Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: What's the biggest red flag you've encountered during a hiring process?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 278 posts

Re: Ask HN: What's the biggest red flag you've encountered during a hiring process?

#111

Post by latchkey »

outsidetheparty wrote: post #19

I should have spotted it but didn't: They took me out skiing one day between interviews (they were courting me pretty hard, and good snow was a selling point for the region) and I met the CEO for the first time on the slopes. He wore a full motorcycle-style helmet with a mirrored face visor which he refused to open; it was like talking to a member of Daft Punk. It had fake hologram bullet-holes on it. More importantl…

That's almost worth naming names, just to prevent anyone else from suffering a similar fate. Plus, I'm really curious who it was.

Re: Ask HN: What's the biggest red flag you've encountered during a hiring process?

#113

Post by shaftway »

nameless912 wrote: post #45

Oh here's another one - I was interviewing at Google and got an offer, and I decided to ask for a meeting with the HM because the other job I was considering at the time gave me an interview with the HM that was really enlightening and made me feel good about taking the other job over Google. I figured it would be a good way to directly compare the two jobs since the comp, etc. were similar. The moment I met the HM I…

That totally sucks. When I was at Google I was asked to do a few of these interviews, and from my perspective I loved them. They counted towards good citizenship, but you didn't have to do a write-up. Literally all you had to do was present a realistic view of the company, positives and negatives. And have a good vibe.

I was always honest with candidates and tried to give them advice to navigate the hiring process and the first few weeks of work. I told them what work would realistically be like. Some joined, some didn't, but I like to think I gave them a good perspective on the company in a non-judging, non-interview environment.

Re: Ask HN: What's the biggest red flag you've encountered during a hiring process?

#114

Post by darajava »

I was in the final stage for a YC company and met the CEO at the final interview. I had already kind of messed up the technical interview so I wasn’t feeling too great about talking to him to begin with. He opened with an introduction of himself and told me the history of the company which was fine, and asked if I had any questions. I asked him what were some challenges that he faced during the growth of the company. his answer was that “people challenges” were among the hardest of problems that he had. Fair enough, but he gave only one example: having to let go of an engineer that was underperforming.

I didn’t get the offer, but I didn’t want to work for somebody who would say that to an engineer applying for a job. (plus they had the weirdest stack i’ve ever seen)

Re: Ask HN: What's the biggest red flag you've encountered during a hiring process?

#115

Post by drekipus »

shaftway wrote: post #110

I went through the full deal with an algorithmic trading firm. I blazed through the interviews and given the history I have in finance was able to finish a large on-site assignment with an hour to spare. I was told that I was the first to ever finish it. Second to last step was submitting an official college transcript as part of their background check process. Last step was talking to the CEO. Now, I flunked out of…

The policy of asking why you flunked college?

Should a company not ask you that? Why are you hung up on flunking martian geology?

I don't understand

Re: Ask HN: What's the biggest red flag you've encountered during a hiring process?

#116

Post by dekhn »

nameless912 wrote: post #21

I once was interviewing for an internship at a quant firm in Chicago (I was in my Sophomore year I think at UIUC) and my interview went pretty well up to the point of my second-last interview of the day. Then, I sat down with the VP of engineering, and he opened the interview with "so, what do you think it is we do here?" And I naturally stuttered through a canned answer about how they use arbitrage opportunities in…

I asked this exact question ("what is the net benefit of currency arbitrage") and nobody has been able to articulate is.

Stock markets, I can see- they existed and exist to share risk and profit. But shorting and arbitrage, it's much harder for me to understand those.

(and yes, that VP was a sociopath)

Re: Ask HN: What's the biggest red flag you've encountered during a hiring process?

#117

Post by gweinberg »

seattle_spring wrote: post #75
Tomte wrote: post #23

"You need to send us a handwritten page that we'll send to a graphologer in Switzerland. Nobody is hired without a graphological report." I did that, got hired, and wouldn't comply again. First job after university. Nothing bad happened. Years later I could read the report, and it was nothing remarkable.

I had never heard of a"graphological report" so I looked it up. It's so much worse than I would have guessed! Any of those personality tests are such a major red flag. "Graphology is the analysis of handwriting with attempt to determine someone's personality traits."

They may has well have done a tarot reading. OTSH, it could just be a mostly harmless eccentricity of the CEO.

Re: Ask HN: What's the biggest red flag you've encountered during a hiring process?

#118

Post by dekhn »

jrflowers wrote: post #14

I was once asked “why do you want to work here?” while interviewing at a Hardee’s as a teenager.

When I quit working at McDonald's, the manager said "well, some people don't have what it takes to work this job". i told him I had to quit because I was leaving to go to college.

Re: Ask HN: What's the biggest red flag you've encountered during a hiring process?

#119

Post by thedougd »

hondo77 wrote: post #15

In retrospect: hiring managers having Ayn Rand books at work.

I worked for a guy who had Atlas Shrugged on his bookshelf. I chuckled and thought okay.

I later went on a business trip with him and found out that 1) he was left of center and 2) a prior CEO was very much a Randist and sent the book to every SVP and up in the company.

Re: Ask HN: What's the biggest red flag you've encountered during a hiring process?

#120

Post by mrmaxman »

I applied for a company that gave me a "take home test." They wanted me to use my evening free time to create a boilerplate Java backend. I was actually willing to do it (one never should) until I found out they were contracting for ICE. Very quick nope.
Post reply on HN