I'm not OP but I've networked with ~10 JPM bankers and they all say that it matters. Their exact words to me have been "it's a black box, we don't know how it works. Our recommendations don't mean anything anymore. Apparently it's all up to Pymetrics, and whoever scores in the top 25% of test takers will get a superday"

 

I got unique in Decision Making, Focus, and Emotion (not sure what this one means lol)

 

I think it’s that they take your score and compare it to people who already work at JPM - so with the retarded balloon thing, you are supposed to have a risk tolerance that is comparable to people who work at JPM. Can anyone confirm/refute?

 

Can confirm. Took one for BCG, they want you to answer similarly to the people who already work there, it is a "predictor of success". But honestly, it seems like bullshit.

Another reason I was given as to why they do it is because they wanted to remove any hiring bias that is based around what school you went to/race/gender/etc. I had read somewhere on this site that JPM specifically was seeking to eliminate the idea/process of networking altogether and that they were seeking to begin solely relying on these digital evaluators to screen applicants and nearly fully automating the initial screening process.

 

Honestly, the reliance on pymetrics is an absolute dream for me. I'm not doing my MBA at a prestigious school and I don't come from a family/background that gives me a particularly rich network in this area. I'm obviously not going to be happy if I get rejected, but at least I'll know it's because I suck and not because my school lacks cachet and I don't know the right people. 

 

We should code a shitty copy of the pymetrics games and ask WSO members who work at JPM/Blackstone to complete the tests, so we get data from which we can extrapolate what behavior is expected from applicants.

 
Funniest

Tbh I actually like pymetrics because it is a predictor of success and it has provided me with a lot of information about the career paths that are in-line with my traits and strengths and sike bitch pymetrics is wack asl

 

I'm at a BB that planned on using it cuz JPM or Credit Suisse decide to use it. As indicated above they ask some people to take the exam first, so it could be a good indication that future applicants that generate similar result will be a good fit for the team. It's total B/S, because everyone's result was so different from each other. In the end, some MD just told HR or whoever responsible for the project that it was total B/S, I guess the HR or whoever got enough shit from senior bankers, they just stop the project.

 

Did that last year, got to SuperDay. I don’t know how they decided who got past that round.

 

Pymetrics didn't matter in the process last year, it was just in a data collection phase (confirmed with an HR director) so that was all you my friend.

 

When I recruited into London, pymetrics was already being used to filter out applicants. If this is any help, I got assessment centers at all the places I had to do pymetrics for and my most "Unique" traits were: focus, risk tolerance, and attention. Obviously, I have no insight into whether or not this was helpful at all, since HR will never fess up to rejecting someone on the basis of the pymetrics test.

 

unique just means that you scored above the average for the general population. look at the grading criteria on the website

 

The goal is to find applicants that match the performance of top performance within firms.

Imagine if some football club picked their top 5 players, and then made them take a bunch of different tests, measuring their reaction time, agility, and what not.

Now every time they get young hopeful players that want to try - before they even get a chance to show what they can on the field, they make them take the exact same tests - and compare their results against the top players.

If there's a very positive correlation, you're good to go. If not, you're declined.

That's the gist of how those tests work.

 

And it's not nearly as predictive as even that analogy would suggest. With athletes, you can measure a lot of performance attributes on a bad --> good scale. Speed, strength, etc. such as at a combine. Pymetrics outputs stuff on an incomprehensible scale.

That's by design, by the way. From Hyatt's website, direct from Pymetrics ("confidential"): "The aggregate view (e.g. fit score & recruiter report) is what is significant, not understanding individual/specific traits."

In other words, don't question how the sausage is made, just hire who has the top scores.

https://about.hyatt.com/content/dam/HyattStories/risehy/HowTo-Interpret…

Be excellent to each other, and party on, dudes.
 

The entire concept of pymetrics depresses me. It is phrenology for recruiters trying to assess people on who they are instead of what they've done. The latter is much, much more predictive of future success. Don't tell me who you are, show me who you are through your actions!

Direct from Pymetrics: "This model is used to identify who has the cognitive & emotional profile to be successful in the role (this is not measured on skills or experience)." Source

Do you know why we care about stuff like your SAT scores, GPA, and internship performance? It's not because these things are "biased." It's because real life work is much more similar to the SAT than a pymetrics test. The SAT is something you can prepare for, and in fact you should prepare rigorously for (studying a lot in advance, covers several different subjects which have a basis in the real world).

The pymetrics test is designed completely counter to this approach. In real life, you will have tough problems ahead, and time to prepare for them. Similar with school performance. GPA basically tells me if you did your homework and studied for tests. Guess what? It doesn't even matter what the tests were about, it matters that you consistently can work to do your homework. That's predictive of job success. Doing a careful resume and not making errors? That's predictive of job success, that is literally part of my job to make error-free documents.

I honestly think a lot of these AI startups are buzzword solutions (AI! ML!) in search of buzzword problems (diversity!). In reality, these AI problems probably discriminate much more than they let on. If you want to hire more black people or women at a company, reach out to more black people and women, and hire them. If you want to hire people who think differently, be brave and do that. Bring in outside hires. Have one team hire people who will work in another team. I don't know everything, but people are the answer and not the problem.

Be excellent to each other, and party on, dudes.
 

I feel as though in the future we're growing to adapt to situations so fast, past predictors such as GPA and SAT scores aren't as good at predicting future success. When weighing risk for instance- one could argue that the most risk adverse path is do study hard, attend the target, crush your exams and be that cookie cutter kid plucked to be in Goldman TMT. These types followed the playbook...what happens when there isn't one?

 

It's much worse than the combine, which itself is not predictive of athletic success.

Here are some examples of pymetrics games used at BCG. See if you could even guess which side of the spectrum employers would even want?

  • Balloon/pump game which tests risk tolerance by giving the candidate money for each pump but taking it away if the balloon bursts.
  • Emotional reading test in which the candidate is shown a face or faces and provided with a short excerpt to read. The candidate is asked what emotion is displayed.
  • Prioritization test in which a candidate is asked to choose between completing an easy task or a harder task for different payouts.
  • Transaction game where a candidate is allowed to give or take money from an avatar under specific conditions and then asked to judge the fairness of transactions.

I weep for today's generation who sits in front of a god damn computer to get assessed on their emotional intelligence and corporations don't even have the heart to put a human being in front of their resume for even 30 seconds.

Oh uhhh... you also get to see how you perform on the draft combine and it's not a black box. You also have real life recruiters who show up to high schools and colleges to physically watch players and talk to them. Finally you have statistics from actually playing the game of football at different levels, including college. Would anybody seriously recommend replacing college football stats (actual proven results on the field) with some kind of personality or physical test?

Be excellent to each other, and party on, dudes.
 

i took it for BCG and got to final round interviews, this is coming from someone who failed the series 63 twice.. if that says anything about my testing aptitude

What concert costs 45 cents? 50 Cent feat. Nickelback.
 

That's the pymetrics pitch, but the reality is exactly the opposite.

"Moneyball" works because it uses statistics that are relevant for on-the-job performance: hits, on base percentage, etc. Things that the players have done that will predict future success. The previous way of baseball recruiting was to judge someone's looks and character, or something, the intangibles. That's bias, and bad bias.

Let's look at pymetrics vs. an HR person looking at a resume. It is the resume which contains the industry relevant statistics (work experience, standardized tests, GPA, competition awards, etc.). It is pymetrics which attempts to force the intangibles about a person into data points and introduces ridiculous confusion into the hiring process.

Be excellent to each other, and party on, dudes.
 

I think the situation in Moneyball worked especially well because baseball offers a lot of data on actual job performance.

The attempts to apply that same concept to front-office white collar work seem incredibly gimmicky to me. What’s the analyst equivalent of OPS and VORP? Certainly not personality scores.

 

I think that these tests are complete rubbish. Whats even the point of putting in effort (and money) to be accepted to a target school when it, in the end, will pin down to an internet based test?

 

As an incoming JPM intern for this summer, I would say don't stress too much about it. Was told when networking that it was something they look at but your results will not make or break your candidacy necessarily. I believe they are testing out Pymetrics on potential interns to see if it's a tool they can use more broadly. I definitely didn't do my Pymetrics perfectly and I moved on.

 

It doesn't give you a score like a test or something. The results break down each trait that was measured in the games what your results corresponded to. As for what particular results they are looking for, I don't know. But also, this was last year. It may be different now.

 

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