Employers now demanding SAT scores from applicants in 40s and 50s

[Newsjock]

Source: Wall Street Journal

... Proving the adage that all of life is like high school, plenty of employers still care about a job candidate's SAT score. Consulting firms such as Bain & Co. and McKinsey & Co. and banks like Goldman Sachs Group Inc. ask new college recruits for their scores, while other companies request them even for senior sales and management hires, eliciting scores from job candidates in their 40s and 50s.

... Cvent Inc., a McLean, Va., event management software company, asks all job applicants to provide SAT or ACT scores, results from graduate-school entrance tests and grade-point averages along with their work history. Scores count most heavily for candidates in their first years out of college, though the company has received scores from applicants well into middle age, said Eric Eden, Cvent's vice president of marketing.

... Putting too much stock in standardized tests can put minority candidates at a disadvantage. In 2013, SAT test-takers in the "Black or African-American" category scored an average 431 on the exam's critical reading section, 429 on math and 418 on writing. White test-takers, meanwhile, scored nearly 100 points higher on average in every section. There is a racial divide for ACT score reports as well.

... Asking for SAT scores may turn off candidates, too. Stephen Robert Morse, 28, now head of marketing and communications at freelance marketplace SkillBridge, said a firm's request for test scores "made me a little bit skeptical of wanting to work with them," despite scoring "in the 1450 range" on the 1600-point test. "I don't see why it's relevant," he said.

Read more: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303636404579395220334268350

[Egalitarian Thug]

1. I graduated with a 4.0 and an overall 3.8 GPA, but never took the SAT.

Here's another example of why the authoritarians are always wrong, every time. They are just incapable of "getting it".

[stopbush]

2. Pure laziness on the part of HR people and recruiters. Nothing more, nothing less.

As if what someone scored on a test - any test - given when they were in HS is relevant to the skill set they've acquired by the time they reach their 40s.

What this country needs is massive layoffs in the HR Depts across the land. Then we might see talented people getting rehired in spite of their age. Ageism is rampant in HR depts these days. Rampant.

[R B Garr]

4. There should also be mandatory retirement for HR personnel who reach their 40th birthday since

that's the standard that's imposed on the rest of us.

edit to add I'm mostly kidding, but the thought has crossed my mind after I read about each new hurdle they put out.

[kelliekat44]

3. Back door discrimination. nt

[Warren DeMontague]

5. AWESOME

I mean... terrible!

[Egalitarian Thug]

6. K&R #5. Off you go. n/t

[Manifestor_of_Light]

7. I did better on the PSAT than the SAT.

Made a 1400 on the PSAT as a Junior In High School. I also did well on the Advanced Placement exams where 800 was perfect.

I made a 680 on the English AP exam and 710 on the Biology AP exam.

I don't know what 40s and 50s mean on the SAT, since they changed the scoring. When I took it perfect was 800 on Math and 800 on English for a total of 1600.

This was back in the dark ages when they barely started giving AP exams so you could skip a chunk of college credits you already earned in high school. Early 1970s.

I started grade school a year early, first grade at age 5, because I was reading quite well. I started reading signs at 3 and books at age 4, according to my mother. I went to a private school (Episcopal) in first grade, and second grade in public school, because you couldn't go to public school until age 6 in Texas in first grade.

My parents were frantic to get me in first grade early because of my reading skills.

I was a senior in high school at sixteen; turned seventeen in March and graduated in May.

Got a whole semester of AP (15 semester hours) when I started college.

So midterm of my junior year in college, I had 90 semester hours and was a classified college senior at age nineteen.

Now what this has to do with getting a high powered job and making lots of money, I do not know, because I have not gotten any high powered high income jobs despite my academic precocity. Oh and I went to grad school and got a J.D. in five years while working full time at the courthouse. Respect??? Naaah. I feel like Rodney Dangerfield. Get no respect. Couldn't even get a paralegal job with a J.D.

[SheilaT]

12. The perfect score on an SAT is still 800.

What happened a while back is that the scoring was adjusted, since scores were falling, to keep things more or less the same as they'd always been. However, my scores back in the mid-60's would seem slightly lower than they should. It's the percentiles that matter, really.

Here's a brag about my oldest son: As a high school freshman he took the SAT2 in biology and got a 770 (out of 800). When he got the score I told him he needed to phone his biology teacher and tell her thank you. He did.
The next year he took the SAT2 in chemistry and got a 780. I had him phone his chemistry teacher and thank him.
The following year he took the SAT2 in physics. When the score arrived, and it was an 800, he said, "Oh. There was one question I wasn't sure of. I guess I got it right."


Some people are better test takers than others, that's all.

[jmowreader]

14. 40s and 50s are the ages of the people they're demanding SAT scores from

This shows how silly it all is: Most people take the SAT in their teens and get all their degrees in their 20s. After twenty or thirty years in the workforce, we've all progressed beyond what we were in high school...but they're making hiring decisions based on what you knew when you were 17.

[Yavin4]

8. You would not want to work for any corp that asks for your SAT scores

Must be fucking miserable working for them. More to life than money.

[onethatcares]

16. nail, meet, hammer

the fuckers will use any ruse they can to keep the labor force under their thumb.

I agree with your assessment.

[KittyWampus]

20. Thank You! Years ago I went to put in an application at a big chain bookstore.

The manager took me to a back room and gave me this incredibly long multiple choice test with questions like:

Are you ever depressed?
If a co-worker was stealing would you inform management?

I knew the answers the corporate management would be looking for… but there was no way I could do that very long test and take that job.

[AZ Progressive]

9. If idiots are trying to pull this off, it says something about the employer

And why people should avoid that employer.

[Nanjing to Seoul]

10. I took the ACT. Does that matter? Or is the SAT the only thing?

What is wrong with these people?

[Morning Dew]

11. What?!! No ASVAB score required?

Pikers.

[DaveJ]

13. Who knows if these tests are even right?

This could lend itself to some horrific dystopian future where people's lives are determined by tests when they are young and treated like cogs in a machine.

I think people perform best at jobs they are happy and passionate about.

I mean, as a sample job... take furniture making. Some institute could create a test which indicates who the best furniture maker is. But who's to say that test is even right? If a person likes making furniture that's what they should do. They can decide along with their customers what the best furniture is, not some test.

[Sgent]

15. This is a cheap way

of administering / screening for IQ. The SAT, PSAT, and to a lesser extent the ACT can all be converted into an IQ number.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. The military has been doing it for decades (the ASVAB is one of the best researched IQ tests, but has a relatively narrow range but very good accuracy 80-120) and obviously feel its of value.

[KG]

17. recemtl had a temp co. demand my H.S. diploma for a crappy job. he was nicely told to fuck himself.

[Aerows]

18. You mean a 31 on the ACT

isn't good enough?

[Manifestor_of_Light]

19. In my day the ACT was considered much easier than the SAT.

I either made straight 99th percentiles on the ACT or almost straight 99s on it. Maybe there was a 97 or 98 in there? I don't know.

It was over 40 years ago, which means I'm barely in the fifty to sixty age range, even accounting for being a year and 7 months ahead in grade school.

My husband thought about applying to teach math at a junior college and they wanted his college and grad school transcripts.

He told them, "I made a D in second semester calculus back in 1967 and I don't think it reflects my intellectual ability. Now that I'm old enough to understand all that higher math we rushed through, I understand it far better than I did in college, so it's a meaningless grade."


Which was a nice way of saying "fuck off eat shit and die, because of your stupid academic requirements.


Now he talks about Planck Lengths and positrons and relativity all the time to me, because there is no one else within 60 miles who would understand him. I don't understand what he says, but I try to.

[dsc]

21. Have to say that especially the GRE part would benefit me greatly

I got 680 on English and 800 on math and 800 and the reasoning. But that said, this is pretty moronic.

[joeybee12]

22. How the heck does someone produce SAT scores from 35+years ago?

That's nuts.