Well, my main objection is to hiring people on the basis of their character, whether it's with a test or not. Assess for whether or not the person can do the job and make you a profit.
Can you spot the person who interviews well, but is a skilled sociopath who will destroy the morale of your team, causing other skilled talent to leave?
That's the value of these tests (when properly applied): They allow an evaluator to make statistically accurate predictions of specific types of behavior. The key is the two words: statistically and specific. A single composite score will not tell you anything, but the idea that there's a 68% chance that the person you're about to hire is a schizophrenic kleptomaniac should give you pause.
> there's a 68% chance that the person you're about to hire is a schizophrenic kleptomaniac
Sorry, I don't believe "psychometric tests" can do that either. At least not at the level that we're talking about: distinguishing an otherwise qualified person from someone who's got some sort of psychopathology.
Then you didn't read the other replies in the original thread from actual research psychologists. They described the process and posted links to peer reviewed academic papers. Your baseless disbelief is equivalent to disavowing climate change or vaccines.
You can't catch psychopaths using tests like these. The whole point of being a psychopaths is that you can change the perception of your personality at will.
So what your letting in is a subgroup of people who pass, and psychopaths.
It's not what it means, but it is something they are capable of. They can be charming, and they can be horrible. They decide what they are going to be like, to fit into an overall selfish strategy. If being shy is an advantage, they will become that. If being confident is advantage, they will become that. They can gain your trust, then flip when it is an advantage to do so.
In these tests, they know what to say, what to do, to give a certain impression. These tests can't catch them, because they are not honest, and lack integrity(No consistent values, only ones that benefit them).
More specifically, the psychopaths that you're likely to run into in a tech company fall into this class.
There are certainly psychopaths who are hopeless at concealing the fact. These are typically the less smart ones, so you wouldn't meet them; they are more likely to be in and out of prison than your office.
There are also psychopaths who are just about perfect at pretending not to be, and have no intention of ever doing otherwise. You can work with one of those for decades, and never notice a thing unless something extreme enough to make 'acting normal' seem a long-term liability happens.
Again, go read the links that the actual PhDs in psychology posted in replies to the parent thread. They provided documentation in the form of peer-reviewed studies that back the claims that this kind of personality is detectable despite your belief that they are not.
If one's character meaningfully predicts job performance on top of whatever other methods you are using, then assessing on their character is the same as assessing on whether or not they can do they job (or at least, how well they can do it). Integrity tests have demonstrated this in many contexts, even taking into account the possibility of faking.
