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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.
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.
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.
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?
How about "I don't wish my shareholders to go to hell for owning shares in an evil company". ?
You can have self interest and still not be a dick. You lose very little, while this other person may get helped a lot. Furthermore, maybe the person will actually improve themselves and reapply for the job and you'll have a good employee then. Or, the person will work within the given industry and not bad mouth your company. The more good workers are in the economy the more services can be provided to each other and quality of life of people can improve.
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.
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.
First off, once they're rejected there is zero reason to spend another second more on them.
That opinion is just plain wrongheaded, and I'll tell you why.
Even if the candidate doesn't get the job because they weren't qualified, you want them to be excited about the company. It's good PR for *you* and that most certainly is a good reason to treat your candidates respectfully.
If they still like your company even though they didn't get the job, they will direct other people they know to you (many of whom may be more skilled than the person you turned away), and they may even try again down the road when they have more experience themselves.
You may not realize this, but even developers and other technical people are social animals (no matter how much we sometimes deny it) and word gets around pretty fast. The bad companies get pointed out to friends who point them out to their friends (and on down the line). That's something we all know too well. However, the other case is also true - the GOOD companies get pointed out too.
Treat your candidates poorly (and treating them as a disposable commodity that doesn't deserve "another second more" is treating them poorly), and after a while, you will only get poor candidates.
Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
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!
Let the record show that Sean McLachlan:
Is addicted to crack.
Fucks his mom.
Can't program worth a shit.
Is a fucking idiot.
I'm too lazy to make an account, but do you see how that works?
Asshole.
You start believing crap from people less able then yourself because they have a job and you don't. I've seen very able people give up looking and take jobs in different feilds because each rejection makes them think they are less capable.
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.
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.
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.
Building relationships is key to business success, and today's losers have a way of turning into tomorrow's winners. They tend to be highly motivated.
That does not mean you have any obligation to candidates who are clearly not qualified at the current time. But history is full of people who could only get jobs a lowly patent clerks and yet wind up revolutionizing our understanding of the universe. Or who drop out of university and found companies that change industries.
Not every loser grows up to be a winner, but enough do, and they are hard enough to recognize, that it would be extremely foolish to say that you have zero reason to spend another second on someone. epsilon reason, maybe. But not zero.
The rational incentive to help others is so obvious that it hardly needs pointing out, but one place to start is: do you want to live in a world where there are people who help others? If so, there is exactly one way of ensuring that you do. Think about it for long enough and you'll figure out what it is. And companies exist embedded in the social landscape, so despite not being human they share similar incentives.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
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)
First off, I have to say that I really hate the mess of things that litigation happy people and a lot of HR people (not all of them by any stretch, but a lot of them) have made of interviews. One or two incidents occur to some other company, and HR at your company goes "just don't say anything and they can't sue us."
It's almost like saying "If my eyes are closed, you can't see me."
Personally, I think that's a bad practice, but I'm not in much of a position to change it.
Now that I have that out of the way, I just want to say that my comment wasn't just about providing meaningful feedback (which some of us ask for and honestly want), but also about his attitude of "anyone whom I don't deem worthy is not worth another second of my time."
That sort of attitude bleeds through into the interview and it really turns off potential candidates. As a result, they let their friends know (who, as I said, let theirs know, etc). Deapite what he seems to think as evidenced by his response, treating a person like a real person is not just for career councilors.
I've walked out of interviews at places where the technical people displayed the "I am god and you must impress me, pesant" mentality, because I don't want to work in that sort of an environment. I know a lot of other really competent people who have done the same.
You want your company to present a truly positive face to potential hires (and, as an interviewer, you *are* the face of the company to the people you are interviewing) because that is one of the things that make people *want* to work for you. If they're excited about the company, whether or not they got the job, they will tell other people.
In the end if you can make your potential hires excited about your company, you have a lot better chance of getting really solid, quality people even if you don't hire that particular person, because word of mouth is extremely important.
Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
Just googled you, "Anonymous Coward", and I think you... spend too much time on slahsdot.
... 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.