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?"
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.
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're gay-female-Inuit-single-parents, you insensitive clod!
... and then they built the supercollider.
That guy went on to get a Nobel Prize for the said research in 2005 and now he opens his talks by showing the "fuckoff" rejection letter...
Luckily for the idiot that wrote the letter, Dr. Marshall magnanimously blacks out the name and the sig!
The lesson here is: be nice to "insecure geeks."
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
It seems a fairly disturbing trend that most IT jobs now insist on candidates having experience that would seem to preclude anyone over 30.
How's that?
I'm over 60, and I've been in IT since the late '70s.
I have less than 6 years of experience.
(between naps, lunch, and endless meetings)
So you are saying Eskimo Pie is like a nigger pie?
Me:"Mmm, Eskimo Pie!!"
Native Alaskan-American: "Lets get him!!!"
Please note, that when calling somebody a "clueless dick" do not - I repeat - do not use the incorrect version of your/you're.
(you're welcome)
I'm not a nerd. Nerds are smart.
Interviewer: "You're not very technical are you?"
;)
Interviewee: "Oh, yeah, well... I read slashdot religously."
So naturally the correct way to inform them is as an anonymous coward... No company liability.
Just googled you, "Anonymous Coward", and I think you... spend too much time on slahsdot.