<story><title>Being good at coding competitions correlates negatively with job performance</title><url>https://catonmat.net/programming-competitions-work-performance</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dcolkitt</author><text>Simple analogy. There is no correlation between height and salary across NBA players.[1]&lt;p&gt;The naive conclusion would be that height has nothing to do with basketball ability. The real answer is that markets are efficient and are already correcting one important feature against other predictors. Steph Curry wouldn&amp;#x27;t even be in the NBA if had the shooting ability of Gheorghe Mureșan.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;rpubs.com&amp;#x2F;msluggett&amp;#x2F;189114&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;rpubs.com&amp;#x2F;msluggett&amp;#x2F;189114&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>jaredtn</author><text>This is Berkson&amp;#x27;s Paradox. Even if coding competition performance correlates positively with job performance in the general population (which it certainly does, given that most people can&amp;#x27;t code), selecting for this attribute in the hiring process leads to a negative correlation &lt;i&gt;&lt;/i&gt;among those hired&lt;i&gt;&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;p&gt;Great write-up by Erik Bernhardsson, CTO of Better, here: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;erikbern.com&amp;#x2F;2020&amp;#x2F;01&amp;#x2F;13&amp;#x2F;how-to-hire-smarter-than-the-market-a-toy-model.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;erikbern.com&amp;#x2F;2020&amp;#x2F;01&amp;#x2F;13&amp;#x2F;how-to-hire-smarter-than-the...&lt;/a&gt;.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>_qulr</author><text>It should be mentioned that Steph Curry was drafted behind Hasheem Thabeet, Tyreke Evans, Ricky Rubio, and Jonny Flynn, among others.&lt;p&gt;Hiring is always a crapshoot. Pro sports teams spend a lot more time and money on talent evaluation than tech companies and still get it hilariously wrong all the time.</text></comment>
<story><title>Being good at coding competitions correlates negatively with job performance</title><url>https://catonmat.net/programming-competitions-work-performance</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dcolkitt</author><text>Simple analogy. There is no correlation between height and salary across NBA players.[1]&lt;p&gt;The naive conclusion would be that height has nothing to do with basketball ability. The real answer is that markets are efficient and are already correcting one important feature against other predictors. Steph Curry wouldn&amp;#x27;t even be in the NBA if had the shooting ability of Gheorghe Mureșan.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;rpubs.com&amp;#x2F;msluggett&amp;#x2F;189114&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;rpubs.com&amp;#x2F;msluggett&amp;#x2F;189114&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>jaredtn</author><text>This is Berkson&amp;#x27;s Paradox. Even if coding competition performance correlates positively with job performance in the general population (which it certainly does, given that most people can&amp;#x27;t code), selecting for this attribute in the hiring process leads to a negative correlation &lt;i&gt;&lt;/i&gt;among those hired&lt;i&gt;&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;p&gt;Great write-up by Erik Bernhardsson, CTO of Better, here: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;erikbern.com&amp;#x2F;2020&amp;#x2F;01&amp;#x2F;13&amp;#x2F;how-to-hire-smarter-than-the-market-a-toy-model.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;erikbern.com&amp;#x2F;2020&amp;#x2F;01&amp;#x2F;13&amp;#x2F;how-to-hire-smarter-than-the...&lt;/a&gt;.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>CapmCrackaWaka</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t think that this is the conclusion I would come to. Height is not something that can be changed, therefore it cannot be used as an adjustable variable to make that market efficient. You can&amp;#x27;t train to be taller like you can train at coding competitions.&lt;p&gt;I would say that height is an advantage up to a certain point in basketball, but tall people are not especially rare. Within the market of basketball players, you can find tall people who also have other skills, sometimes you find short people (Steph Curry) who have exceptional skills.</text></comment>