|
|
|
|
|
|
by jholman
5331 days ago
|
|
|
As hugh3 mentioned, it's not (necessarily) about hiring smart people, nor about people who arrive well-trained. The majority of entrants into the military system have no training (i.e. are 18y.o. kids), and I suspect that the mean intelligence is a tiny fraction south of that of the general population (because of the incentive structure). From the FA, the military system is not "just trust everyone to get a job done, no matter what the job is". From the FA, the system is: first you train people hard, then once they've passed testing you trust them to make autonomous decisions within the areas that they're trained to be competent on, and then you assess performance and as necessary retrain. AND REPEAT. (And, I suspect, on an ongoing basis you add training for new capabilities.) I think it's a _serious_ mistake to simplify that very capable feedback cycle down to "hire clever people and get out of the way". Giving people feedback (and training as necessary) will beat leaving them hanging, hands down, every day. (note: IANA soldier) As for whether or not this is ideal for a tech company, it seems to me that one requisite of the train-trust-feedback cycle is that you have to be able to train and give feedback. That's incompatible when you hire people smarter or more skilled than you. And if you're trying to innovate on the bleeding edge, that complicates things hugely. So I humbly (IANA founder either) suggest that perhaps a good strategy for a tech company is to pursue this technique as far as possible, but no further. |
|
|
The US military is not legally allowed to take people with IQs below 80. They have dropped or relaxed requirements about tattoos, criminal records, drugs and other stuff rather than drop the minimum score required on the AFQT.
http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/1997whygmatter...
Lest IQ 80 seem an unreasonably high (i.e., exclusionary) threshold in hiring, it should be noted that the military is prohibited by law (except under a declaration of war) from enlisting recruits below that level (the 10th percentile). That law was enacted because of the extraordinarily high training costs and high rates of failure among such men during the mobilization of forces in World War II (Laurence & Ramsberger, 1991; Sticht et al., 1987; U.S. Department of the Army, 1965). Minimum enlistment standards since World War II have generally been higher than the 10th percentile, and closer to what they are today for the different ser- vices: the 16th AFQT percentile (Army, about IQ 85), 21st (Marine Corps and Air Force, IQ 88), and 27th (Navy, IQ 91).