie their own shoes, don't suffer from short term memory loss
and have a pulse you usually give them a try and just fire them if they don't
work out.

That's why there are so many hangups during the interview process that have
nothing to do with a person's actual skill in a given area..like font choice
on a resume, or little tips like how to sit in a chair or whatever. Those are
all little tells that people look for in an interview, but candidates also
know this, so they try to game the system by appearing confident, showing up
precisely 15 minutes early with a binder full of extra copies of their resume,
just the right amount of hair gel, etc. Because by and large, in fields
outside of technical ones, that's how you get a job.

> So, was this guy vetted like this on technical merits, or did he just talk
> impressively to non-technical people? I'm curious to know how he slipped
> through.

But yeah, this is actually how he kept slipping through. His interviewers were
hiring him for expertise in his field that they themselves did not have.
Pretty much it was bureaucrats and administrators hiring somebody for a
particular skill requirement. They simply didn't know how to dig more than a
level or two deep. In the same way that a person can game the hiring system
like I mentioned above, he could do the same for his field. Somebody who was
actually in the field would have to spend a little time to figure out that he
didn't know the equivalent that computers need electricity to operate. But he
could talk for hours about how for example, a browser operates with DNS
servers to resolve IP addresses -- and do it with authority (again, as a very
rough equivalent).

You could even ask him to produce a plan of action for the next six months and
he could produce a pretty good outline, good enough for an interview, but ask
him to fill in the details and he couldn't.

~~~
rikthevik
> His interviewers were hiring him for expertise in his field that they
> themselves did not have. Pretty much it was bureaucrats and administrators
> hiring somebody for a particular skill requirement.

This is what keeps me coming back to small companies and startups. Any company
with an HR department big enough that they hire using a series of bullet
points pretty much guarantees I will have brain-dead coworkers.

~~~
elblanco
Funny you say that, I actually left that place largely for this reason
directly for a very small startup.

------
Groxx
Not much on "why", just that it exists. The "why" is essentially a re-
statement of the situation: illusory superiority and illusory inferiority.

A common "why" theory that I personally subscribe to: the less competent don't
know enough to know what they don't know.

~~~
stcredzero
This happens often in music, where subjectivity comes into play. What's not
immediately obvious: programmers use subjective measures of quality all the
time. We have to do so to get our work done in a timely fashion.

Those who want to be truly great should be humble. They should also check
themselves as much as possible with objective measures and feedback from
trusted and respected fellow practitioners.

Come to think of it, I suspect this phenomenon affects the implementation of
programming languages. A lot of second tier CS talents implement languages
because they have enough ego to get through the ordeal.

------
RyanMcGreal
"The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate
intensity."

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gte910h
The skill you're looking for here is called meta-knowledge. It is knowledge of
your level of knowledge about a given topic.

It is a teachable trait, arguably what very selective schools with hard
grading curves teaching difficult things teach people to develop (as you have
to determine what you don't know to pass/excel/etc there).

I've always personally believed the test: "What would you need to get going on
these 5 projects?" Is a great question. If talking about researching X Y or Z
don't come out of the candidate's mouth (and it's not an old solved problem,
like self-contained embedded C code), you mark them down as less meta-
knowledgeable. (Doesn't mean unhireable, but you don't want them in highly
independent positions or constantly learning new things; people with low meta
knowledge appear to actually be quite happy in places that high meta people
hate, such as long term maintenance programming).

In software particularly, study of estimation (and it's continual use) can
teach people the practice of evaluating all risks, including metaknowledge. I
like the book: [http://www.amazon.com/Software-Estimation-Demystifying-
Pract...](http://www.amazon.com/Software-Estimation-Demystifying-Practices-
Microsoft/dp/0735605351) (non-aff link) for getting people going with the
practice.

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tokenadult
HN discussion of posting of same Wikipedia article from 92 days ago:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1063287>

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padmanabhan01
Will knowing this concept affect the meta-cognitive ability of a person?

Will those that were underestimating their ability start to correctly/over
estimate it? i.e if they buy this concept.

Will those that were over estimating their abilities before, start to realize
they were over estimating?

Will those that want to look/sound smart start to fake humility, since
underestimating one's ability may give the idea that he is smart?

Oh well, ...

------
known
There is scientific evidence that social rejection massively reduces the
intelligence & injects aggressiveness in kids.

<http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn2051>

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c00p3r
“There are, in effect, two things: to know and to believe one knows. To know
is science. To believe one knows is ignorance.”

"Their misconception is fueled by the fact that they are completely unaware of
their own ignorance. This unawareness or unwillingness to admit their
ignorance subconsciously prods them to make (wrong) assumptions in order to
fill the void in their knowledge."

"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge."

"What we do not understand we do not possess."

"We're even wrong about which mistakes we're making."

