Slashdot Mirror
Do You Tell a Job Candidate How Badly They Did?
skelter asks: "I have been lamenting with friends in the industry about interviewing woes and the candidates that we find. Consider a hypothetical job candidate comes in after some how making it through screening. In the team technical interview they prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that not only is he (or she) not as adequate as he thinks he is, but has demonstrated that he is a danger to any code base. Do you tell them? Quietly step away, usher them out and say nothing? Play with them on the whiteboard the way your cat plays with injured mice? Should you leave them as their own warning to others? Is there any obligation to guide them to gaining real experience? Can you give them any advice or is it all liability?"
I say this for two reasons. There's a genuinely nice kind of feedback, no feedback, and a vicious kind too. If I interviewed someone and they weren't up to scratch for whatever reason, I could say that they're not up to scratch for what I want and I don't need to give a reason. I could be more specific, but only when it suits me, the employer. They haven't got the experience I need, I could tell them that. Not suited to the job? I could tell them that too. I can be as vague as I want, it's my choice. Maybe their asking salary is too high. These are all reasons I could genuinely give to a candidate when rejecting them. Would I be specific if they were a threat to my codebase? No. And if I was a complete dick, I'd just reject applications with no feedback whatsoever, not even a rejection letter. They're applying to me, I don't owe them anything, right?
Most of my job applications in the past have never got a response. It's a lot easier if you don't want to employ / deal with someone to simply ignore them after the failed interview etc. There's no obligation to respond to every application you get with helpful tips for next time. If you get as far as interview, it's nice to know why you didn't succeed but you shouldn't expect it.
As for playing with them like your cat plays with injured mice, I don't want to even apply for your company. What the hell? If you're asking about liability, that might be a sticking point. Or, more seriously, how do you think telling an applicant the reason for not getting the job would make you liable? Unless you don't employ people who are black, disabled, female and so on as a matter of course. If you told someone they were the best damn whatever you ever saw, and afterwards they didn't get a job as a whatever, maybe - just maybe you could be liable. It would be very, very weak though.
As a company, you don't owe anyone an explanation, at all in most countries. So long as you're doing things in accordance with law anyway.
I never tell a rejected candidate how badly they did. First off, once they're rejected (assuming they're really rejected rather "reply hazy, ask again later"), there is zero reason to spend another second more on them.
Second, from an employer's perspective, it may in the narrow self-interest of the company for such a person to go be a drain on its competitors. Where's the rational economic incentive to discourage that?
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
There's a lot of competition for tech. jobs. Blunt honesty might push some people out who weren't sure anyway. What are you doing looking for work if you can't handle rejection? My experience with interviews is that they either don't tell you anything, or they make up something that sounds nice but isn't very specific. How you treat each candidate reflects more on your company than it does on the IT industry as a whole.
mandelbr0t
"Please describe the scientific nature of the 'whammy'" - Agent Scully
If I decide against a candidate, I've arrived at saying nothing beyond "Thank you for your time, we've decided not to extend an offer." Anything else, and I've had people keep bugging me with things like they can change, or give them another chance, or would I...
Do whatever is standard for your organization when you decide not to hire someone. Doing anything else, from throwing their resume in the trash the next day to telling them that they should brush up on skill X, could be seen as litigation fodder.
Also, don't post on slashdot about it, he may be incompetent, but he may still read slashdot.
You thank them for coming in, validate their ticket, and hope you never see them again.
before doing anything drastic. If someone is qualified on paper and you choose to interview them, it's not really your place to lambast them. If you mention things that aren't in the job ad for a reason they weren't picked, that seems kinda dangerous to me, this day and age.
:)
To answer your question, though, yes, you can do so. Don't offer them the job.
act crazy... bitch slap one of your coworkers in front of him. Cut up some fruit in the kitchen and use a really sharp knife. Grin while you're doing it. Then show him your scarification.
Scream something random to people in the next room at unpredictable intervals.
By the time the interview's over, a callback will be the last thing they're wondering about.
What if you tell him he's miserably unqualified and he hires a lawyer? Is your job in jeopardy?
I saw a job ad yesterday that clearly stated that the application must have 2-6 years experience. Then went on to state "Candidates with 7 years or more of commercial IT experience are unlikely to be considered by this particular organisation".
Knowing that 18 years experience was just a little over that, I opted not to try.
I can imagine that they probably would have stated the reason for rejecting my application. (This was not advertised as a junior role).
It seems a fairly disturbing trend that most IT jobs now insist on candidates having experience that would seem to preclude anyone over 30.
Certainly, I think an interviewer has zero obligation to spend his time explaining to somebody what they did wrong. Certainly not for free.
That said, I think in many circumstances, it can be a good thing to explain to somebody why they didn't get the gig. If they undertake a course of self improvement, they could potentially apply for a different position in a few years and prove a really valuable asset. Before I left my last job, there was a huge amount of bitterness related to internal job applications for position transfers. People would be rejected with no idea why. It was killing morale. I don't know if they ever improved the situation, but it would have been really easy to say,
"Look, Suzie Q, when we open up to public applications, most of the people applying for this type of position have qualifications X,Y, and Z in these amounts. You only have X, and only in this amount. So, it's not personal, but I think we are going to keep looking. If you really want to move into this position, we really think that only A and not B will be the best route to getting Y and Z."
Instead, with really vague requirements, people thought they were perfectly qualified, and had no idea how to get better-qualified. They also thought that it was just a matter of personal grudges.
With external applicants, I think it is less important, but it doesn't usually hurt. I suppose you might consider it valuable to keep some of the stunning idiots in the industry in hopes that they will work with your competitors. But, you may eventually work with them too. And, you will have to maintain their code. Probably safer for everybody just to point out to them how clueless they are.
And, when I'm away from my day job, I do theater stuff. I was recently involved in some auditions to expand an improv troupe I am in. Not everybody got individual commentary, but the folks dismissed in the first round did at least get a general explanation. Everybody who made it past the first cut got an explanation of what impressed the director, and what he thought they could most work on - both the folks who made it and those who didn't. Personally, I wish we could have taken a little more time to offer personal advice to some of the folks in the first round. I would have liked suggesting that the hot chicks take classes that I can sit in on and watch them learn. Especially one blonde. I tried to convince the director that she should join the troupe and just not be allowed to say anything. I would have been cool with that.
They almost always seem to zone in on the technically inept.
He could end up the CEO of the company that buys out your company..
Burning bridges, that sort of thing.
Who is general failure, and why is he reading my hard drive?
You should definitely not say anything to this prospective employee. I am not a lawyer, but the reason that these interviews are setup in such a manor that the interviewer is not the person telling the interviewee that they do not get the job is for legal reasons. Telling them this would potentially open up your company to a lawsuit (frivolous or otherwise). This is not to mention the hot water you could be in for stepping around HR in the interview process.
You may feel you have an ethical obligation to set this guy straight, but you also have an ethical obligation to your company to not expose them to a potential lawsuit (or to bad PR from this guy telling others what you have said). Also, as crass as this may sound, would this action result in increasing shareholder value for your company? Professional ethics requires that you at least consider that question before taking an action such as this.
It sounds like your heart is in the right place for wanting to tell this guy the truth, but really it isn't your job. It's the job of this guy's professors in school (through grades), and the job of his colleagues when he does land a job (through peer review or otherwise) to tell him that he is not as good as he thinks he is. Besides, if someone is that full of them self, do you really believe he would listen and not take offense?
I was hiring a programmer for a project, and had one I liked. I Googled his name, email address, got nothin'. Then I Googled the *newsgroups*. This guy posted on alt.drugs.hard that he had just moved to my city, and was lamenting how hard it was to find good heroin. He had also posted to something like alt.alien.contact, how aliens had been contacting him, and he had picture proof, in the dust patterns on his T.V. He linked to the pic on the web, but it was less than convincing.
So what did I tell him? Nothing. Just that I had hired someone else, and thanks for his time.
There are 01 kinds of cars in the world. The General Lee, and everything else.
I, like others have posted, typically don't tell the interviewee how they did. The standard line I use for those that inquire is "after the interview, I make an assessment of your skill level and appropriateness for the job, I then give this to the hiring manager (which sometimes is myself) and it's up to them to figure out if those variables meet their criteria". While it would be nice to tell everyone how they did, from a practical standpoint it often leads to bigger troubles (I know this from experience). One other aspect is that this day and age, one has to be very careful about what you tell a candidate, it could be that "you didn't think they were a good fit", which often means that you thought they were a putz, but of course you can't say that (that they were a putz). So I just leave the legaleeze to those that are trained in it (HR).
BTW, I never "toy" with candidates. AAMOF, I try to go out of my way to keep them relaxed and not discouraged if things aren't going well. The point of the interview is to try to assess their abilities and appropriateness for the job, not to make myself feel superiour or have a team of folks that "interview well" but can't code worth a darn. I also don't want to exclude people because they "don't interview well". Some folks just get nervous, and I would hate to pass on someone good just because of that (after all, how many of us know other techies that are awesome at what they do, but have a few issues with their "social graces").
A lot of employers are not even contacting you AT ALL after the interview. I mean, I can understand why you can't contact everyone that sends in a resume, but jeeze... if you've shown enough interest to interview a person, you should at least tell them that they DIDN'T get the job.
Eventually they will get more experience and a job, and may even do well at it eventually. Let recruiters tell people what mistakes they have made. Besides that, some people come away knowing where they had trouble in an interview/job/contract and do their best to get better in the deficient areas. Unless you are there coach or teacher, then just let them be.
For the past seven months, I have been applying for jobs. I would take anything, even a retail job or mopping floors at a fast food place. I have applied to twelve different fast food places and at least fifteen different retail stores, including Circuit City and Wal-Mart. I fill out the application to the best of my ability, but I have no previous job experience. I've never worked before. I have had two interviews. In both, they called me back and said they weren't interested. I have done very well in high school, but they don't seem to care. How do you get your first job? I am fairly technically inclined (C/C++/Java) and have done well in the programming classes at high school. I do well in German and use excellent English grammar. I do well in all activities and have many awards, I am the student of the semester, but I can't get a job. I think job candidates should be told more than "you aren't a final candidate for the position!"
Every job interview is a potential lawsuit waiting to happen. Your job interviewing candidates is to minimize that threat. You should already know all this if you are interviewing candidates. For example, you might think asking about somebody's kids is a polite thing to do, but actually it's a legal liability because you might trying to figure out whether a female candidate is planning to have children in the future (...because if they are, it would be a bad idea to hire them because of huge costs you have to bear due to maternity leave).
And yes, it means that you really can't provide constructive criticism. Frankly, it's not your place to provide such criticism anyway. Just because a candidate is not appropriate for your position doesn't mean they aren't competent for another.
I suggest that you talk to your HR department and get the answers to these sorts of questions.
Oh NO YOU DIDN'T!! You DID NOT just correct someone's grammer using two sentences starting with uncapitalized words. SNAP!
The answer is no. I think you should consult your lawyer or your HR department. Why would you look for input on slashdot for a question like this?
These days anybody will sue anyone else for anything. If you provide any information, you may be providing grounds for a lawsuit. The usual thing to do is provide a letter that says, "Although we were impressed with your qualifications, we found someone else better suited for the job." Then, if the candidate insists on knowing why they didn't get the job you can tell them that, unfortunately, you can't discuss the qualifications of the winning candidate because of privacy concerns.
It does sound not very nice but our organization has suffered big time because someone was nice and provided too much information. (It was when someone was let go before they had completed their probation. The principle is the same though.)
In the team technical interview they prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that not only is he (or she) not as adequate as he thinks he is, but has demonstrated that he is a danger to any code base.
Hey look, it's the Prima donna developer! Your code must be PERFECT! All of your opinions are CORRECT!
Chances are you aren't qualified enough to really tell if "he is a danger to any code base".
Really, it sounds like you want to talk about how your sills are utterly superior to the job candidate.
(I'm not a developer, but I deal with your types wayy too often).
Tell them? No way! Instead give him a list of competitors and say he might have a better shot there...
Invexi - a Phoenix, AZ based web design and web development company.
There's a story about Art Rooney, long-time owner of an American football franchise in Pittsburgh -- the Steelers. He had to fire his quarterback, who wasn't getting the job done. As the QB was leaving, Rooney saw him from his limo and shouted at him: "I hope you become the greatest QB who ever lived!"
The QB's name? Johnny Unitas.
If I've learned nothing else in life, it's that building good relationships with people will get you further than anything else. I've also learned that it's important to serve as a mentor to people.
If you tell them in a kindly manner that they're not applying for a job they're qualified for, and that they should modify their job searches to meet their existing skill sets, you saved them tons of job-hunting trouble. (If you express it well and they still don't pay you any heed, it's their own damned fault.)
Having been on both sides of that interview table, I know how much it matters to that individual. And both your personal success and your company's success depend on the relationships you build.
The key thing about building relationships is that you have to have that function activated all the time; you can't just turn it on selectively. If you're selective, you become a two-faced suck-up, and people will know that's what you are -- to say nothing of the opportunities you'll miss when you treat someone like shit and they one day turn out to be big-time.
Every person who ever succeeded faced rejection at some point by someone else. Be damned sure that they remember those things. They remember who gave them assistance along the way, and those who did not.
Moreover, when that one rejectee does succeed, and tells all his admirers and fans about that time you shot him down for a job, is he going to talk about how you helped steer him in the right direction, or how you were an asshole?
Don't be that asshole. Be like Art Rooney. Help the candidate out.
...I would love to get feedback from employers. It's too bad that we live in such a litigious society where you can't even give advice to people who don't make the cut.
If we removed all levels of efficiency and legality and boiled it down to basic human behavior and manners, yeah, you should be nice to everyone and send personalized responses to what the needs were and how the applicant didn't meet them. As an applicant, if I don't get a response and it's a position I am hyped about, I try to reach them until I do get a response, good or bad. The only time I told an applicant specific reasons why they weren't hired was when a friend applied but didn't make the cut. On a side note, I think it's kinda sad that you can't always be polite because of legal reasons.
That's not the way to go about it. You hire these failures, and then you slowly crush their soul and destroy their lives, then sue them. Isn't that what business is all about? As if I'm going to hire the best and brightest. That's no fun.
... and then they built the supercollider.
I once had a candidate apply for a senior software positon. Their resume looked good, 10 years industry experience, c, c++, yadda yadda. When I started asking questions we got some interesting information though. First of all he had recieved a degree in EE 18 years ago. Since then he had taken exactly one CS course, in C++. To top if off here is how the questioning went wrt. hash tables.
Are you familiar with hash tables?
Yes.
When would you use a hash table?
When you needed to put things into it and take things out.
What are the performance characteristics of a hash table?
They are fast.
When would you use a hash table instead of another data structure?
When you wanted to put things into it and take things out.
Could you give me an example of when a hash table would be a bad choice?
They are always fast.
It went on from there.
Even though it was obvious he wasn't suitable for a software positons it isn't your job as a prospective employer to help him with his interviewing skills.
Now I have been known to make exceptions for recent college grads or foreigners who aren't familiar with the country.
Your job is to fill a position in your company. Nothing else. Mean, but thats the way it is.
When I was starting out I would have appreciated employers contacting me after an interview and telling me "you're good, but you got to get better at X and Y". I do the same now every time I go through a hiring cycle. I've found that most developers (that's who I hire, obviously) are by and large grateful at you for doing that. There's always going to be the occasional dick that replies with "well fuck you I didn't want to work at your stupid company anyway", but I could really care less.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
When I came back after a year overseas to look for a job, I ended up with two offers. One of them (found through direct contact) offered about 20k more than the other (through a hiring agency). I spoke to the latter, asking if they could better their offer, and the agency basically flat out told me "You're not worth it. This is a great salary!" (granted, for a graduate, which I have most definitely not been, for quite a few years) "You'll come crawling back to me in two months just -begging- for a job!".
Naturally I declined their generous offer, and five months later, am still in the other job and quite happy with my decision.
I've also been warning everyone I can get my hands on to avoid using that employment agency.
Capitalization should be, too.
I suppose someone is dumb enough not to hire based on that.
You ARE aware that people post there using other people's names? Just for this very reason? Any posting there with a real name ought to be viewed under a large cloud of suspicion.
I guess not. Good thing you posted here under a nym, otherwise I'd guarantee that your name with be in that group tomorrow.
1. You might be wrong. Maybe what you think is important is really not the key factor in other jobs that are related. For example there are many very successful VB shops, but few Java and C# people out there who will give them the time of day. And programming techniques and methodologies vary widely.
:)
2. The candiate may have had a bad day. I know I have had some bad ones, where I was tongue-tied on occasion and just did not see what my interviewer (or customer) was getting at, though it was clear as daylight later.
3. There are misunderstandings. People hear one word, and understand another. Accents, culture, word usage vary widely and interviews are usually too short to establish contexts and get used to one another.
Once we hired a guy who interviewed brilliantly, even had fanstastic code samples (impresive video games he had written on a basic PC - that later turned out to be very buggy). After a year we concluded that he could never write enough "if" statements to special case his bugs out of existence, and he would never be able to tackle problems in any other way. But we missed it in the interview.
Basically hiring people is risky business
I wonder what would happen if google tried to give every person who applied to google criticism.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Not only no, but HELL no.
Did you see that episode of Seinfeld where Jerry's uncle thought everyone in the world who expressed any opinion at all was an anti-Semite?
You will run into people who, no matter how bad they were and how well meaning you are (as hiring manager) will not believe one word of what you say. They didn't get a job because you are a racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe, homosexual, threatened by their l33t skillz or any one of another defensive fantasy where you have an unreasoning prejudice.
You are just asking for trouble.
Charles
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
First of all: Tell people they haven't got the job, in a letter preferably. Nothing worse then not knowing. If you have critisism, disguise it and make it in regards to other candidates (the successfull applicant showed a much stronger knowledge of xyz). Chances are they know their skill shortcomings but occasionally they won't and you have to be sure that you don't critisize something so heavily it destroys them.
If they are underqualified for the position, or are very junior, sometimes I will tell them that they did not get the job, and talk to them about why, and how they could become a more qualified applicant in the future. Sometimes people apply for jobs in an industry that they are new to, and I think the information about what we are looking for in potential candidates is more useful to someone than just being told "Thank you for your time, we'll get back to you if we're interested."
:P
If the person is just not a good fit for whatever reason, and it's not a matter of improving their skills, then usually a "We don't have a position that would fit with your qualifications" would do. Or possibly just thanking them for their time.
If the interview is just bizarrely bad, then a quick "thank you" is probably about the best I can do
I'd only tell them if three conditions were met:
I had an interview years ago with a dot-com company, lets say Mr. X interviewed me.
..
..
.. ..
..
They had it all, funding, free food, good salary, nice people. Sounded great.
Then for whatever reason an offer wasn't extended.
Years later at a new company, I work my way up from peon to managing a team of 20 people, making not to bad a pay.
One day I'm doing interviews. Mr. X comes in looking for a job.
I never did really tell him why we didn't hire him
Though I believe when he got the "oh f-ck" expression on his face half-way through he remembered who I was.
Its no why he didn't get the job though.
I actually wanted to hire him, he hasn't to bad, I think he botched the interview when his tone changed after he knew who I was though
For him I wanted to tell him, if only to let him know I didn't hold a grudge, but I'm not sure which was worse
Me telling him hes a bumbling idiot, mumbling, slurring, ranting, would-scare-the-team, vs. him thinking he didn't get the job because he didn't hire me
It did take all I had though not to have fun with the situation
Please, as a candidate for interviews, I hate it when companies have some sort of super secret policy regarding how well I did in interviews.
This is especially true given us poor college candidates. Understanding the finer points of interview etiquette is not accomplished instantly. (I have been criticized for dressing up too much and for not dressing up enough!)
Also, think about it: Don't you want other companies doing the same thing, so that you get better candidates coming in through your doors as well?
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
One time we had a candidate that looked good on paper, but when we brought him in to meet with the team, it was oil and water. Very badly. This guy was absolutely the wrong personality for the rest of the team even though he brought the technical goods.
He emailed us and asked why he hadn't gotten the position. We made the mistake of politely explaining what our issues with him were. He used that explanation to kick off some sort of lawsuit against our company.
I actually have no idea how it ultimately turned out. HR told us never to do that again, legal took charge of the matters with every expectation to fight this tooth and nail (especially to avoid a precedent against our company). I presume it's either still outstanding, he lost, or he gave up, because I think I would have heard if it had gone against us.
If someone asks us how they did in an interview now (and we're not planning on offering them a job), it's, "Well, we have a lot of candidates to examine, we'll contact you if we're interested in a second interview or need more information. If you have questions about your performance in the interview, we suggest you contact a career counselor who is better equipped and has the appropriate training to answer questions like that."
Slay a dragon... over lunch!
I once had a person come in to interview for a Testing position. Unfortunately, HR had passed me the resume late in the process and I really hadn't had time to take a look at their resume before I met the candidate ( at our company, the first interview was done by HR ). The resume had four spelling mistakes on the first page alone. For a Testing position, this wasn't going to work and I politely told the candidate why they weren't going to be hired.
I did have more blunt talk with HR and got really ticked when they didn't see what the big deal was.
The nice thing to do would be to tell them you won't hire them, exactly why you won't hire them, and tell them what they would need to work on so you would hire them next year. There are plenty of selfish reasons to be vague / unhelpful / untruthful, some of which have been mentioned by others.
However, there are plenty of self-serving reasons to be nice. It makes your company look bad if others in the industry openly discuss what a dick the interviewers are. Also, the person you are lying to might be a psychopath, and come back the next day with a machine gun. Depending on what you sell, your employees/potential employees might also be your customers. Pissing customers off is never good; it is sometimes cheaper, but never good.
When in doubt, be nice. In my experience, things just work out better when you do it that way.
The lesser reason is that they deserve some help in their job seeking, given that they have gone to the trouble of attending the interview.
But reason #1: I want to see how they respond to friendly advice. I don't want to hire people who can't take advice.
Consider that the problem could be you. When I've been "corrected" on coding problems in the past; it typically indicated that the interviewer was asking the wrong questions. Don't expect people to write perfect error-checking, choose your favorite algorithm, naming convention, ect.
For example, I once had to write an algorithm that had to handle money. I chose a slow and reliable algorithm, and the interviewer chastised me to not writing the fastest once possible. (He never told me he was looking for speed.) When I politley explained that I always choose a reliable algorithm that can be replaced with a fast one, as needed, he refused to listen to me, and probably thought that I was a risk to his code base.
In another internview, I was chastised for not performing extensive (and redundant) input checking. Typically, in whiteboard coding where the goal is to demonstrate an algorithm, one does not worry about minor details. Again, the interviewer probably though that I was a risk to his code base because my first reaction to his problem wasn't to follow his error-checking style.
So, perhaps instead of correcting someone's code, ask them why they wrote it the way they did. The answer to, "Why did you choose a slow algorithm?" or "Why aren't you performing null checking?" could be valid because the interviewer thinks you're looking for something else.
No, I will not work for your startup
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
It's a judgment call. You aren't obligated to say anything other than "Thank you for your time." If I'm busy or the person is hopelessly mismatched or defective, I won't say anything. If they seem like they could grow into someone who has a future I might say something like, "Perhaps you should spend a little time looking into that XML standard. I hear it's going to be big someday."
To put it another way, I treat them like I think I would like to be treated. If I know I flunked it and I know why, the interviewer doesn't need to tell me anything. If I'm mystified why I was passed over, some feedback would be nice.
On the other hand, a lot of the time you'd just be inviting the person to come back with, "Ah, great! So if I go learn more about XYZ, then I'm hired?" Maybe you can't really fully grok this until you've been on the hiring side for a while, but most often the lack of a particular skill or expertise is not the problem in and of itself. It's an indication of deeper problems, which are not usually easy (or even possible) to give people constructive feedback on without taking lots of time talking it over with them.
For example, if I'm interviewing an engineer who claims to have both Java and C++ experience, one of my typical initial easy questions is, "Tell me some of the differences between the Java and C++ object models." The ultimate point of that question is not to find out how much you know about the differences between Java and C++. If your answer goes no further than describing which keywords are used in which language, then chances are you aren't the type who likes to dig beneath the surface of the tools you use and think about why things work the way they do. And if you give me a really thorough answer without having to stop and think about it, it tells me you probably know what you're talking about, at which point I dispense with most of the other easy questions on my list.
The trouble is, if someone completely flubs that question (and I don't get the sense it's just due to nerves or whatever) then what am I supposed to tell them? "Sorry, come back when you're more inquisitive" doesn't exactly work as constructive criticism. And "Sorry, you don't know the difference between these object models" is even less useful because that was never the point of the question to begin with -- and what's more, it implies that if only they had skimmed that chapter of their "Java for C++ Programmers" book the night before, they'd be walking away with a job offer.
It sucks to be turned down for a job without knowing why. I have very smart friends to whom that happens over and over again and they find it intensely frustrating. But at the same time, the "why" is not always easy to describe, and is even less easy to describe in a way that doesn't come off rude or condescending and that doesn't give people false hope. And of course as an interviewer, you're trying to fill a job position, which probably means that every minute spent helping out a rejected candidate is one you're not spending reading the next resume in the stack on your desk.
As someone who is currently looking for work (I'm a legacy IVR guy looking to be a cutting-edge IVR guy), I have found myself in quite a few positions where I didn't get the job. At least, I assume that I didn't get the job, because no one ever got back to me.
One of the most infuriating places to be is in limbo. I took time out of my day because I wanted to work for *your* company, and give you a huge chunk of my time so you can turn my work into cost savings. At bare minimum, you *owe* me a, "No, thanks." That way, every time my phone rings or my gmail alert chimes I, I'm not assuming that my key to the executive washroom is in the mail.
At some point in the future, I'm going to run for office. One of the salient items on my platform is that employers are required, by law, to let candidates know that they have not been selected. It's a courtesy that's not carried out enough, so I'll make it a law.
-AC
I've been in the position of not getting a position several times, the form "sorry you have not been successful at this time" letter is one of the most annoying things in the world. I want to know why I wasn't successful. Did my interview technique suck? Did I lack confidence? Was I presenting a bad attitude? Was I plain under qualified for the role? Was I over qualified? OK that last one has probably never been a reason for me, but you get the idea. There are so many reasons why you might not get a job it would be nice if they'd narrow it down.
Knowing what's wrong helps you to address the problem. If you're aiming for roles that are above your ability you need to know, so you can aim lower. If you lack confidence - as I know I do; one employer did have the decency to tell me that was why they decided not to hire me, even though I got through the HR interview, tech interview and the second sift - it's moderatly annoying, but at least it means you know you're not unqualified for that kind of role, you just need to work on presenting a more confidence persona.
If the candidate refuses to accept the reason then it really should be their problem, not the company's. Unfortunatly giving someone a reason as to why you didn't hire them, especially those with a bad attitude, just gives them an excuse to blame you. But to be honest, they're probably going to try and blame you anyway.
It always kind of amused me that, if you apply for a civilian role at Essex Police, and you're registered disabled, you're guaranteed an interview and will also get a debrief on your interview if you're not succesful. Of course they're only doing it so that they can't be accused of descrimination. Which is exactly why other employers won't give you a reason.
Yeah, I had a sig once; I got bored of it.
True story.
I interviewed last year for a Java job in Albuquerque, New Mexico for a contractor working with the Air force. The guy was looking for aged Java technology. Struts 1.0, etc. During the interview I asked how he felt about JavaServer Faces, Struts 1.2, Struts 1.3, Shale, AJAX, and the direction Sun and others were going with Java web technology. The guy got very hostile with me...."if it ain't broke don't fix it" he said. From that moment on the guy treated me like I was some dirt bag who was too interested in newer technology. I could tell he must be having arguments with his personnel about newer directions, etc. He got so hostile with me I told him the job wasn't for me and he was a total dick.
make sure candidate is awake.. then apply LART.- stanley-fubar-demolition-tool-198635.phpFUBAR.
The LART is especially useful on Team Killing FuckTards.
My Favorite LART is the http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/peripherals/crt-killer
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing. Emo Philips
If the candidate is unqualified (whether slightly so, or extremely so) they may have friends who are highly qualified. If the candidate has a bad experience (and being told "you're highly unqualified" is generally a bad experience), they are likely to tell their friends, and that makes it harder for us to get their friends to interview. However, if they walk away feeling good, saying "wow, that would be a great place to work; I didn't get an offer now, but I'll try again later", then they are likely to talk us up to their friends, and it makes it easier to get their friend to interview.
Additionally, we always have several interviewers interviewing each candidate. If I interview a candidate, and think they're awful, and make them feel bad, I might be the only interviewer to think poorly of them, but because I made them feel bad, they don't want to work here, and we loose a good candidate. Always leave the candidate feeling good about the interview, and let the HR person break the bad news a day or two later.
I'm not trying to be politically correct saying "don't make anyone feel bad, keep everyone happy", but I'm trying to point out that leaving a candidate feeling good about an interview, regardless of how they did, will be better in the long run for the reputation of the company than leaving a candidate feeling bad.
"Those who would sacrifice essential liberty for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
. . . if the candidate, technical skills notwithstanding, has other characteristics that would make him or her a good employee. Trustworthiness, a good work ethic, and someone who doesn't drool on the clients are much more valuable qualities in the long term than someone who can just "perform Task X in Period Y." You can't train those kinds of qualities, but companies who do are better for it. This is assuming we're talking about a real company with a business plan and goals that are both human and financial.
It depends on how they react.
If they get defensive and argumentative, do you want to argue?
If they get suicidal, do you want to have that on your conscious?
If they tell you to piss of, do you want that to ruin your day?
If they want to know what their mistakes are, will you spend the time to tell them?
You're hoping they'll give a "gosh, thanks for telling me, I'm going to take some classes right now!" response. And that could happen. But you don't know and so unless you want to deal with any of the various potential negative outcomes that may arise, it's best to keep your mouth shut.
Same goes with family quarrels...
in business school way back whenever we were told that if we were rejected for a job; to send a note to the interviewer thanking them for the opportunity and asking them if they had any advice for our next interview and that we would like them to keep us in mind for future positions in their organization. I usually didn't bother. sometimes, if i had them on the phone and they told me i didn't get the job i would ask them the main reason. I remember one interviewer told me that they didn't like that i laughed when they asked me, "Which is more secure FAT32 or NTFS?" They were of the opinion that it was rude to laugh during an interview. How was I supposed to know that they actually thought this and the other questions they asked me were serious attempts to access my technical prowess. Their loss imo.
...I would have to remember something from the excruciatingly boring three-hour training session they make me do every three years so I can be on hiring committees. Oh, wait -- I do remember something -- I remember that the training was done by a guy in a suit, and it was all bad powerpoint. Oh yeah, it's coming back to me now ... there was this really foxy blonde sitting next to me, and I was like, DAMN, I sure would have hired HER, if I'd been on the committee! OK, but that's about all I remember.
Find free books.
I cannot emphasize how important it is to not be a dick. True story (all company names will be left out for the obvious reasons but this was a well known software companies) my cousin came out of college in '94 with a very low gpa not because he was not bright but because he was lazy. His very first interview whoever was filtering the resumes did not check his gpa and he made it to be interviewed. He aced the interview questions but then the question of gpa came up and when the interviewer heard his gpa he asked my cousin why he had even bothered to apply and ended the interview on the spot.
After many failed interviews my cousin realized that he was going to take a a very non-glamours job and work his way up to make up for the hard work he didn't do in college. He worked his way up through several startups and 10 years later earned a position at another very well known company where he serves as both a project manager and software engineer. A senior level position opened up on their team and guess who showed up to be interviewed by my cousin? Yup, the exact same guy who had conducted his very first job interview and had been a complete dick.
Lesson of the story? Don't ever believe the person you are interviewing won't be interviewing you one day or be your boss.
I think the invisible hand of the market has its middle finger extended
--A wise old fart named SC0RN
Anyway since their application, resume, and references were adequate for them to get to the interview, it would be a good time to figure out what they actually know, and how they wound up confused about the requirements for the job (Even if you know theyre just lying). Sometimes when 8 usd/hr is mentioned the applicant expects near zero experience to do the job. Five extra minutes of good PR time can help the image of your company /department.
Storm
A lot of the comments on here seem to be focused on giving candidates feedback after the fact. My strategy is to give them feedback as the interview is going on so that (in all but the most self-absorbed cases) they know how the interview went when the walk out door. If I think they're wrong about something, I'll tell them. This also gives them the opportunity to recover.
It took a bit of practice to deviate from the usual "hide all negative feedback to avoid an uncomfortable situation" but I think it's much easier than giving them a lump of bad news at the end and much more ethical than giving them no feedback at all.
I'll be perfectly honest here: As someone who has yet to have a successful job application outside the education sector, I would LOVE to get some sort of feedback as to why I wasn't hired by some company X, if there is any specific to be had. Seriously. It would be an outrageous benefit to me applying to company Y, company Z, etc. Was it my college experience? Did they think my university was worthless, thus making my degree worthless? Was it because I don't have an arsenal of professional-grade GUI programs under my belt? Do I need more experience first (which is really irritating when applying for entry-level jobs)? Am I just the victim of too many other applicants who just happen to be better qualified, but there's otherwise nothing wrong with my talents and skills?
Without any feedback, and after talking to career counselors and refining his or her resume to an artform, there isn't much else for a jobseeker to try besides repeating the same application/resume to another prospective employer. The same one which may have those fatal flaws that kicked someone out of the last application process which will inevitably kick that same someone out of the next application process. Does that sound paranoid? Maybe it is, but when you don't have anywhere to turn for money, you've gotta start asking why you don't have anywhere to turn for money, and no feedback just compounds the issue.
(Me personally, I currently do research work for my college en route to a Master's degree, which I will try to leverage into Doctorate study elsewhere. So while I DID have a disastrous time job-hunting once I got my Bachelor's, don't assume I'm talking as myself, here. Just assume I'm talking as a hypothetical down-on-his/her-luck Bachelor-degree holding graduate.)
I understand that there's this whole "lawsuits as primary form of income" atmosphere in the country/world today, so there may be some apprehension on the part of employers to potentially hurt an applicant's feelings. However, perhaps offering the option to understand why an applicant wasn't hired (complete with legal notice that the applicant will not file suit for hurt feelings if said option is exercised) would be enough, and such feedback would help the applicant immensely.
Granted, in most cases the company has no reason to extend any sort of benefit to anyone not working for the company (especially if said benefit may result in helping the applicant to work at the company's competition). So, many companies may want to avoid giving such feedback if at all possible. Heartless, sure, but from a business perspective, understandable.
Or maybe I've just been living with blue-sky dreams looking out the windows of the ivory tower. Maybe.
Demanding constant attention will only lead to attention.
Two examples from my own experience:
1) I wanted to work for e tech support call center (Don't ask!)
When I didn't get the job, I asked and was told that my technical skills were fine but I didn't have the call centre experience. I proceeded to get a job in a whitegoods manufacturer call center and returned a year later. I sailed through the interview the second time around and got the job I wanted.
2) Looking for a change.
After working programming for a while I was looking at moving to graphic design. I found a position, redesigned my resume and creaded a demo CD with some of my hobby work. I didn't get the job, but on request, the employer was kind enough to give me an analysis of my work. Now I know that it's a rare thing for someone to produce a critique for a persn that they may never see again, so I consider myself extremely lucky, but it provided me with enough informtion to know that Graphic Design is a field that I'm not ready for and to pursure it right now would be a mistake.
In both cases, the feedback from the prospective employer was not only valuable but life changing, or at least career focussing.
The status quo is fine with me - I know they either:
1) Have no good reason (We Flipped A Coin), which they might admit
So, try, try again.
2) Have an obvious, uncontrollable reason (You Don't Have n Years Experience), which they will probably admit
Then bitch about it to your friends and move on. Feel better in that someone with n years experience may suck at the job and they may be stuck with that guy instead. Experience is really subjective - when they treat it objectively they lose out as much as you do. A good idea would be to better convince the next people that you learned/know a lot from your limited previous experience. Try to have them drill you on some things an experienced person would know; if I were looking for a job right now I would _request_ that.
2) Have an obvious, controllable reason (You Don't Have AIX Experience), which they will probably admit
Then apply for a job that doesn't have it as a requirement. Also look it up on the net and familiarize yourself with it without actual job experience. Don't claim that you have experience, but that you are familiar/interested and willing to learn.
3) Have an outside, uncontrollable reason (We Lost The Funding), which they will probably admit
Try, try again.
4) Equivocate or Delay
Assume one of the previous three and move on. Really, if someone can't/won't be straight with you, what advice can they really offer? Make sure you don't have BO or (which happened to me as interviewer) _steal something off their desk_ or show up high.
I had the pleasure of having all four responses about a year ago, then I got a job and got promoted within a year. In fact, I got #2 from the company I currently work for, for applying to the position I have now.
Also keep in mind that employers often will inflate experience needed in the post to provide legal cover (with 5yr, they can hire a 3yr they like but can refuse a 4yr they don't). It's hard not to take the 'you might be a n00b' personally but you shouldn't.
-Dave
I was interviewing someone for a job at a startup in SoCal... (even though I'm not a native-english speaker, but believe me, that wasn't the problem ;)
I ask the guy some questions about programming and the prick goes "woaw, no, I don't do all that, I'm a low-level guy, like you can see on my resume". And his resume was full of buzzwords related to assembly programming. Bad luck for that looser, I happen to have done a *lot* of x86 and 68x00 assembly programming (a long time ago). So I start asking some very simple question about assembly language and the guy, upon noticing that I obviously knew something about that subject, became red... In a split second! I've hardly ever seen someone turn red that fast. The guy has a resume that make him look like his assembly-fu is strong and that he's a low-level guy... He couldn't even tell what a *register* was. A fscking register.
Basically the guy was trying to completely bullshit the person interviewing him. Sad thing is this prick probably will be interviewed, one day, by someone who know jack-shit about assembly language programming and, upon reading the resume, he'll think "damn, that's *the* low-level guru we need". And that fucker will have a job.
The CTO (by far the best programmer I've ever met) told me, before I started interviewing people, "You'll see, when you'll look at their resume, you'll think they're all way more knowledgeable than you" Then, ask them questions, and you'll see 9 out of 10 are full of shit".
So, I wish I told this mofo that it was really sad to realize that one day he'll manage to get a job by bullshitting someone.
I heard it was just 'Inuit'; as in, that's the plural too. Like Deer, moose, mail and email, some words are also their own plurals -- for those who live outside the trailer park.
Isaac said: "Second, from an employer's perspective, it may in the narrow self-interest of the company for such a person to go be a drain on its competitors. Where's the rational economic incentive to discourage that?"
-----------
There is an economic incentive for the company, because more incompetent individuals in a society raise the cost of doing business and sap profits. For example, you avoid giving constructive advice to an incompetent engineer, and he later inspects and certifies an unsafe bridge that later collapses, killing your wife, and also delaying shipments of your companies critical items by forcing all traffic into a congested, more expensive, longer route.
Just look at the effect of a smoothly running, well-organized country, with superhighways, modern infrastructure, good law and order, and good legal business environment, compared to a third world country with bad roads, corrupt government, and rampant crime. The more incompetent individuals are running free in an economy, the more damage they do to the business environment by making everything (i.e. the infrastructure your companies depends on) more chaotic, expensive, and inefficient.
-vector92
Basically, I was told that giving a reason is lawsuit bait; just say "sorry, you're not what we're looking for". We got some utterly clueless submissions that we strung along purely for amusement value, and I dearly wanted to administer a cluebat to. Like the fellow who, when asked to include a sample of C code with his application, gives us Java code. Okay, they're similar, but could you please show us some C code? "That is C code!" he insists. We all fall over laughing.
Actually, we did what I still consider a clever thing; we were specifically looking for the ability to judge good code, so we asked for samples of both "nice" and "nasty" code. Producing good code is a skill that can be learned, but you have to be able to recognize quality when you get it; if you're unable to tell good from bad, it's hopeless. There was one fellow whose "nasty" example was considerably nicer than his "nice" one.
(BTW, I'm using male pronouns, but actually I don't recall the sex of the applicants.)
There are two assumptions I make once I get as far as the interview process:
Given these assumptions, at the end of every interview I always ask:
"Would you have any suggestions on how I could improve my interview or any areas of expertise that could increase my desirability as an {IT,developer,Crack Dealer}?"
I've found this to be an extremely useful question. It helps you as an interviewee improve with each consecutive interview. It also provides a saving throw. For example, perhaps you eliminated a bit of experience you had with Solaris systems in an enterprise environment on your resume (something has to go or it ends up being an autobiography)...and it so happens that they have a Solaris server and were looking for someone with at least a passing familiarity with that OS.
So yes, I think you should tell them in a non-prickish way what areas they could improve in to become a competitive applicant for the position they applied for with your company.
I've seen several posts here from employers saying *they* are the ones giving a job...why should they do anything for the interviewee. I found this outlook to be pretty amusing. I go into every interview with the attitude that its the company who needs me. I have a valuable skill set, the employer advertised because they need someone with my skillset. I've never gone for more then a week or two without work and I've never been fired. I've left jobs because employers had the attitude that they were doing me a favor by employing me. . . . and then that employer was stuck sifting through incompetent applicants for the next several weeks to find someone they now need once again.
You should never treat your applicants like your doing them a favor. Provide helpful advise to those who don't make the cut and the next time around you might see him with the {certification, education, experience, etc} that you wished he had the first time.
Now you have an applicant that is not only qualified, but has demonstrated a deep desire to work for your company, acts on constructive criticism, and self motivation.....sounds perfect? Don't you think?
I work in a medical research lab. Generally when someone does poorly in an interview, it's apparent that they had padded or built a resume to parrot back the requirements in the job advertisement. You advertise: "Experience with package X desirable but not necessary; solid analytical and programming skills a must." You get a client with package X experience as a line item. At the interview you find out (after many tries to drill down into deep information and coming up with vacuum each time) that the experience for that line item consists of looking over the shoulder of someone using package X for 2 minutes.
." This opens the door for interviewers to pose follow up questions which tend to drive toward a common language for communication. There are only so many things you can do with numbers, library/db calls and user interfaces. Being able to make connections shows that you have an inventory of what you know.
What really impresses me is someone who can tie things together. "No, I haven't used package X, but I have used Y which, if I understand the way X works is similar in
As far as telling the candidate that they loused up: I don't. I do work toward asking follow on questions which allow a candidate to shine. I start out with big ole softballs and from the responses refine the pitching strategy. The pitches get faster and if you are smart you'll take a pass on a few of them -- "I don't know" is an acceptable answer and it'll get me to re-load the pitch and deliver it differently. Pitches that get re-loaded many times are likely to be important to me in filling the position. Ones that never come back were likely an attempt to let the candidate get some momentum. In short I try to make sure that the candidate can surmise how they did.
As a candidate, I would really appreciate whatever feedback a company can give me that they don't feel to be a legal liability. :-/
As an interviewer, I think it's a good idea to give blunt feedback to whoever recruited the person, as they probably didn't understand the requirements. (HR, recruiter, etc.)
-Peter
All job interviews require sales skills.
Even if you are not asking for a position in sales, you are selling a product: yourself.
There are two things any company is looking for:
o The ability to fulfill the requiremetns of the position
o Team fit
The first can be satisfied by work experience and paper credentials, if you have them. Depending on your ability to sell yourself as being able to do the job - your reputation in the field of endeavor (if you have one), your paper credentials coming from a place with a reputation in the field, your paper credentials with regard to union and other organization membership with a reputation in the field, and so on - you may or may not end up needing to have references that can be checked, letters of recommendation, and so on.
The second is a matter of personal prejudice, and whether or not you rub the person/people interviewing you the right way or the wrong way.
If you get to an interview, then your paper credentials, on face value, are sufficient that they expect that - if you did not lie about your capabilities in your resume or on the application - you can do the job. So the purpose of the interview is almost entirely (80%) a matter of determining whether or not the organization wants you, as a person, working there, and only a little bit (the remaining 20%) about whether or not you lied on your paperwork.
Your reference to "programming classes in high school" implies that you are either currently in high school, or a recent graduate, and either are not yet in college, or are recently enough enrolled that you can't point at classes from your college experience yet, instead.
No one is going to be impressed with your high school technical credentials, unless you went to a magnet school, attained some type of certification, or can demonstrate involvement in some level of professional project. Without that, having done well in a high scholl technical class merely means "attended class regularly, did not make a nuisance of themselves, turned in most of their homework, did not outright flunk tests".
If you are dying to demonstrate your "Mad Technical Skillz", take a job where there will be opportunity to demonstrate them, but for which they are not a requirement for the job you take. If you have them, and the place employs people like that as well, then your demonstration will be enough. Otherwise, consider going to college - your opinion of your "skillz" is probably higher in your mind than in reality.
In terms of getting the jobs that you've applied to - if you've genuinely applied to 12 fast food places, and not been hired at any of them, there's something wrong with _you_, in terms of employability. If you've genuinely applied to 27 total places, and only been interviewed twice, then the problem is likely your appearance - cleanliness (breath, B.O.), behaviour, clothing, hair style, piercings, tattoos, or something similar. All of these are part of being able to sell yourself to an employer, and all of these would have either nixed an interview happening in the first place, or if you escaped the screening process, sunk your interview immediately.
In addition, there could be other factors; if you are currently in high school, or graduated early, you could legally be too young to work. If you've indicated that you are going to college out of state, and this is "just a summer job", then you are a fly-by-night employee, who will get trained enough to be worth your wage, and just as you become useful, are expected to take off for parts unknown.
Frankly, even if you are in high school, but old enough to legally work (17+), it's not that hard to get an entry level job. You just have to sell yourself.
A shower, dress slacks, a casual shirt, socks without holes, normal shoes (not motorcycle boots with 2 pounds of metal with scrollwork on it), etc. indicate to your potential employer that you take the opportunity to work for them seriously, and that you're willing to dress up to attt
I don't think there's a coder that's been around the block that hasn't been thought as a "danger to the codebase" by some person that considers himself to be an expert.
I had one interview with a team of developers that were complete asses to me. When the company I interviewed with folded a year later one of the interviewers turned up, you guessed it, in front of me as one of the interviewers.
I wonder if he ever found a job...
I think the only thing you can be sure of is that the candidate is not a good fit for your team. In my case the guy was a strong candidate but it was clear based on his behavior in our interview that he would not be a good fit for our team and that's what we told him.
We brought in a guy for a round-robin technical interview. I was first in line for the interview. Within 3 minutes, it was clear the guy had almost none of the skills as described on his resume. I then hit on some basic IT technology points, networking, sysadmin, etc. which we did every day and he had on his resume'. I finally stopped the interview and said, "I don't think this is going to work out." After having said "I don't know" or flubbing for 10 minutes, he just nodded and said "Yes, I figured". Saved us both a lot of time. H
If someone asks for constructive input, then give it. However it is not your moral right to give advice if it is not asked for.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Having had the opportunity to sit on both sides of the desk, let me voice my personal opinion. I can honestly say that showing someone areas to improve in will build trust, growth, and interest in your company. If "Jenny Sue" came to the team interview and performed horribly, but was really positive, give her reasons to try again. Don't say you'll call them back. If you tell the person "We are not interested", you push them away with a negative attitude and who knows what kind of negative web publicity they can provide your company. If you tell the prospective employee "This is a suggestion for improving on ..." or even "Your might want to learn more about ...", you build interest from the prospective employee. Tell them to work on those areas and improve their knowledge and skills and you want them to come back in a month or so. If the person is interested they will come back with more knowledge. I had to learn more for my last 3 jobs. Each time with more knowledge and a positive attitude.
This is a way to have this person start building their work skills and knowledge to your work enviroment without paying to train them. From there selection for hire becomes a process of where to fit them in with minimal training on how to work within your company. What is better than having a positive person come in to your company knowing they progressed to your standards, eager to be a team member. The result is a bad interview turned into a good future employee, with room for growth.
--MikeW
It's all about RTFM.
In a REAL interview, where applicants are made to fight for their position in some sort of 'death arena', the reasons for losing should be apparent, and no explanation need be given.
I've had to do this on a couple occasions, one occasion was an interviewee who clearly wasn't qualified, another was someone hired to do a job they were completely incompetent at.
In both cases, I sat the person down and told them frankly and honestly, without criticism, that there is a certain level of ability and/or dedication that the job required and that they were not even close to meeting the requirement. I suggested they examine what they wanted and expected out of a career in the industry, and decide either to raise their competency or work ethic, or find another career better suited for them. In both cases, when I got to the point of discussing alternate careers, they reacted surprisingly well, almost as if they knew they were trying to do something they couldn't and it was a relief to finally admit it.
Yes, this is a litigious society and this is clearly not an HR approved response. For anyone who argues for capitulating to the legal BS, I suggest they try standing up for simple human decency sometime.
I have interviewed candidates for a position of on-site technician; a person who goes to people's homes, or small business locations, to fix their computers.
I had people with qualifications ranging from 'none' (he thought the job posting was for entry-level phone support,) to 'extremely qualified, but not for this job' (an IBM programmer of 30 years who had recently been laid off.) In each case, I did explain why I thought they were not a correct fit for the position.
In five years of doing this, I have conducted interviews on three occasions. I always found the best candidate through personal connections, not through open hiring. (I hired three people through open hiring, all three ended up being horrible; but they were sadly the best of the group of candidates each time.)
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
I'm a fourth year CS and maths student. I'm hearing the term "bad code" being thrown around a lot, and frankly this thread is scaring the hell out of me. What exactly is meant by bad code? Is it buggy code which is difficult to correct? Poorly commented code? Inefficient code?
I'd appreciate if someone could link me a few examples.
P.S. I sincerely doubt a link to microsoft.com will get you modded +5 funny
Slashdot: news for Apple. Stuff that Apple.
If a candidate isn't going to work out, that's the way it is.
But if you want to be a world class outfit make sure you always
send a letter or make a phone call thanking the person for their
time. Throw in some compliments and warm best wishes... etc.
If you don't extend this courtesy it is your company's reputation that
gets hurt. People talk. It is a small world. Pretty soon, good candidates
you would love to hire start coming in with negative perceptions of your company
or worst yet, just don't come in at all.
As for playing with people - well, then my friend the problem isn't the candidate
but you.
I would implore you to focus your energy not on criticism, but on education and leadership. Why not hire someone who doesn't _currently_ meet your business needs? If they are eager to learn and seem somewhat sharp, I would see this as the perfect opportunity to mentor or mold the said candidate into something that will meet your _future_ needs.
Please help to educate your fellow C.S. (C.E.) members rather than push them away... otherwise one day they might become one of those managerial types that don't really know squat about software.
BTW.. People like to point out right away what's _wrong_ with your code simply because they are trying to _shape_ you into someone who will always agree to do things their way..
i don't usually waste my time telling candidates why they didn't make it from the get-go, but if they ask off their own backs what the problems were I think that shows genuine interest in self development and will pretty much let them have it, warts and all. it's a hard ask to demand people to kick goals when they don't know where the posts are, and there doesn't need to be any conflict - just keep it in context, don't get personal and respect them and their enquiry and you might find them back at an interview down the track motivated with their eyes more clearly on the target. at the end of the day, doesn't this make for a better industry all-round?
I'm frequently looking for a job (I do a lot on contract) and the standard reply is: We're sorry, but we currently have decided not to extend you an offer. We encourage you to please apply for any future openings...
Be nice and friendly, but keep it short and simple. You don't need to give a reason or maybe you chose somebody else, the job market is fierce. The nicest thing that one company did for me was reimburse me for the gas and hotel.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
I inform people of their lack of talent rather frequently. You are being no friend at all to let someone continue down a path that only causes death and / or destruction. Sometimes... that happens. Many software bugs have indirectly killed people.
I've told friends that they bombed the interview, why they bombed, what areas need improvement, and if they have any hope. Sometimes they don't, so I put it out there bluntly and honestly. There's always time to change a career.
There's a fairytale that says something about accomplishing anything you set your mind to. It's a lie. I will never be an NBA player no matter how hard I try. I will never be able to do matrix multiplication in my head. People need to get rid of this childish notion and recognize their limits. Focus on what you actually have a hope of being good at.
don't be an asshole.
be honest, and let the applicant know that you are not hiring him because his skills are not at the level you are expecting for the given position.
explain what it is you really want to see experience-wise, even offer examples of where his skillz are deficient, but do it respectfully.
offer to consider him again if he accomplishes XYZ, but tell him the position requires more skills than he currently possesses.
if you cat/mouse him, or treat him like a jerk, chances are you'll reap exactly sow. IANAL, but depending on what the labor laws are in your area, you might F yourself in the A, or even encourage rage and revenge in you recently humiliated interview reject.
you never know, your truthful (respectful) response might not only inspire someone that you'll want to hire in the future.
three can keep a secret, if two are dead - benjamin franklin
Hello skelter, you might get a few people who you dislike during interviews but the point of an interview is to find people who are qualified to work at your organization. If you don't like them then don't hire them, there's honestly no reason to be an ass about it.
Last summer, I was contacted by a large cellular phone service provider interested in interviewing me for my Unix background (they apparently got my name through a former co-worker). A two hour phone interview was scheduled in which they informed me they were interested in interviewing me for a software development position. I told them I was more of a Unix admin than a hardcore code guru, but they were satisfied enough with the verbal interview to schedule a 6 hour on location interview. That was the last I ever heard of it. Three months later, a completely different recruiter called me asking me if I was interested in the same position, unaware that I had already interviewed for it. It's been kind of creepy. Had they followed up with some professional feedback after the 6 hour interview, I may have considered another go at it. It's very unlikely that I would consider working for them now however.
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
Otherwise you may soon be getting a similar lecture.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Sometimes the above is true. Many companies I interviewed with, I think I was more turned off by them, and I think it reflected in the interview.
Only 'flamers' flame!
Does slashdot hate my posts?
It really blows me away how non-confrontational we have become as a society. Like a little group of dweebs.
I recently set a friend up on a job interview. It turned out the prospective employer asked him why he was interested in this new job and he railed on for 10 minutes about how much his current job sucked. He screwed himself, and I told him, and with that knowledge maybe next time he won't make a complete dork of himself in a job interview. Honesty... check it out... it's new, it's cool... stop being a non-confrontational wuss! This whole modern world seems to be designed around taking advantage of insecure people who are afraid to tell the truth. I'm not playing into that. My friends respect my honesty.
I shoot her. Immediately.
a _Bean.aspx
http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/The_Brillant_Paul
posts a question using "some how" ... do you tell them ?
waiting for ad.doubleclick.net
Fado, Fado ... I once was interviewed by DEC for a job doing compiler development. I had my minimal college compiler development experience against another candidate interviewing the same day. (They flew me out half way across the country, he was local) The other candidate got the job and they told me why. "Another candidate is being hired. He has more experience in compiler development." Turns out he actually had 5 years of compiler development. Although I understood the job went to someone else, it was still pretty cool to be considered for it. And a different group that had my resume found out I interviewed for Technical Languages and interviewed me rearranging their schedules, my flight back home, and everything else to get me to stay over. I got that job, so all in all it was a great day! Latter I worked with the same group on some "off the scope" projects. So burning bridges from either side is not warranted ... The guy you turn down for one position may be sitting next to your cube the very next week anyway!
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
On the other side of the desk, I do the homework, ask the network about the corporation, and see the interviewer. If I don't get the job, so be it. If the interviewer comes across as an egotistical snob, so be it also (although I do hope they see the Mensa membership on my CV.) If they choose to snot off in public (I had that once) - they deserve what they get (watch "Good Will Hunting" for a clue.)
I do appreciate good feedback from an interview, and I am astute enough to stop an interview if I have misinterpreted the responsibilities of the position. It saves time and attitude all around. As is mentioned beforehand, the nature of the criticism must be temperate, such as "You made an impression on your knowledge of the tasks, but we found another person with the coding style that fit our system." Hopefully, they brush up on the current practices for the jobs in question.
I all fairness, I am not a coder (though I did put FORTH on a SwTPC 6809, in assembler) so I may be off base here.
Dave Lawson
dot-sig.
Except the article is about employers who refuse to give candidates the information with which to improve themselves. Where should this information come from?
She's left handed, alright.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
I told him "Getting your fscking feet off my desk would be job 1 and getting the fsck out of here would be job 2". He looked rather surprised and wondered what he did wrong...
The day Microsoft creates a product that doesn't suck, it will be known as the Microsoft Vaccuum Cleaner!
1. Interview processes are retarded and subjective
2. The person you're interviewing might be a GOD in EMACS but he just can't do it on the whiteboard
3. You've already decided in the first 15 seconds whether you like the guy, everything else is just a stupid game
4. Background, how long the guy has been doing what he's doing and what's on his resume usually plays a more important role than what he can do on the whiteboard (see #3).
5. Some people "freeze" in an unusual stress situation. This doesn't necessarily mean they'll freeze in a stressful "work" situation since the nature of stress is different.
Considering all of the above and excluding clinical cases, I'd offer the guy to come a few days later for another round of interviews if he's experiencing a brain freeze, or offer him to write code in the editor of his choice (or on paper).
First and foremost, don't be an asshole. Don't burn bridges. Operate on the assumption that you DON'T KNOW enough about the guy, because you DON'T. OTOH if there's something that you don't like, particularly if you see the guy just doesn't give a shit about the job, don't hesitate to say NO.
Most of this shit could go away if it was easier to fire people. Then you'd be hired and then fired if you don't perform and day-long interviews (which don't really tell anyone anything anyway) would just go away.
I'm sorry - but this poster is too much of a waste of time for me, and I just don't have the energy to explain why he ought not be a jackass to random people applying for jobs at his vaunted code-cow dairy. Thank you very much, we're not extending offers of help at this time - make sure to see my secretary before you leave so you can get your parking validated.
How does that sort of thing feel when you're on the receiving end? Seriously - if you have to ask this question, fuck off. Unless your legal department forbids it, treating people decently and trying to help should be the response any tolerable human being ought to have.
...has demonstrated that he is a danger to any code base.The best thing to do would be to send him to Microsoft. He would fit right in and everybody wins!
"It's not you, it's me."
These are companies that, from personal experience and feedback from peers, have provided pleasant interviewing experiences. This list has no correlation as to whether they have gotten the job.
Intel
AMD
Broadcom
Magma Design Automation
Cadence
Synopsys
University Research position with a Professor
IT job at a university
my blog
Liabiity issues. If you must say something, e.g. in a rejection email, say nothing more than 'We found a highly qualified person for the position'. The more you say, the more likely you are to slip up and make a comment that could be defined as discriminatory.
Save your mentoring for unofficial situations, e.g. mentoring friends, family members or volunteer work with students at the local college.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
For an external candidate, you politely say "thank you for your time," check the box that says "do not hire this guy," objectively fill out any other related paperwork, and move on.
When interviewing, your interest are those of your company, not the field, or society as a whole. The questions you are interested in are "can this guy do the job?" and "will this guy fit into our organization?" Providing feedback to the candidate will cause you some degree of grief (litigation, someone pestering you for feedback, and unintentional protege).
If you feel you must give feedback, volunteer at a college, technical school, or high school, to give mock interviews.
If it is an internal candidate, I wouldn't say anything, either. I would provide any feedback to HR, the individual's supervisor, or my own (to channel to the individual).
... is to find good people.
You're not there to educate every schmuck that applies for your position. You're supposed to simply find the best candidate (that meets your bar) in a reasonable amount of time.
A secondary purpose of interviewing is to get people excited about your company. EVERYONE should leave your interviews wanting to work with you. That generally fosters good will in your area prompting qualified people to apply. A great way to make people not want to work with you is to be critical without the pretense of looking out for their best interests the way a friend, peer or mentor might.
I never let on how poorly people are doing. I simply alter my approach, simplify my questions and wrap up early. I always ask if they have any questions for me about the position or company. I always take a moment to tell them something exciting about what we do. I always thank them for coming. I always show them out with a handshake and a smile and then inform my recruiter regarding how I want to follow-up.
With a little luck, those that don't get invited back know someone who will.
These opinions guaranteed or your money back.
Watch out. Mandates like that may make an employer subject to a denial of service attack by someone who submits applications on the part of a large number of obviously underqualified candidates in order to consume a company's human resources.
I love your statement, "... dangerous to any code base". that's just flawless, really.
... sometimes the prospective employee isn't the dangerous one, rather, it's the inflexible management who is dangerous to the codebase.
I'm currently working for a company I interviewed for out of desperation. I really needed a job close to home, as I was about to have a baby. The job was mine, easily, based on my skillset and their desperation for someone to 'bail them out'. After 6 months of doing basically nothing productive at this company, I find myself, on a daily basis, watching my manager, errrr "DIRECTOR!" [don't steal his rank from him!] tearing this company to shreds with his empty promises and lack of self control.
"My cock is HUGE! And behold as I whip it out, and write magnificent code! I will solve all of your problems with one swift stroke!"
This poor COBOL bastard couldn't tell me the difference between preceding-sibling and ancestor-or-self, let alone the difference between a private or public var, yet, this fuckmonkey is in charge of this small family-owned statistics business. Ridiculous.
"I am the Bratt and you shall beat On me with your baseball bat!"
But it has been my experience that there is usually a good reason a candidate lacks the fundamentals. The #1 good reason is? Immaturity. Do you really feel like asking an immature person to confront their own flaws?
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
...but I finally fell up? Anyway, it's been a long strange trip, though I feel like I've mostly done well enough.
However, this topic does remind me of two particular rejections. The best one I ever received was from H-P back in their glory days. They didn't tell me why they weren't interested, though I suspect my refusal to relocate was probably key (and then I wound up relocating to Japan?), but the letter itself was really wonderful. It's really hard to write a rejection letter like that, that really doesn't bruise the ego--and mine is terribly fragile.
The second rejection was from MIT. I asked why, and we actually exchanged several letters about it. At least they were up front about it. I came across that correspondence some years later, and upon reflection, I agree with them. Mostly.
Oh, you want to know why MIT bounced me? As I recall it, they said they wanted more personal maturity than I had in those days. Actually, probably more than I have now, but that's a different sordid story. The point was that MIT wants people who already know where they want to go, and MIT intends to help them get there as quickly as possible. I still respect them in the morning. Mostly.
I'm confident my trip would have been long and strange in any case.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
this would be great for freshers to learn better
I tell programmers group for Advanced VB class how much they suck and they're semesters away from even looking for jobs :-P That program would have been done twice as fast and twice as well with people who actually cared about programming enough to put some effort into it (and 4x if I cloned myself)
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
Dangerous territory. Feedback could be actionable. This is lawyer territory.
Unfortunately it seems to be the bozos and flatlines and know-nothings who are vindictive. Much safer to give no feedback for someone who's clearly a waste of oxygen.
I've told people who seemed good but weren't good matches, "Look, you'd be better off doing X, Y or Z, rather than what we need at the moment." But the clearly unqualified get a polite letter or phone call and that's it, no matter how much I want to say "If you were flipping burgers, I'd cross the street and eat at Taco Hell."
Any sufficiently advanced technology is insufficiently documented.
This thread exemplifies the current state of the industry in terms of an educational system that cannot keep up with current trends, and businesses that cannot percieve that an employee might require (oh no!) training. Additionally, some people involved in the hiring process are so disconnected from the actual workforce that they cannot recognize promising candidates.
These conditions combined with the vast array of different competing technologies create a very discouraging atmosphere for new workers trying to enter the field, especially for recent graduates. This may explain the so-called 'shortage of qualified candidates' that is so prevalently discussed.
Both academia and industry leave much to be desired for cultivating new prospects to fill current and future voids in the I.T. workforce.
Perhaps in treating this entire affair as a zero-sum game, the employer is being irrational.
Let's say you call a spade a spade, tell him he sucks, and should try something else. Rather than trying to be a codemonkey who couldn't pass for a code algae, he decides to become an elementary school teacher, a fire fighter, or assembly line worker. Even were I completely selfish, it's in MY self interest for things like teachers, fire fighters, and assembly line workers to exist because they benefit me by increasing the labor pool for those jobs and thus lowering their cost to ME. I could not say anything, have him wallow in the labor pool, eventually get welfare, and make me pay him MY tax dollars.
But hey, I'm just conservative, not an ass.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
I realize companies are concerned about potential lawsuits, and they need to phrase responses carefully, but if they are going to take the time and effort to panel-interview a candidate, they have already invested a significant amount of money in the process.
In the case of senior staff, they are also having the opportunity for an idea-bounce with skill sets they don't have in-house, a service one would normally pay a management consulting firm for. It is a bare minimum courtesy to follow up on such interviews in a timely fashion, and have some mutual respect. Otherwise no one learns anything, regardless of whether a job is offered.
I've often heard that a company didn't offer a job because they didn't think they could offer enough. Shouldn't that be my decision? No one knows all my motives, and the past three years could have been 3/5 of the commitment I'd been willing to offer companies before now. Now time is running out, and they're right -- I might not be willing to "stick around" as long as they'd like.
I despise companies that power play with people lives, and I'm glad I haven't had to deal with such organizations in a long time.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
You send them to a competitor... duhhhh!
Usually when I interview with a company like that, I'd much rather they just say thanks for coming in and good luck with your job search. I find more often than not, that the time when they should be providing feedback most is when they never do: during the interview. But usually, instead of helping you identify what shade of glasses they are looking at the world through, they play cagey and noncomittal. Not like I have a lot of angst or anything, :-) but I remember this interview where the guy asks me how I would solve a difficult scalability issue, so I mention that your data structure needs to be such that you can rapidly access data distributed across different media, and he totally misses the subtlety that I am talking about and becomes very condescending and explains the simpler first step which leads to what I was talking about.
The later feedback from that fellow was that my technical skills were not up to snuff. So by this I am saying, its not always the case that the guy or girl at the whiteboard is dumb as a post. Sometimes as an interviewer we drop the ball in our assessment and assumption, and so it can often be a smarter thing to just thank the person and move on without feedback. On the other hand, if the person asks, "Did you feel my technical skills in Java were lacking?" then you could "Yes/No" the question, provided you are good at ending a conversation right there. If they try to rev up to the "But, but, but..." conversation, you're mature enough and experienced enough to nip that one in the bud right? "You asked me for my feedback and I have given it: EJB and Struts are highly desirable skills; we seek strong proficiency in both areas. If you strengthen your knowledge in those areas, it will certainly pay off for you in the future. We'll keep your resume on file."
I think if someone has to ask other people, "Should I provide interview feedback?" then they shouldn't. If you were ready to do that well, you'd know when and when not to. What to say and what not to.
Today I'm lead developer on a company with 494,000 hits in google. This guy's company has 000,226. As I continue to build our infrastructure, I know I won't be using his services. Neither will anyone in my circle of influence.
Please. Nobody cares about your Google ePenis size. That is the last thing I take into consideration when looking for products or services.
That sort of attitude would probably cause me to give negative points, in fact, as someone in charge of procurement.
Ah, the foetid stench of ego aging slowly in the morning...! Now that inquisitor has established hern or hizzn credentials by erecting and burning down a straw goat in the selfsame sniff, and all the bobbleheads are reflecting sagely the many similar instances of crass incompetence we have witnessed, or taken manfully in the thorax, or delivered twistingly up the wazoo, perhaps one may be permitted to wonder whether interrogator's own Pecksniffian glitz is up to par? Simply put: They'll get you on the way down if you get them on the way up. I counsel silence, unless you are a sadist, in which case you must be prepared to meet Master Condyle in the nether reaches of your own career.
``Tension, apprehension & dissension have begun!'' - Duffy Wyg&, in Alfred Bester's _The Demolished Man_
I'm currently doing a job search for an entry level position doing .net and asp.net development with c#. I have a B.S. in vocal music performance and just a minor in information systems. Computers have always been a hobby of mine, programming has not; I picked it up a little over a year and a half ago. In that time I've attempted to teach myself web standards and javascript and have really enjoyed it, so when I graduated I thought I'd shoot for a permanent position doing it.
I've had interviews with 2 companies so far. Tomorrow I have my 3rd interview with one of them, and the other made me an offer today. Let's just say I never expected a job hunt to go this well for me, especially when I am trying to enter an entirely new field.
One of the things that I've been told by friends to never do in an interview is to admit ignorance. I completely reject this idea and have admitted fully that I did not know the answer when posed questions that I was ignorant of, but I also made it very clear that I knew how to find answers to these questions.
The company I am interviewing with(again) tomorrow has already grilled me with technical questions and I honestly didn't feel I did very well. Every question that I didn't have an answer for they provided me with the correct answer in the end.. The great part is, those answers will be burned into my brain forever now.
Do I think companies should give feedback?
It's all dependent upon how well you think the person can take it. I personally appreciate it and know that with enough interviews(and more study) I can start to ace future interviews because of the feedback process. Luckily(and I really mean that, I'm really lucky) I'll be able to take the first offer if I don't get another tomorrow and will be able to learn on the job.
With the legal system ready to pounch - you'd be a dick of the highest order of you opened your fucking mouth - ever.
I would flip this around a bit. I have done a lot of hiring. Both to protect my company from lawsuits and to avoid giving unwelcome advice, I choose NOT to bring up why I am not hiring someone. If they made it as far as an interview, I send them a form "no thank you" email.
On the other hand, if they've asked for feedback, so far I've always given it. I just don't make it my business to offer unsolicited advice.
For that matter, if I don't get an offer after an interview, I almost always call the hiring manager to ask why. Not only have I learned a lot, in one case my calling to ask why I didn't get the job led to a turnaround, and me getting the job after all!
There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air.
Why?
Lawyers. Entitlement mentality. Lawsuit mania.
That's why.
I've been lamenting with friends on message boards about how lame slashdot stories are and the ill-conceived attempts to be uber-geek-cool. Consider a hypothetical story poster comes in after somehow making it through screening by cowboyneal. In the ensuing discussion the poster proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that not only is he (or she) not as adequate and clever as he thinks he is, but has demonstrated that he is a danger to any adult capable of reading more than two sentences on a tiny laptop display. Do you tell them? Quietly step away, snigger in disgust, resist flaming and say nothing? Play with them with sarcastic evil comments the way your cat plays with injured mice (because you're a closet sicko and keep buying the damn mice and putting them in the house)? Should you post a warning and tell them how worthless and stupid they are? Should you email all your techie friends and tell them to avoid slashdot for the day? Is there any obligation to guide them in gaining real experience posting good stories and questions that will bring home buckets of mod points? Can you give them any advice or will cowboyneal get really really mad?
OK, sorry, couldn't resist; someone probably already mentioned it - why not rewrite the screening process yourself to avoid this? Maybe someone in HR is paying too much attention to the hot certification buzzword crap of the microsecond on the resume.
So I am currently an employee, not a software designer, but a chip integration engineer....you would be suprised how much alike this is to a build manager type of software job. Lots of similar functionality between the two descriptions....
Anyway, about 23 years in the electronics industry, 8 years in self-employed small buisness owner mode, where I was the employer and interviewed many applicants.
First, if an interviewer is a jerk, you probably do not want the job, because working with team like that will be hell. Arrogant people who act haughty are a sure sign of a dysfunctional team environment. So from an employer's view, if you are acting jerky to candidates, you are probably driving away the better potential employees (those who have an ounce of self-respect to begin with).
Next, my opinion based on my time as an employer: Often those who are not at the 100th percentile of academic accomplishment make better employees: They are not so darn sure they are always right, they are more willing to listen, and often are quite creative thinkers. So bottom line here is that in my opinion, companies that always look for academic over-achivers (Ask questions like: Are you GPA 3.5 or above?) are too focused on only one metric. Give me a well-knit team of 5 average academic performers, and I will bet you I can train them to beat the pants off most teams of 4.0 grads.
So as an interviewer, how to treat those who do not make whatever your criteria/grading: Treat them with respect, don't condescend to them or lecture them in the mistaken belief you are giving them a "life lesson", don't tell them they failed a question or test, and don't give them any false hopes. Send a nice rejection letter after the fact of the interview.
Advice to 20-somethings having problems finding "that great job": Be persistent, don't be afraid to take 2nd tier jobs as stop-gap, and you might want to consider self-employment as a contractor or start-up kind of guy.
I am in my late 40's now, had I time to do it all again, I think that big-corprations are OK in some ways, but they are very quick to drop you when it suits them. I look back fondly at the time I owned my own business and hope to again some day, being your own boss is great, and software is one area where "sweat equity" can really pay out well.
And when I have to work with jerks who think they are well above average bacause they drive a nice BMW and make 100K$+ per year, I always wonder why if they think they are so smart, they are making what I make, and doing what I do......the REALLY SMART guys either get their PhD's and then get academic grants, or they have internet startups and make bazillions of $$$.
Consider a doctorate, if you can. You know what they call the person who graduates in the last place in their PhD class? Doctor. And they get all the same treatment as those who graduated with a 4.0 GPA.
HR will ALWAYS only pay attention to the buzzword circus - they have to because they generally don't know better. I've had my fill of HR floozies rejecting people because they didn't "feel right for the team" or other fluffy excuses that turned out to be total nonsense, if it wasn't for coming a cross a bunch of really good ones later I would have given up on HR as a viable acquisition route.
:-)
I had a very good lesson when I was recruiting a new Security Manager for a company - we had a move in the middle of our recruiting process and we got a couple of desks from HR. In one I found a couple of discarded CVs (i.e. with large "NO"s written over them - this was in the days before Data Protection and privacy laws but we still had a rather strong word with the original 'inhabitant' of that desk).
Anyway, you probably saw this coming: I found the absolute ideal guy for the job was in NO stack, so from that point onwards I've set the rejection criteria for HR pretty wide. Yes, it means more work for me but there is IMHO a difference between being capable of writing a HR compatible CV and being capable in a specific function.
Let the arguing beging
Insert
You can give constructive feedback to a good candidate. However, when a candidate is a complete mess you really can't say much at all.
How do you constructively tell someone that they don't even realize how stupid/incompetent/annoying they are?
You know what, maybe as a Human Being you can have some respect for people and let them know how to improve their life! This life is temporary you know (For those Godless individuals), maybe you can help someone who needs it! Thinking about your damn self all the time is pretty arrogant and contributes nothing to this world! I have taken employment law and a little commen sense goes along way! Dont give them anything in writing or electronic (e-mail) and have some balls to tell them verbally in PRIVATE! Whos going to prove anything at that point if they want to get legal about it? The chance it would go there is slim and they can say what ever they want anyway, tell them this is off the record (In other words I didn't tell you this!). Make a difference in that persons life for the better!! Maybe they won't write bad code somewhere else, who knows you could be using a peace of software they had some part in someday, you never know! I also think the public relations thing is good all around for you and the company! Grow a pair, you do have an obligation!
No matter what business your in, being a jerk and telling someone they are a "danger to any code base" is just bad business. The cost to you of being a professional, and telling them they are not qualified in a polite manner is 0, the cost to you of being a jerk may be 0 or it may be all the business you would have gotten from whatever company he does end up at, or all the business/potential recruits of his friends. In fact it never pays to be a jerk to anyone, from the janitor to the idiot you just fired. You never know when you are going to have to work with someone again, or need something from them. Being rude or playing game with someone because you are in a position of authority over them and they can't do shit about it, doesn't make you a big shot, it makes you an asshole. If someone has no chance at a position, tell them so as politely and directly as you can, and stop wasting their time.
A common interview question is: "Do you have any questions you'd like to ask us?" Much of what the nice people who want to help a candidate want can be done if the interviewee asks a simple question:
"What qualities do people who have been most successful at this job display?"
You can answer that in a way that highlights what the candidate needs to work on. Your answer is not about this candidate but about people who were successful at the job. You are not judging the candidate's qualifications but explaining the job. It is easier to be clear about this if the candidate is the one who has phrased the question this way. So if anyone here is applying for a job and going for an interview, memorize this question.
I actually am a lawyer. However, this answer does not create a lawyer-client relationship with anyone who reads it. You should rely for legal advice only on an attorney you have retained and who has a professional duty to advise you after becoming familiar with the facts and the law of your situation.
If they flunk the question about "What if your IDS detected an intrusion from 127.0.0.1," I'll tell them.
After years of getting it wrong as an interviewer I now insist that all job interviews must include a written exam as a major part of it. The candidate is told that they had 30 minutes, that no one has ever finished it, and that it is designed to allow us to verify how accurate their CV claims about knowledge/experience are and so includes questions that not all candidates might be able to answer. Any dept head that claims they can't produce an exam paper is told that until they do they clearly don't know what the job entails. (they also get marked down come their next review) After they have completed the test we go through the answers with them which allows the interviewer to develop a greater understanding of the applicant's ability and thinking. As this is done "out loud" the applicant should go home with some understanding of the what we were looking for. When we come to choose a candidate the process is a lot more reliable than the normal "tell me why we should hire you" routine. That said it is pretty hard when you walk in after 30 mins, skim through their answers, and realise that you've got a complete bullshitter sitting opposite you. Your want to say "Mr Blogg, either you dreamt this CV whilst on drugs or you stole it, good bye", but your actually thinking "How can I get rid of this guy asap without pissing him off?".
Anyone applying for a job and getting turned down should call the company and inquire why he was turned down. Anyone that doesn't do that would probably not have liked the (positive) criticism anyway. Of course, when someone calls you with this question, don't be too harsh, just be honest and give a few (up to 3 or so) points that the candidate would benefit most from improving (in your opinion). If you give any more, he will only start to feel insecure.
In my previous job, I had been maltreated and, worse, ignored by the senior management team -- they were and are dead set to deploy MS Exchange for our university mail system. I found a better job and whilst waiting out my three-month notice period, I kept smiling, even when told I was going to get a demotion in the old job. I'm glad I didn't unleash my ire on the fools in management because I still have friends there and could well want to return, once the managers have cycled.
Now I work for a large company and do phone-screens and in-person interviews in addition to my day-to-day engineering work. I always try to be polite and clear to the candidates: they're under enough stress as it is. On several occasions, a candidate has thanked me for the informative interview -- these are usually the candidates I'll be rejecting, but at least they are getting something of value for their efforts.
I don't really care whether the candidates remember me or not, since we have such a high attenuation curve for the interview process. However, it's important that the candidate leaves that process with a positive impression of the company and an idea that he would at least like to work for us. After all, even failed candidates can recommend that others apply to us.
I can actually relate to the concept of playing with a candidate like a cat with an injured mouse: this may be how some people see our interviews, especially if we keep asking them to clarify a given point. However bad it feels to do this, it's in the candidate's best interest for us to persevere and winkle out the knowledge they have so we can report back more completely about their skills.
This notion of simply "growing a pair" when you're constantly getting "kicked in the pair" seems like an impossible endeavor. Job candidates are real people with real self-doubts and real self-assurances. How are you missing this?
The entire corporate culture is screwed up. Workers are entitled to respect and there are consequences for violating it. But in this day and age of corporate corruption, it's perfectly acceptable to be evil. When your PR starts getting bad, just remember all those times you were rude to potential hires.
If someone spesifically ask, we migth point out the area where the person is weakest. But in 9 out of 10 cases it's going to be simply. "We regret having to inform you that the announced position was given to someone else. We wish you luck with your continued job-search." or something of the sort.
After reading most of this, I can only say there is somehting very, very wrong and uncaring with the US job market. I always got the impression it was a bit brutal but Jesus...
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
Well said. If you've got as far as an interview, and assuming the company isn't a bunch of weirdos playing with people's lives, then surely this says short list = pretty well good enough, we're down to the fine detail.
So if you as an employer have somebody step into the room for an interview, the last stage of the selection process, who is terribly unqualified for the post - I think it's time for *you the employer* to do some serious reflection. How did that person get as far as the interview? Time to talk with your human resources department, third party hiring agencies, the boss, or whoever shortlists applicants. It's time to improve your process for choosing folk for interview. I have to ask - how did that person get so far through your selection process?
Alas the UK is rapidly following the US as a litegous society and so we now have to take care with what we say as you never know how the other person will behave, which is a shame really because I was a fan of giving feedback when asked.
I've been working in the industry and academia for a number of years now, and the truth of the matter is that you can teach just about anyone to code. Honestly, I work in a psychology department where at least two psychologists have picked up coding in the last year to assist in experiment creation. The real key is finding the people with the brainpower and flexible thinking to be good employees. I have to 100% agree with sodul on that point: finding smart people is what really matters. Ultimately, what does that say about what's on a person's resume?
I still haven't figured out what to look for, since even teaching classes sometimes it's hard to tell who the smart ones are. You can't rely on 'honors' since bookworms can get good grades (with no need to be a flexible and powerful thinker). You can't rely on 'extra curricular activities' since most of the smartest and brightest people I know don't spend their time in organized 'playtime', and tend to prefer to do it on their own.
Any suggestions?
A video of my interview technique perfect interview technique
I was contacted by a googlecruiter a couple of years ago. I was really excited about it, I didn't care about the outcome at first, I was flattered that I had somehow managed to attract the company's attention. My excitement rose to new levels after the first two phone interviews, first from a potential team mate, second from someone on a similar team in a different region. Both were courteous and acknowledged my experience, both were great about clarifying questions they'd asked when my answers weren't exactly what they were looking for. In fact, we agreed that the working environment relied heavily on discussion, rather than simple Q & A.
The third interview was a disaster. The call came fifteen minutes late, and after several obtuse questions about esoteric programming problems--to which I got no feedback about my answers, just a sigh and another question--the interview was terminated abruptly. Ten minutes before the appointed hour was up, i.e., after only thirty-five minutes, the interviewer simply announced that he had to go, i.e., I didn't get to ask any questions.
I wasn't surprised at all when the recruiter called to express his regrets that I wasn't a fit, and encouraged me to apply again.
The position was sysadmin + scripting. Perhaps the programming questions from the jerk were straight out of the real-world requirements of the position--that's where it would have been nice to get to ask my own questions. Heck, for all I know that guy would have been my boss, in which case he saved us both a lot of misery and disappointment.
I don't hate Google, but it'll be a long time before I consider working for them again, if ever. I get it, e.g., the third guy may have been having a shitty day (maybe he was having a shitty life) and took it out on me. Maybe I was a dick to him in some former context, and he recognized my name from my CV. And, as has been pointed out in this rambling (and interesting) discussion, I probably would've had a difficult time finding affordable housing in Mountain View anyway.
Months and months have passed, and it still bothers me, though. I like Google, I like what they've produced to date, I'm overjoyed at how my investment in their stock has performed. The dissonance between that opinion and what I was left with that afternoon still hasn't been resolved in my consciousness, though.
How could such a cool company have such an complete asshole interfacing with potential candidates? The first two interviewers confided in me that they didn't consider themselves geniuses, and that they felt welcomed and encouraged there. The third guy completely negated that idea; he came across to me as an elitist ass with whom I had no chance. He may not even work for Google any more. This doesn't seem to matter to my subconscious, though. The association is quite negative when I so much as consider the possibility of working there.
Every so often I see a blurb about some Google requirement that I know I could satisfy. The idea flickers momentarily, quashed by a singularly painful memory.
"Press to test."
(click)
"Release to detonate."
At a former employer, we had a standard technical test. If an interviewee passed the interview, we got them to submit a very simple web app. A few hundred lines of code, a few database tables - the sort of thing any competent dev could turn out in an hour or two max.
(As an aside - we considered rejecting one guy for turning in a solution that was so large and complex we didn't believe he'd written in in the time we'd asked no matter how brilliant, and another for writing it on Christmas morning in spite of having young children. Two who were hired in desperation included one who unexpectedly turned up to take the test in person then submitted IE-only interface code with a major bug in its database code, or a chap who did the test in the wrong language and was politely asked to try again in the right language this time...)
Anyway, this chap looked OK, interviewed well and showed some good looking examples of his work. So test him.
The test came back and worked well enough - but as soon as we opened the database, he was history. The core of the data was in around 100 fields of one row of one table with no key - almost impossible to upgrade or scale, and frankly a pretty longwinded way to build it. He'd demonstrated no understanding at all of relational databases or how to design them, which was a prerequisite, so we fished out some basic references on relational databases for him.
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
So with the wrong namby-pamby questions and misleading answers, what's the point of any followup?
On the other hand, there3's the new "behavioral questions", which try to get at the really important topics without coming right out and asking "are you not a jerk, a goofoff and an idiot to boot?" But thena gain, there are plenty of web sites with stock answers to the standard behavioral questions, so it's trivially easy to deceive on these too.
It's been my experience if somebody totally bombs and thinks they're hot stuff, they're far too clueless to beleive any feedback anyway.
In my experience, the only thing worse than an applicant who overrates their technical abilities is an interviewer who over estimates their interviewing abilities. I cannot tell you how many times I have seen applicants just barely get the nod from the interviewer(s), only to later demonstrate that they are amazing programmers. I won't even try to guess how many times I've seen the exact opposite happen (someone aces the interview, but later proves to be incompetent).
I'm not sure why. Perhaps it's because in our culture, we're looking for the guy who prefers talking about technology (and looks good doing that) to actually doing something technical. It's why I remarked after graduation that I should have majored in resume writing and minored in computer science - I could have gotten twice the job with half the technical expertise.
To be sure, approving the right candidates through the interviewing process is one of the toughest jobs that exists, and for some reason it's one that nearly everyone feels they will be good at. So the next time you're certain that the candidate sitting in front of you is incompetent at their job, stop a second and make sure they're not just incompetent at talking to strangers about their job. Because there is a difference.
"For the record, I'm working in small IT shop for 7/h"
In 2 years, you'll be making $7.25/hour. You should send a thank you to the U.S. Congress for the minimum wage rise.
On a more serious note, if you're making $7/hour doing "IT", you're not doing it very well, or you're under age 16, or you work in China.
There are two kinds of feedback, feedback on their answers to specific questions, and feedback about them as a candidate.
You should never give feedback about them as an overall candidate, you are strangers and anything talking about THEM is going to be taken as judgement. Besides, it doesn't serve any purpose... nothing changes who they are.
As for answers to specific questions, feedback is a waste of breath unless they miss the mark only narrowly, and you want them to have a particular point straight so you can ask some other questions. In general though, it's better if most of your questions don't depend on answers to earlier questions.
I tend to give feedback to those who I think need it the most. Candidates who lack confidence are sometimes in the initial phases of their job search, so I sometimes offer a few hints on how to prep. I also like to give the "thanks but no thanks" talk immediately but in a very positive manner. At least once, there was some major miscommunication between the idiots in our HR department and the idiots in the warm-body-factory recruiting company they worked with. They screened and sent us a candidate who was an absolute non-fit for a position. I immediately told him "your resume is awesome, but the position has nothing to do with anything you have experience with." He was surprised because he had answered a req from our own carreers web page- so I sat down with him and figured out which posting it was and walked him over to the correct hiring manager and said "this guy drove all the way from Detroit- please give him the courtesy of an interview." He was hired and later went on to be a major player in the industry. So by giving feedback I saved the company some major ill will AND netted us a great candidate.
I also told one candidate that the next he goes for an interview, he should think about washing his hands after using the bathroom because the next person he puts his hand out to shake might be the person who noticed that he hadn't. Needless to say, he didn't get the job (or the handshake).
Better to let them know in a positive way and hope they do something good with it then to leave them hanging. At least you pointed them in the right direction.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
You want a company, with no relationship with a given individual, to spend time and money for no good reason whatsoever.
Look pal, if you need comforting of some kind then join a club or something. In the bussiness world a polite communication is all what is necessary once a relationship is terminated (in this case a job interview).
People are costumers, candidates or whatever, and given the sheer amount of them, companies can only treat them in a "faceless" manner, but this is OK because that means the company is more efficient.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
But nobody else can really do anything to change the world, because it's not evil HR, it's HR who now simply aren't doing anything, and car salesmen, and date rapists, and a whole world looking not to take advantage of someone, but to do what they want as long as nobody screams too loudly.
If people pretend that you're just having a rough time and offer you a specific pick-me-up they're saying that you're having too rough of a time to handle. While their hand-up feels nice, it's likely misplaced and will lead to you trying to get jobs you aren't qualified for (get rejected from) because people tell you the interviewers just aren't being nice. If, instead, people attempt to show how life can go on, even while you're apparently being kicked in the balls, you can then change the only thing you can, you, and either learn to like the pain or make an effective change.
For the record, I don't mean that you shouldn't help a friend who's feeling down after a failed interview, just that you shouldn't lie to them to make them feel better. Don't hype their skills, merely encourage them to find informational interviews (arranged via schools and job agencies, or the company directly if you ask) that are designed to give feedback. Then take them out to a movie and help them feel better through having enough to live for that they can't obsess on any one failure.
Often the problem with an employee is total lack of motivation, often for fear of punishment. Makes them worthless because they only do exactly what a supervisor tells them. It's not a skill thing, but an inability to see that you're being hired to make a business make money by performing function X and that's how you'll be judged because that's what you're being paid for...
"I've been counselled not to use terms that imply a preference for a given age, and work in an field that is 97% male, so it's natural, but dangerous for me to use terms that imply I only want men. Most managers can't do this with the reliability of someone who does this every day, and so risk getting sued, so often HR departments mandate that they don't say anything, and especially not in an email."
So you don't respond to women who apply, further guaranteeing your field is 97% male.
I had an applicant once for a web developer position give me a handful of URLs to look at, one of which was her personal site. The site was wildly inconsistent in design and poorly executed, in my opinion. The kicker was an article she had written and linked to from her site entitled "How To F*ck Like A Porn Star". The article was a discussion about the taboos of female ejaculation, and an encouragement for ladies to step up to the challenge of fulfilling themselves physically during sex.
The article didn't bother me. None of it really bothered me. It was funny in an absurd way that someone would use this as an example of their work in order to get a job. But having recently been unemployed myself, and looking for someone to give me a shot, I felt an obligation to contact her and tell her what I thought. So I called her at 11 AM and woke her up (a bad sign for someone who is looking for gainful employment), and basically told her that she needed to work on her consistency, her html formatting and be mindful that that particular article on her site could potentially scuttle any hopes she has for getting a job, outside the adult entertainment industry, because some people really take offense to that kind of thing.
So, yeah, I think you should tell them as a courtesy and couch it in terms of what they should work on, rather than on how badly they suck.
Analog Devices - Career fair during year of dot com bust. Had a booth but told everyone who came by they weren't hiring at all. Feedback from students - why bother showing up at all?
I also used to wonder why companies would go to job fairs when they weren't hiring. Then someone explained to me that they go simply to keep up appearances and make their competitors think that they hiring, which implies that things are going well when in fact they aren't. Word does get around quickly and the last thing any company wants is for people to think they won't be around for very long because once that happens, they really won't be around for very long because no one will buy from them.
Had a sysadmin candidate tell me that he was a family man and couldn't imagine a case where it would be appropriate for him to work past 5:00. Mind you, he's interviewing for a senior position maintaining production servers for a 24/7 operation. Not only will the guy we hire have to work some overtime, he'll be on call with the emergency phone one week out of three. The character of our business is very cyclic: part of the year we have a heavy workload that requires overtime and part of the year its nearly dead and we not only kick off early to make up for it but also get an extra two weeks of vacation around Christmas. This was clearly explained at the start of the interview.
We must have grilled him on this for 10 minutes just to make sure we weren't somehow misunderstanding his position on the matter. No, his five-o'clock rule was hard and fast.
He also mispronounced "Debian," offered only generalizations in response to technical questions, joked that according to our competitor we were "what's wrong with America" and mentioned on the way out of the building that he probably wouldn't have interviewed but he heard we payed well.
The only way he could have tanked the interview more thoroughly would be to show up in shorts. We thanked him for his time and then asked the headhunter why he sent us someone who was crazy. The headhunter was surprised, stating that the candidate reported doing well at the interview.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
You can teach just about anyone to play piano. Somehow, not many people do that well...
Great Subject - at my reply there were over 450 comments! At least give them a reply, face to face or email. If you have looked for work over a long period of time you begin to doubt yourself (It does not matter how good you are). Your attempt at levity was taken as such -- Do NOT humiliate a hungry person. Also, every Manager/Executive/CEO I have known over 45 years has been on top of the Ferris Wheel; also on the bottom. You will be there as well. Ernie Garner Columbus, Ohio
I hate to blame the victim, but the problem is yours.
You should be able to deduce from their submitted materials (resume, code, cover letter) at least a general sense of their abilities. Somebody (you, HR) is not vetting the candidates properly. This goes all the way back to defining the initial requirements for the position and then crafting the help-wanted ad.
By the time you actually get to the interview process, you should have a good idea about their technical abilities and not feel that this person could be a danger to your code base.
Music is not something that is easily taught, which is why teaching piano is not like teaching code. You need to have an ear for harmony (and the psychology behind that is fascinating, by the way) but there is no such requirement (that I can think of) like that for coding.
I can empathize. I'll never forget the day my parents were called to the private kindergarten I was attending. I sat in the back of the room and listened as the chief administrator (I don't remember his exact title but I remember that it, oddly, wasn't "principal") told my parents that I was "profoundly retarded" and that they simply didn't have the facilities to handle my needs. He handed them a refund check for my tuition and we left. The walk out, the trip home, and the restaurant stop on the way were all quiet, lonely, weird experiences; I don't think my parents had any good idea how to react.
No, I didn't go on to win a Nobel. But I find it gratifying that when I tell people that story now, more than 40 years later, the first reaction is always disbelief. I guess I was just a late bloomer.
Sorry, let me expand on this a bit: When coding, it's usually easy to see where you go wrong (compiler error: check your syntax you fool), or even for logic errors, you either see the predicted (hopefully correct) outcome or you don't. Such is not always the case for music. If you are not in tune (pun only slightly intended) with the piece you are playing (or genre, composer, etc) then you're not necessarily going to know when and where you made a mistake.
Further, there's a whole lot of physical limitations placed on piano players that are not the case for coders. The strength with which you hit a key on the computer isn't going to effect how your code is... Typing is a binary event, whereas playing a piece is most definitely an analog event.
I'm a freelance C++ developer specialized in Embedded Software Development for
the Automation Industry.
Whenever a job is posted in my area and I'm available, at least three or four
headhunters contact me for the same job, and they are always the same guys,
so we know each other for a long time.
I once applied for a job at a big company, and after a VERY short interview, the
headhunter who sent me there did not get ANY feedback.
When we tried to contact them, they did not reply (nobody there, holidays, etc...)
During the next eight months, other headhunters contacted me and we found out they
posted exactly the same job every two months or so.
The story of the 'mystery-job' with no hiring spread and after a year some of
the headhunters totally lost interest in that company.
I don't expect that such a big company will have problems getting people.
However, they lost some of the headhunters and the developers connected to them.
If they do this over a very long time, it WILL harm the eventually.
At least when hiring specialists, some human resources departments (a minority, though)
seem to have problems in understanding the market:
- Bad news spread easily in a small community
When working in a small world (like Embedded Software) you deal with a small
community of people who are interconnected. It may take some time, but if you're
an ass, sooner or later they all will know. You can't control what other people
tell each other about your company, you will not even notice, but the effect
will be there. The people in your business will become more distrustful of you
and will prefer other companies.
- Politeness is cheap:
Just the fact that you're not liable doesn't mean you can ignore basic rules of
your society. It will cost you only some minutes to Email the people and to tell
them politely why they didn't fit in. Next time you may need exactly those people
in another project.
- Headhunters have their own interests
Some headhunters have a small set of specialists they can't afford to lose.
If you're annoying applicants (for instance by vicious feedback) the headhunter
will think twice before sending you the next guy.
- Some jobs are only virtual
As a matter of fact, some companies don't have a job. They just want to harvest
statistic data about applicants, price, etc.
If you don't show the headhunters that you are really working on the hiring
process (for instance, by investing time in feedback) you act suspiciously.
They could think that you are only keeping statistics, wasting their time.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
I appreciate it when someone like you shows what a loser they put in charge. This way I can leave and never darken your door again. I wish my last boss would have spilled the beans in the interview, it would have saved me two years of grief. Go ahead show us your nuts!
Telecommuting! What about socialization?
Music is easily taught. So is coding. But both require some talent to get very good at.
I know lots of people who write code. The accounts clerk; the help desk guy; etc. I know lots of managers who think "I can write a macro in Excel - this coding shit is easy!"
I know very few people who can approach a problem, analyze it, write down the requirements, and solve the problem in code - where the solution is not a swamp of unimaginable proportions.
Just as I know very few people who, having been taught music, can sit down at a piano and pound out something that makes you weep with joy and sorrow at the same time.
Coding well takes a mix of talent, dedication and hard work. A good coder is something of a master craftsman, close kin to a talented artist.
Anyone can do HTML. You check out MySpace lately?
This one candidate looked great on paper. He showed up in a nice suit, very polite and kept saying "Oh, yeah, I know all about that," and "Sure, I can do that." After hearing this five times my co-worker and I started digging deeper and asked for more detailed explanations. It soon became clear that he had no clue what he was talking about, what we were talking about or much about Windows or PCs in general. We felt sorry for the guy.
We immediately stopped the interview process and told him flat out he did not have the skills for the position. We then spent 15-20 minutes providing suggestions of websites, honesty on his resume and how he could start at a lower level and learn his way up to desktop support. (Sad but true.)
Now I'd be more guarded. As others have said here, it's dangerous to do anything beyond the legal minimum of communication.
You can have fun with this. Call them in, bring your friends in, and tell them right
to the face how much of a dumb ass they really are.
I almost completely agree, though it seems to be a matter of how we define 'coder' in where our differences lie.
A coder, to me, is someone who can take direction and give me code (I need a function to take in these arguments and give me this output).
A developer, to me, is someone who can take a problem, break it down, and tell the coders (or code themselves): "I need a function to take in these arguments and give me this output."
I don't think you can be a good developer without being a craftsman of sorts, wholeheartedly. MySpace HTMLers are nowhere near developers, just like the guy who can play chopsticks is not a pianist.
Poker is another game of incomplete information as well.
Oh wait, it was just gas.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
You missed the point that you are being graded as well.
Mistreat the candidate and the part of your team that isn't laughing will view you as an arrogant jackass that should never be trusted with any real power.
If you have been in the work force that long you know that everyone has a bad day.
Also, there is good chance that someone in the company or closely related to the company suggested that they apply. What you didn't know was that was the janitor's son and I forsee you having major computer problems and items missing from your desk. Just remember, "no whining" when dark karma comes back to you.
All the missed questions should be more than enough of an indicator of their technical deficiencies.
I know *plenty* of people who applied for positions they knew full-well they weren't at all qualified for. They were, however, good talkers and experienced in telling the H.R. "gatekeepers" all the standard things they like to hear, in order to move them forward to the interview.
When you're out of work and grasping at straws to find a way to get your next paycheck, you'll sometimes try things like this - just to see if a potential employer is clueless enough to hire you anyway. (Or in some cases, you may REALLY want a completely different position with that company that you think you won't have much chance of getting without having a foot in their door.)
Sometimes, it actually works. (Years ago, I knew a guy who did 48 hours of crash-course studying on Oracle database administration, in order to try for a tech. support job with Oracle. He really just wanted the job because they were located in Colorado, and he loved skiing.... He got it, and managed to learn enough while he was there to fool most people into thinking he knew the stuff all along. Last I heard, he still worked for them a few years later.)
Do not play "cat and mouse" with "human beings". Be of good Heart and Mind.
If the candidat is not correctly trained, indicate him/her ressources for his/her formations. You may also indicate other positions in other companies that may be good for the candidat and the companies.
Your company is not just here "to make money", and extract the best minds from the society, consider its global impact in the world. You contribute to the formation of the futur. Each word count.
Document everything you do, and be true and honest when asked for an advice.
Publish your best practices and failures. Keep yourself humble and true. Give correctly to charities or schools.
--
You may regret your current actions for thousands of years in Hell.
Or rejoyce in Heavens forever.
Recruiters have often told me after a job interview that I was a "very close second"; that there was just one candidate whos experience was just a slightly closer match for this opportunity.
Depending on my mood, I either accept the compliment and move on, or I write it off as a Status Quo comment....and move on.
Is this type of feedback usually legitimate or is it just cannon-fodder for my ego fed to me by an over-eager recruiter?
I know, when I am the hirer, there is usually no second place: it's usually a definite 'Yes' among many definite 'No's'.
--x
Bravo. I wasted my mod ability replying to an earlier post but you said it well. I received my CS degree a while ago and while I could code well I knew I was outclassed by several of my classmates. I was aiming for a network engineer job in the long run though. However there is a grand difference between writing programs of 1000 lines or less, or modding PHP scripts and writing fully functional code to handle multiple jobs. All these people I have worked with that consider themselves Guru's because they can write an access database or mod scripts are intelligent but are just simply playing chopsticks.
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
I tutored CS131/141 students for 3 years. Music and coding are very closely related, I rarely meet a great coder who isn't also musically inclined. Don't know the reason though. But in my tutoring time, there are people who get it, and people who break down crying trying to make a simple day of the year program.
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
If you don't like your company, hire them.
Otherwise end the interview, and get on with your day.
If they contact you post interview and want to talk to you about how they did in the interview. Telling them, politly, how the interview went from your end is the decvent thing to do.
I would occasionally follow up interviews tog et pointer on how I could interview better. I sued to be horrible at interviews because of how nervous I get. I would get far more nervious and anxious then I ever would in any real world crisis.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The most valuable interview that I've ever had was one where I was not selected for the job. It happened after doing several interviews and maintaining a 100% rejection rate. After informing me that I (yet again) wasn't selected, the HR representative asked me if I would be interested to hear some feedback from the interviewers. It was like a light went on in my head: asking for feedback! Why didn't I think of that?
The feedback that she gave me, and I do not exaggerate, saved my professional life. In the space of 5 minutes, she taught me how to shine during interviews. I went from 100% rejection to 100% acceptance. I wound up having to choose between competing offers. The things she told me should have been obvious, but as a greenbean straight outta college, how was I supposed to know any better?
At this point, I am on the other side of the interviewing table; and I am happy to give constructive feedback upon request. You never know whose life you're going to change for the better.
P.S. I am also a Landlord, and I wind up handing out a lot of rejections in that business. One thing that it's taught me is that angry people sue, whether or not they're in the right. You'll find yourself getting sued a lot less if you treat everyone, even the scum of the earth, and believe me I've seen the scum of the earth, with respect. That means not toying with them, belittling them, laughing at them, refusing to take them seriously, etc. You can reject someone without making him feel bad about it.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
what about beer?
you know, I think you prove that you're not a *real* beer drinker if you use beer as the plural of beer...
at least in Canada, its beers, eh
Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. - Dr. Seus
That's kind of a lousy attitude now, isn't it?
Interviewing is a skill, like anything else. Unless the job is to sit around all day getting interviewed, you might be rejecting a quality worker with lousy interviewing skills.
From your tone and attitude toward those who work for you, I'm going to speculate that you do not own any company. To my ears, you have the tone of a code-monkey who is worried about having too much competition after the next round of layoffs. I own two businesses, and my policy is to provide feedback upon request. If the applicant lacks the ambition to request it, I don't offer it. But for somebody who has the ambition but lacks the interviewing skills... well... somebody once gave me the courtesy of fixing my interviewing and changed my professional life.
I am willing to do that for others. It's a small world out there, and you never know when you'll meet people again.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
Have you tried requesting feedback in a non-threatening way?
You might be surprised by what you hear.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
Regarding dress: it's hard to go wrong interviewing in an interview suit. Even at companies with a casual dress code. It makes it obvious who is interviewing, at the very least. :-)
Regarding chastisement: you can always ask the HR representative questions beforehand. "I know that XYZ, Inc. has a casual dress code. Would I feel comfortable if I still wore my interview suit?" She (yes, she) will be able to give you an answer based on the company's corporate culture, and won't have much say in the hiring decision.
Regarding requests for feedback: watch how you ask. "Why wasn't I hired?" makes it sound like you are gathering evidence for your pending litigation. How about, "Is there any feedback that you'd feel comfortable providing me? I'm always looking to improve myself."
Good luck!
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
I recently took a "Managing Within the Law" class. Short answer: with today's litigious society, the instructor (a lawyer) suggested holding your tongue. As an individual contributor, the company can be sued. If you're a people manager, both the company AND yourself can be sued directly. If you felt the candidate wasn't the suing type, I would still suggest keeping all feedback strictly to facts-- nothing like "you seemed weak in this area", but "you weren't able to come up with any new features in JDK 1.5".
I've interviewed, hired, and trained people with less qualifications than people who (may) have had a lot of experience and skills but were cursed with egotistical (geek-snob/fanboy/greek-god-like) attitudes. You're no world star, get over yourself. I don't expect everybody to know everything, all of the time. I'd much rather train someone who needed a bit of direction, rather than work side-by-side with someone who wanks to the mirror chanting quotes from WoW all day.
the only permanence in existence, is the impermanence of existence.
At least the guy you interviewed was an actual candidate who may / or may not have wanted a job with your company.
I keep my resume up to date on the net. It gains a little notice now and then. Yesterday I received an email from a recruiter telling me he found my resume and I have great skills that may meet two positions he has open. For a moment I was confused. Because the recuiter works for the company I've been working for since July 2006.
I read the job descriptions and wondered, if he read my resume (which he said he did), couldn't he see I'm currently working at the same place he does? And when he asked "are you looking for a permanent position". I wondered if I could bash him up side the head with foam bat. Uh..I have one. At the same company you're recruiting for.
It seriously gives one pause to ponder the level of common sense left in the world today.
I say if you want to give feedback to a candidate at the end of the interview, do it. Maybe you'll save some other interviewer from losing his senses and looking around his office for a bat.
- Spring
But thanks for taking the time to write.
You're not the only one who's noticed that. Both have a rather mathematical rooting. In fact, I remember my trumpet tutor telling me something similar about mathemeticians often being musicians. I've always assumed that on some level it's also because learning to read music gives you a basic understanding of Turing Machines. You've got loops, flow control and abstraction through symbology.
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I like all the parent posts that have generated SLEWS of negative responses in this thread, primarily because the parent posters have been sold on the lie of the "almighty buck." I.e. it's not worth their or their employer's time and money to give a second thought to a really bad candidate for a position. They seem to not be considering that sometimes their HR department flubs the position description, and that in turns makes the interviewee think that they are applying for something they are qualified for, but in reality are clearly not qualified for or wouldn't even WANT to apply for if the wording on the job description had been more accurate in the first place. Secondly, it's possible that they are clueless, but haven't been shown how clueless they are in a tactful way so that they can learn from their mistakes and better themselves. Or third, it's possible that the interviewee is a genuine jerk, liar, and/or moron, and when found lying should be told directly that their lying cost them a job - maybe they wouldn't waste everyone else's time the rest of their lives continuing on in their lying, jerkwad, moron ways. That interviewer *could* (although I admit, it's highly unlikely) just turn that person's life around by exposing them to their own idiotic, destructive behavior.
But no, somehow some of you think that you are making the company worth so much more because you didn't spend the $10 worth of the company's (and your own) time to send a tactful note (or $2 to do it there, on the spot) on to the failed interviewee as to why they got rejected for the job. Is an extra $10 in the company's pocket really going to make that much of a difference to the company, or more importantly, to your paycheck? The answer is, unequivocally, NO!
If you imply that because people must deal with incomplete information in poker, people must deal with equally incomplete information in feeding their families. The difference is that people are socially expected to have a job, not to play poker. Abstaining from poker is acceptable; abstaining from being employed gets one branded a bum. Is there a necessary connection between the two?
You know, I can honestly say I have a lack of self-confidence (not that you could tell from the arrogance of my posts) that hasn't exactly helped my job search. But you've given me a little bit of an ego boost. At least I know the difference between "a bill passing the House" and "a bill becoming law".
>> A person who THINKS they are less capable is just a bad as a person who is really is less capable. In fact there's no difference, in my opinion.
Not really. The former is doing reasonably good work, and not recognizing it as such. The latter is checking all manner of crap into your code repository, and not recognizing it as such. I know which one I'd rather have on my team.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
To the Bozo that keeps sending us his resume and salary history: Take your picture off the resume, track who you send resumes to and when, and never e-mail a resume twice to the same company without attempting to call first. Sending a salary history that is inconsistent with the job posted reeks of low self esteem (I don't want to know how much you made at the restaurant). Get an extra e-mail address that is simple and does not lead to questions or judgement.
I was actually wanting to give him an interview but my partners overruled. I was just curious how brain dead he could possibly be.
Yes, Bradley, I am talking about you.
Aaah, that feels good to get off my chest.
I find that very interesting, from a psychological point of view. The two fields are generally thought to be very distinct (and I would like to note that we were talking about pianists and coders, not those who are 'musically inclined', which does change the discussion a bit).
;-) )
My guess would be that since there is a large amount of math (even though it's mostly implicit math) associated with both software development and music (e.g. octaves, distances between notes that create different types of harmony, etc.) and that those who are good at one can be good at the other.
As an aside: I totally agree with the 'get it' or 'don't get it' distinction. I've seen it both as a student and as a teacher, but not so in psychology. Comp-sci seems to be something you either get at the high level or you don't, whereas softer sciences don't. Interesting point (as well as an amusing visual image of the crying student... does that make me a bad person?
I've given hundreds of technically interviews, and I never, ever give feedback directly. It's not because I am mean or lazy, there is just no good reason to, and lots of reasons not to.
First and foremost is liability. If you tell someone they did well in the interview, and they don't get an offer, that is just ammo for a lawsuit. On the flip side, if I politely tell someone they suck, and they get hired, I don't want them in the cube next to me.
Next on my list is the big stupid argument factor. Feedback isn't about personal improvement. It is about damage control, and I'm just not interested in hearing how I misunderstood your response or I asked the wrong question or whatever excuse you make up for flubbing a question. Don't solicit my opinion just to tell me why I am wrong.
Finally, the technical interviewer doesn't always have all the facts to give feedback. They may be interviewing for several open reqs, and I don't know what the salary ranges are or what the interviewee is asking for. I don't want to say you had a pretty good interview, then have HR say you aren't qualified for the super senior position you had your eye on. I also don't want to impact salary negotiations by building you up too high.
I won't tell someone specifically why they didn't get the job. However, I will suggest to the person--if they express an interest--some areas I think they could work on in order to improve their employability in the future.
It might be "Hey, I think you could make a much better impression at interview if you slowed down and spoke more clearly", or "You really don't need a 5 page CV unless you're a Nobel prize winner, I'd recommend cutting out some of the stuff about your pre-school, that's too many years ago for anyone to care about", or "I think you'd do better applying to companies like ours if you had more concrete experience with Java, why not contribute to some open source projects in your spare time?"
The key is to make it a positive suggestion for personal improvement, with concrete ideas for what to do, and not a "Here's why you suck" list.
I've done much the same for friends and colleagues who have asked.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
I always felt bad about the student crying at the keyboard, usually a girl, however the guys usually expressed anger. But there would be a couple students in there who would just ask a question here and there to make things better and never really struggle.
Of course as an aside, the dropout rate was well above 80% in my college for CS I think. I started with somewhere around 30 majors in my class and by the 200 level course there were only 3 of us.
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
Should read:I always saw coding as something creative, that you just kind of do, doesn't matter the language, but some of us prefer one language over another. But I know little of that stuff, just observations of students and colleagues.
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
Funny thing about the 'similar parts of the brain.' There has been much more explanatory power in brain pathways rather than regions. So contrary to 'conventional' thinking, it's very easy (and in fact likely) that pathways overlap for parts of tasks and diverge for others. These pathways are sometimes only a few neurons large, or comprise some small aspect of a brain region (or lobe). As such, I would not be at all surprised if the CS and Music pathways converged for part of their circuit. However, as far as I know there aren't any studies looking at this (however, this is hardly my area of expertise).
I think attrition in CS is a much better alternative to retention. Ultimately, I have worked with people in the industry who clearly have no clue what they're doing, no greater vision, and ultimately are just good for following directions. Sadly, some of them I went to school with and was somewhat offended that they got the same bachelor's degree as I did (which I think is part of my drive for further education).
Ya I have worked with these people as well, I call them boss :)
I love working for people and with people who have passion for what the do. Maybe that is more of what made these friends of mine such great programmers, they had a passion for it, perhaps passion can be expressed through music and therein lies the tie.
My wife is a very intelligent person and a college prof, we both have talked about how you have intelligent people, then you have intelligent people who are also creative with that knowledge, and those are the people who make a difference.
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
Passion. I'll give you that. I don't know that's manifest in neural circuitry, but I agree with the sentiment. The people you and your wife speak of are my favorite people in the world. Intelligence, drive, and creativity. They truly can change the world.
If I may ask, where is your wife a professor (and what kind of professor, more importantly)? I've always wondered how field-specific a lot of these things are.
Life Is Not Fair! Deal with it! The job seekers rely on the business decisions of hiring managers for future employment. I have applied for hundreds of positions since I was laid off in August, and the sad reality is I consider myself lucky to receive *some*kind* of feedback from *~even~* 1% of all the resumes submitted. Yeah, I'd like to hear back from a few hundred companies who I have know idea if they even read my application. Yeah, I'd like to find out why someone manager determined over the phone that I was not a candidate worthy of an in-person interview... but then who says the manager has to tell me anything at all (much less the honest truth)? You betcha! I'd like to find out why someone determined during my in-person interview(s) that I was not the right candidate for the position/company... but then who says the manager has to tell me anything at all (much less the honest truth)? It is unfortunate that we are not always given the chance to learn from our mistakes. The sheer vacancy of any kind of response indicating an actual heart beat behind the rejection letter... can be daunting! ... can be depressing! ... can be scary!
Eventually everyone realizes they must "suck it up" because their sob stories are not unique.
What marketplace trades in the commodity of personal feelings?
"I applied last month, the HR contact said I was complete, the phone call with the manager sounded really great [to me]... why didn't they hire me?" boo hoo wah wah "oh-whoa-is-poor-little-ole-me". (c'mon get over it!)
Stop wasting time beotching about one that got away! (unless you are the inappropriate kind of guy who never gets a clue and ends up begging on their knees for a girls' phone number... sheeesh it doesn't work, self-pity isn't attractive to the girls and it most certainly isn't a resume builder!)
'The Underprivileged' or perhaps 'The Unrefined'... I am damn confident in myself, my skills, my intelligence, and my determination to get through these months of unemployment - WITH A RAI$E TO BOOT!! Why am I confident in this? Because the right manager hiring for my next job has not met me yet -- when I introduce myself the benefit of my contribution will be worth the salary.
Get over it, get off the floor, and stop whining! A great piece of advice: if your job search starts to get to be too much (...wait for it...) TAKE A BREAK!!! Heck, do what I did: take up cross-country running! Since august I've ran 3 miles a day, and I can run the first 2 miles in 17 minutes!
Improve yourself! I have a B.S. MIS and certified Cisco CCNA/DA/DP/NP. I like to keep my mind sharp through recertification (for the hell of it), reading either my J2EE reference 'bible' or AJAX books, and cultivating my tastes for the classics (currently reading Shakespeare's King Henry the Eight [unabridged]).
Remember: this is just work, your work should never define yourself! Stop mixing personal baggage with professional growth! (okay I'm finished!)
Huh, I yell at people from my limo all the time and none of those losers has made it to the Hall of Fame.
Is there a special tone of voice that Rooney used or something?
You are conflating definitions to make your point. Or you are not a native English speaker.
The word "sell" has different meanings, based on its usage and context. In this particular context, it's being used as a transitive verb, and there are eight proper definitions, of which two are applicable from context.
I am using the word "sell" as in "sell reading to children", not in the sense of "sell children to the rendering plant".
You have to cause the employer to develop a belief in the truth, value, or desirability of employing you, as opposed to someone else.
Or, more readably: You have to sell the employer on employing you.
-- Terry
I have found that most companies are really bad at actually interviewing me.
One guy asked me about fibianaci numbers and asked me to write the routines, both recursively and non recursively.
From memory.
On a white board.
I laughed out loud and told him that I hadn't seen Fibonacci numbers since college 14 years ago and had never used them in programming my entire career.
I didn't get that job.
Of course, I didn't want that job cause I'd have to work with the retard that thinks that everyone has the Fibonacci number program memorized. Instead of just looking it up as needed.
I had a different company tell me to solve a problem by programming on the white board as well, which I did, correctly, and then he told me that my solution was wrong, I showed him a case where his solution would fail.
I didn't get that job either.
I did get the job with a consulting company doing professional services. Which is a lot more fun than being stuck back in a code factory.
If the job selection criteria were clearly mapped out when the job was advertised, and the short list applicants addressed the selection criteria thoroughly, then it's the applicants' responsibility to figure out what they did wrong or right. That said, some constructive feedback without value judgement is probably nice, but, it still comes down to the best feedback you can give an applicant is a clear, accurate and concise selction criteria statement when you advertise (or when they approach for an application form.)
"I hope you like Guinness, Sir. I find it a refreshing substitute for, er... food." Col. Jack O'Neil, SG-1
The job pays $8/hr now. It also pays in experience where the top end of the field is tremendously higher than the top end of the buger flipping industry. If you work for 10 years and become the best burger flipper in the country you might top $70K annually. Do the same in IT and if you're in the top of your field, you have a shot at easily four times that. Not that I'm at the top, but I took the lower paying IT job for the experience. It paid off.
B) Eliminate all the stupid users. This is frowned upon by society.
Sounds like a job for ethicist... you know the guy in the NYT magazine. The real question is "Are you ethically obligated to inform them that they have underperformed?"
Fast Federal Court and I.T.C. updates
She would be the first person to tell you she is not a creative person, but it is rare for me to find someone who works so hard at going above and beyond the call of duty to teach.
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
Contrary to popular belief, we have only slightly more of a clue about neural circuitry than the layperson. The human mind is so unbelievably complex.. I've spent my first three years in grad school uncovering question after question after question. I was at a meeting with 20,000 of the top researchers in this field (aptly titled "Neuroscience") and at best there's a presentation or poster that partially answers a question, but raises a dozen more at least. If we sum up all that is 'passion' in just that term, I think we're better off! ;-)
Sounds like we need more professors like her. Send her my thanks on behalf of all anonymous students, it's the teachers that go above and beyond that really have an impact. I still remember my high school Bio teacher who took extra time to explain the why and the why it's interesting aside from just the this is what's on the test.
That is likely because you are a manager with little or no IT experience. Every company has had a bad hire. Some bad hires screw up small and just get shown the door. Others screw up big and cost companies money or worse. You are trying to determine who are the bad candidates before you can hire them. This is same as BushCo locking up people in Gitmo because they might be terrorists.
Yes I would like to see more profs like her, sometimes she takes students failing or not caring, too personally. Oh well, I could go on for a long time about apathetic students but you have been in academics for long enough to have seen them too!
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?