Ask HN: (how) do you early reject candidates during onsite interviews?

#1

Post by epanastasi » Fri, Jul 27, 2012, 5:32 PM UTC

I've known two people who were told "we can't find your final interviewer" while doing on-site interviews at Twitter. They were then escorted out and told they'll be in contact soon to follow up. At which point they were rejected. The first time, I thought.. "that's kinda strange", but the second time I heard about it I said to myself - "oh, is that their early reject policy??" I was wondering if anyone have a similar experience?

I know how difficult it is to walk a candidate out early; I've had to do it myself before. I'm curious to know from the rest of HN:

Does your company have an official process for ending onsite interviews early, and under what circumstances (if any) is that okay?

Re: Ask HN: (how) do you early reject candidates during onsite interviews?

#2

Post by codegeek » Fri, Jul 27, 2012, 5:44 PM UTC

Whenever we participate in on-site interviews, candidates have been vetted enough through phone interviews that you should hardly have to face a very bad candidate that you want to reject right away on-site. However, even if that is the case, the perception of a bad candidate could vary from interviewer to interviewer. If I was personally called for an on-site interview and rejected early just on the basis of couple of interviewers, I would be upset at that moment but probably be glad later. Interviewing should be collaborative and if you have scheduled a candidate to come on-site, the least you can do is to give him/her the chance to speak to everyone who is supposed to interview and then decide. Otherwise, it reflects bad on your culture. Just my personal opinion.

Re: Ask HN: (how) do you early reject candidates during onsite interviews?

#3

Post by jfb » Fri, Jul 27, 2012, 5:51 PM UTC

codegeek wrote: post #2

Whenever we participate in on-site interviews, candidates have been vetted enough through phone interviews that you should hardly have to face a very bad candidate that you want to reject right away on-site. However, even if that is the case, the perception of a bad candidate could vary from interviewer to interviewer. If I was personally called for an on-site interview and rejected early just on the basis of couple…

This. A few times at Apple a real disaster would make it through the phone screen, and there would be a panic about what to do. Usually we just went through with it, but it always seemed to me to be more respectful to the candidate and the interviewing team to just pull the chute as soon as it was obvious.

The real answer of course was to fix the phone screens, but that requires actual energy be put into thinking hard about the hiring process, and the hiring process is deeply, fundamentally unsexy.

Re: Ask HN: (how) do you early reject candidates during onsite interviews?

#4

Post by toomuchcoffee » Fri, Jul 27, 2012, 5:53 PM UTC

"we can't find your final interviewer"

This is clearly disingenuous, and accomplishes nothing other than to to convey a palpable sense of contempt and disregard for the candidate. It's an insult to their intelligence, basically.

Re: Ask HN: (how) do you early reject candidates during onsite interviews?

#5

Post by toomuchcoffee » Fri, Jul 27, 2012, 6:01 PM UTC

jfb wrote: post #3

codegeek wrote: post #2

Whenever we participate in on-site interviews, candidates have been vetted enough through phone interviews that you should hardly have to face a very bad candidate that you want to reject right away on-site. However, even if that is the case, the perception of a bad candidate could vary from interviewer to interviewer. If I was personally called for an on-site interview and rejected early just on the basis of couple…

This. A few times at Apple a real disaster would make it through the phone screen, and there would be a panic about what to do. Usually we just went through with it, but it always seemed to me to be more respectful to the candidate and the interviewing team to just pull the chute as soon as it was obvious. The real answer of course was to fix the phone screens, but that requires actual energy be put into thinking har…

Of course you can always abort the on-site interview early. You don't even have to give a reason, necessarily.

But there's no point to giving a transparently dishonest, "the dog at my homework"-style response, like was apparently done at Twitter in the two occasions cited above.

Re: Ask HN: (how) do you early reject candidates during onsite interviews?

#6

Post by toomuchcoffee » Fri, Jul 27, 2012, 6:13 PM UTC

jfb wrote: post #3

codegeek wrote: post #2

Whenever we participate in on-site interviews, candidates have been vetted enough through phone interviews that you should hardly have to face a very bad candidate that you want to reject right away on-site. However, even if that is the case, the perception of a bad candidate could vary from interviewer to interviewer. If I was personally called for an on-site interview and rejected early just on the basis of couple…

This. A few times at Apple a real disaster would make it through the phone screen, and there would be a panic about what to do. Usually we just went through with it, but it always seemed to me to be more respectful to the candidate and the interviewing team to just pull the chute as soon as it was obvious. The real answer of course was to fix the phone screens, but that requires actual energy be put into thinking har…

Also, many of these "disaster" cases may simply be suffering from an unfortunate, but all too human cases of stage fright, especially if it's their first F2F at a big company like Apple. Some people just freeze up involuntarily, and trip all over their tongues when being grilled by people they look up to and respect. They're human beings, not quiz-answering machines, after all.

Not that we need to slow down and make some kind of special accommodation when this happens -- because indeed, such episodes may fairly be viewed as signs of a lack of experience and confidence.

But it still surprises me how often people fail to see the basic humanity at play in these situations: instead of thinking "poor guy, he seemed really nervous", all that comes to mind is "What a loser! He couldn't solve that Euler problem with me staring and grinning impatiently at him the whole time. How did he ever make it through the phone screen?"

Re: Ask HN: (how) do you early reject candidates during onsite interviews?

#7

Post by jfb » Fri, Jul 27, 2012, 6:18 PM UTC

toomuchcoffee wrote: post #6

jfb wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. A few times at Apple a real disaster would make it through the phone screen, and there would be a panic about what to do. Usually we just went through with it, but it always seemed to me to be more respectful to the candidate and the interviewing team to just pull the chute as soon as it was obvious. The real answer of course was to fix the phone screens, but that requires actual energy be put into thinking har…

Also, many of these "disaster" cases may simply be suffering from an unfortunate, but all too human cases of stage fright, especially if it's their first F2F at a big company like Apple. Some people just freeze up involuntarily, and trip all over their tongues when being grilled by people they look up to and respect. They're human beings, not quiz-answering machines, after all. Not that we need to slow down and make…

"Also, many of these "disaster" cases may simply be suffering from an unfortunate, but all too human cases of stage fright, especially if it's their first F2F at a big company like Apple."

This is absolutely correct, and there's no hard and fast set of rules to determine if performance in a staged, artificial environment like an interview correlates in any significant way with performance at the job intended. There're a whole host of issues around hiring in particular and coping with humans in general that the tech industry does an astonishingly bad job with.

To me, the goal of interviewing is not to find someone who is a clone of someone who already is on the team, but rather to find someone who brings different and useful perspectives to the job. If they can work on existing problems day one, so much the better, but if they can never get beyond working on existing problems, then they were a mis-hire.

Re: Ask HN: (how) do you early reject candidates during onsite interviews?

#8

Post by jfb » Fri, Jul 27, 2012, 6:27 PM UTC

toomuchcoffee wrote: post #5

jfb wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. A few times at Apple a real disaster would make it through the phone screen, and there would be a panic about what to do. Usually we just went through with it, but it always seemed to me to be more respectful to the candidate and the interviewing team to just pull the chute as soon as it was obvious. The real answer of course was to fix the phone screens, but that requires actual energy be put into thinking har…

Of course you can always abort the on-site interview early. You don't even have to give a reason, necessarily. But there's no point to giving a transparently dishonest, "the dog at my homework"-style response, like was apparently done at Twitter in the two occasions cited above.

If I ever heard that piss-weak excuse in an interview ("we can't find the interviewers"? for serious?), I'd be gone regardless. If it's a dodge, it's dishonest and cowardly, and if it's true it displays a shocking degree of disrespect. Either would mean that the culture of the interviewing company was irreparably broken and that I wouldn't be happy there.

Re: Ask HN: (how) do you early reject candidates during onsite interviews?

#9

Post by patio11 » Fri, Jul 27, 2012, 6:55 PM UTC

I'd be strongly inclined, especially in the current hiring environment, to do whatever else was on the schedule anyway -- finish the interviews, take the candidate to lunch, sell them on the desirability of working at your company, whatever, even if I received obvious signals that it was not a mutual fit.

The rationale is partially "Even if this particular candidate does not end up working for our organization, our treatment of them will be repeated to their friends, who -- since birds of a feather flock together -- likely include other people who we may be interested in hiring."

(And partially it is just that I cannot contort my mind into believing that any serious professional could think that "Our multinational telecommunications company lost your interviwer. Whoops! Happens all the time -- door's on the left, security will see you out" is acceptable outside a Dilbert strip.)

Re: Ask HN: (how) do you early reject candidates during onsite interviews?

#10

Post by typpo » Fri, Jul 27, 2012, 7:07 PM UTC

toomuchcoffee wrote: post #4

"we can't find your final interviewer" This is clearly disingenuous, and accomplishes nothing other than to to convey a palpable sense of contempt and disregard for the candidate. It's an insult to their intelligence, basically.

This is not an unusual practice. For example, Microsoft has been known for sending people home early for quite some time. In some cases they'll tell you the next guy is out of work today (which is disingenuous), in other cases they'll tell you that you're done and send you home.

Not giving candidates a set schedule of interviews beforehand prevents these awkward lies and interactions. This may be an acceptable level of honesty because rejecting someone on the spot can be very difficult, both for the interviewer and the candidate.