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I want to ask a question on the main site that is more or less "How can I find jobs where hiring decisions are primarily made on the basis of cognitive, intelligence, and/or skill test scores rather than by more common means such as resumes, years of experience, personality tests, and interviews? For example, are there job boards that specialize in this? Are there placement agencies that do this?", but I'm not sure it is on-topic.

Would such a question be on-topic? Is it too broad or too narrow? What can I do to help me make this into a question that would be well-received?

My instinct is that my question as initially written is too broad (where? what kinds of jobs?, what salary range?, big company or small company?, etc.), but obvious ways to narrow it down (e.g. to "How can I find warehouse shift supervisor jobs within 50 miles of Cleveland, Ohio where hiring decisions are primarily based on....") would seem to make it too narrow and only interesting to a small number of people (e.g. Cleveland warehouse workers). Also, making a direct request for a list of offsite resources (e.g. "What are some job boards and/or recruitment agencies that match candidates to employers using direct skills tests rather than uploaded resumes, cover letters, and filled-in employment history profiles?") would seem to be too close to a spam-attracting resource request.

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  • this part is likely poor fit: "are there job boards that specialize in this? Are there placement agencies that do this?" List questions don't look like welcome over here
    – gnat
    Dec 20, 2016 at 19:33
  • @gnat how would you recommend that I rephrase it? Should I just ask "how do I find these kinds of opportunities?" and leave it at that? I'm concerned that doing that would leave the question too broad and/or attract snarky answers like "post your resume online", "call a local recruiter", or "give it up, just keep sending your resume into the black hole" that don't really help.
    – Robert Columbia
    Dec 20, 2016 at 19:44
  • @gnat would asking "How do I find job boards or placement agencies that specialize in this?" be better? That way, I'm not asking for a list but asking to be taught how to make my own list.
    – Robert Columbia
    Dec 20, 2016 at 19:47
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    that way is definitely better. Can't tell if it's enough to make it good but certainly an improvement over original version
    – gnat
    Dec 20, 2016 at 20:10

2 Answers 2

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I think any answer is going to become obsolete very quickly and without notice, which generally means it isn't in Stack Exchange's scope.

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  • Could you clarify? In what way would any answer become obsolete quickly? How could this be mitigated in the way the question is asked?
    – Robert Columbia
    Dec 20, 2016 at 21:06
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    Companies change their hiring methodology continuously. Often different managers in the same company evaluate candidates differently. The question is unanswerable except as "Last time I spoke to someone there, they did or didn't; gods only know what they are doing a week later." Seriously, the only jobs I know of that hire based only on a test are government and quasi-government jobs such as the US postal system. Most other employers want to know you can work with others, which is part of what they try to learn from the interview.
    – keshlam
    Dec 21, 2016 at 0:48
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I think this might be a case of an XY Problem.

The XY problem is asking about your attempted solution rather than your actual problem.

That is, you are trying to solve problem X, and you think solution Y would work, but instead of asking about X when you run into trouble, you ask about Y.

Why are you searching for these types of jobs? Is it because you don't have any job experience or training and aren't sure how to get around that?

What types of jobs do you think hire mainly on skill tests and not experience? I can only think of retail and other unskilled labor, and they still value experience (though don't necessarily require it) and rarely use intelligence tests. You don't always need a resume, but there's almost always an application form and an interview.

The question "How do I find a job when I have no work experience, training, or degree" would certainly be on topic. I can't find an existing question on that topic (surprisingly), so it may not have been asked yet.

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