Skills and skill levels for building an army, intelligence service, bureaucracy

Xplo · 07-25-2013, 11:41 AM

Sorry, I only skimmed the thread, so I may be repeating earlier advice. If so, consider these additional data points.

Designing an organization - that is, deciding how many people you need, and in what capacity, and how to organize them - is Administration.

Administration is also suitable for generic interviews which are mainly about organizational fit: are you an obvious troublemaker? Do you/can you align with the organizational culture and philosophy well enough to do your job the way they want you to? I tend to agree that someone with Administration (and nothing else) would pass over hidden gems and eccentric/troublesome geniuses, because Administration doesn't effectively assess those. (However, if someone had Psychology - or advice from a referrer about their positive qualities - and chose to hire them for those qualities, Administration would be appropriate to figuring out how to fit them into the organization so that they can receive all the needed training and/or provide their genius with minimal disruption to the rest of the organization.)

In modern hiring scenarios, the applicant typically submits a detailed application or resume listing their education and experience and maybe a little bit about their personality or work style. Anyone with a particular skill could use it to evaluate other people's competence with that skill, either by judging the value of their experience ("he graduated from Schloffo's Elite Underwater Basketweaving College and then went on to work for King Bob's Black Basket Navy? Most impressive...") or by testing them directly with questions or practical tests. If you intend to do this yourself at interview time, you'd need that skill.

Leadership isn't necessarily good at telling whether people are good at their jobs or designing organizations, but I'd let it be used for assessing command ability, morale, discipline, and obedience. If you've got 100 people and you need to pick half of them to make into an effective unit with the basic ability to convey and follow orders, with little or no regard for individual personalities or competencies, this would be your go-to skill. (And here, again, Administration would give you some idea who to pair up with who, how to best distribute according to skill/competence and so forth.)

Detect Lie, obviously, detects lies. Good for interviews and cover letters, less good for evaluating applications or resumes since there's so little information to work with.

Body Language also detects lies, but only in person. It also gives you some idea of the subject's feelings, similar to Empathy; an interview process could be designed to induce the subject to react to various questions and ideas in an observable way to find out how he really feels about something, or how competent he believes he is vs. what he claims, etc. Not much of a hiring skill on its own, but should be available as a complementary roll to any other hiring skill as long as you're personally observing the interview.

I'd say that most interviews don't use Psychology (Applied). It takes a minimum of one hour of conversation just to attempt the roll, and the subject knows that he's being evaluated which will tend to confound the interviewer. Exceptions would be long interviews (maybe lunch, especially dinner, or some other kind of outing) or multiple interviews. These are usually reserved for executives and other extremely important positions, because it's a long process and usually unnecessary for people who won't have a lot of responsibility.

Anyway, Psychology would tell you everything about a prospect that Administration would in addition to ferreting out hidden talents, hidden liabilities, loyalty, and competence under pressure. It wouldn't tell you what to do with them, though; that's still Administration.

In theory, you could use Psychology twice as fast at -5, which would let you make a Psychology roll during a regular half-hour interview; tack on, say, about -3 for the prospect's wariness, and an interviewer could attempt to assess everyone this way. Someone who's very lucky, or cinematically competent, could even succeed...

07-25-2013, 11:41 AM	#17
Xplo Join Date: Apr 2006	Re: Skills and skill levels for building an army, intelligence service, bureaucracy Sorry, I only skimmed the thread, so I may be repeating earlier advice. If so, consider these additional data points. Designing an organization - that is, deciding how many people you need, and in what capacity, and how to organize them - is Administration. Administration is also suitable for generic interviews which are mainly about organizational fit: are you an obvious troublemaker? Do you/can you align with the organizational culture and philosophy well enough to do your job the way they want you to? I tend to agree that someone with Administration (and nothing else) would pass over hidden gems and eccentric/troublesome geniuses, because Administration doesn't effectively assess those. (However, if someone had Psychology - or advice from a referrer about their positive qualities - and chose to hire them for those qualities, Administration would be appropriate to figuring out how to fit them into the organization so that they can receive all the needed training and/or provide their genius with minimal disruption to the rest of the organization.) In modern hiring scenarios, the applicant typically submits a detailed application or resume listing their education and experience and maybe a little bit about their personality or work style. Anyone with a particular skill could use it to evaluate other people's competence with that skill, either by judging the value of their experience ("he graduated from Schloffo's Elite Underwater Basketweaving College and then went on to work for King Bob's Black Basket Navy? Most impressive...") or by testing them directly with questions or practical tests. If you intend to do this yourself at interview time, you'd need that skill. Leadership isn't necessarily good at telling whether people are good at their jobs or designing organizations, but I'd let it be used for assessing command ability, morale, discipline, and obedience. If you've got 100 people and you need to pick half of them to make into an effective unit with the basic ability to convey and follow orders, with little or no regard for individual personalities or competencies, this would be your go-to skill. (And here, again, Administration would give you some idea who to pair up with who, how to best distribute according to skill/competence and so forth.) Detect Lie, obviously, detects lies. Good for interviews and cover letters, less good for evaluating applications or resumes since there's so little information to work with. Body Language also detects lies, but only in person. It also gives you some idea of the subject's feelings, similar to Empathy; an interview process could be designed to induce the subject to react to various questions and ideas in an observable way to find out how he really feels about something, or how competent he believes he is vs. what he claims, etc. Not much of a hiring skill on its own, but should be available as a complementary roll to any other hiring skill as long as you're personally observing the interview. I'd say that most interviews don't use Psychology (Applied). It takes a minimum of one hour of conversation just to attempt the roll, and the subject knows that he's being evaluated which will tend to confound the interviewer. Exceptions would be long interviews (maybe lunch, especially dinner, or some other kind of outing) or multiple interviews. These are usually reserved for executives and other extremely important positions, because it's a long process and usually unnecessary for people who won't have a lot of responsibility. Anyway, Psychology would tell you everything about a prospect that Administration would in addition to ferreting out hidden talents, hidden liabilities, loyalty, and competence under pressure. It wouldn't tell you what to do with them, though; that's still Administration. In theory, you could use Psychology twice as fast at -5, which would let you make a Psychology roll during a regular half-hour interview; tack on, say, about -3 for the prospect's wariness, and an interviewer could attempt to assess everyone this way. Someone who's very lucky, or cinematically competent, could even succeed...