Yes, I understand the things the tests provide. These kinds of tests have been around forever. Personally I don't like them, most engineers don't, but that's not going to make them go away.

My question was about the organization itself. Why measure something if you're not going to do anything with it? So in your example, where you're not motivated by money, but its a job that pays well and is boring, why find that out if you're not going to use it to disqualify someone?

The question in general is this: why measure something if there are no consequences to what you measure? I wasn't trying to say the test was great, I was asking the reason the test was given in the first place. The way I see it, it would have to be disqualifying in some cases. Otherwise, there's no reason for the measurement. Unless the goal is just to create a lot of arguing, which it seems to have done very well!

I think the problem is we like to wave our hands around and say "well, the test informs the decision, but is not definitive". This is just another way of saying that we don't know what we are doing -- there is no plan.

This is probably the root of the author's discomfort. Either he doesn't understand what's going on as far as the evaluation, or there's no reason for it, or both. Don't know. All I know is the guy was smart. That's also not enough information. Lots of smart folks in the world that I'd never want to work with.