101–110 of 213 posts
I will go out on my limb here. It was a mistake on his part. See if you are willing to let him go with a caution. I know everyone is crying for blood and it is justified. Going to HR will likely ruin his resume for life (possibly).
Going to HR about this will not ruin his career. His harassment and unprofessionalism will ruin his career.
Harassment, no. That's simply not harassment.
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What’s wrong with just telling him it’s inappropriate and that the answer is no?
Because he needs to face consequences for his behavior. He's a massive liability to his company.
Does he? Is "facing consequences" the only way for someone to learn?
If I "faced consequences" for every stupid thing I've done in my life time I'd probably have spent the last 30 years in jail. Because at the age of 42, I've done a ton of dumb, inappropriate and just plain stupid things in my life.
Most of the time, someone has explained to me that what I did was wrong and I was able to learn from it and change my behavior. And look at me today - gainfully employed since I was 14, happily married, three children.
These zero tolerance policies of "facing consequences" for any infraction don't benefit society at all. There is no true binary decision of, Bad Behavior = Punishment, Good Behavior = No Punishment. Bad behavior can be challenged, forgiven and forgotten without having to ruin someone's career over it.
Repeated bad behavior, on the other hand... Of course you need to escalate at that point.
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Small company, he's a programmer - primary interviewer is busy (something came up) - asks another technical person to cover for him. Happens all the time in startups / small companies.
Or.... Small company, he's a programmer - primary interviewer is in a relationship (last candidate said 'yes') - asks another technical interviewer if he's interested in this candidate's headshot. Happens all the time in startups / small companies. My guess is about as feasible as yours, no?
I'm not discounting the possibility of your guess, but I have never experienced it personally, and I would have a major issue working with anyone who behaved in this manner in a professional environment.
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>I don't believe she would have gotten then job with another interviewer (the "more experience" part sounds plausible). please don't speculate, as she said if they were looking for "more experience" why would he interviewed her in the first place? He also admitted that her cv was interesting >(If he's that creepy, he'd get her the job and hit on her then) hitting on a co-worker is much more complicated than hitting o…
>please don't speculate Come on... >He is clearly abusing his position of power What power? He's both unprofessional and socially inept, but he holds no power over her at that stage.
he can still hire her
EDIT: changed citation
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Because he needs to face consequences for his behavior. He's a massive liability to his company.
What if he's a 10x engineer? He's a massive PR liability because of our insane outrage culture, but he's a very valuable asset for, you know, his actual job.
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Small company, he's a programmer - primary interviewer is busy (something came up) - asks another technical person to cover for him. Happens all the time in startups / small companies.
Question isn't if it happens all the time in small companies. What's under discussion is whether this is what we want in our (the startup/tech) industry, whether this is ok, or if there's something we should try to do about it. First step is awareness, then next step is recognizing there's a problem. Your comment stops at the first step.
I don't see the drama, but then again I'm a guy (40+). If he just waited a few weeks with that second mail, we could hardly fault him for being unprofessional could we? I don't believe she would have gotten then job with another interviewer (the "more experience" part sounds plausible). And if she was a really interesting candidate, another tech screen or phone interview would be natural. I'd tell any friend to say "…
We could fault him for being sexist - she'd have to wonder if she didn't get the job because he wanted to date her.
I don't see the drama, but then again I'm a guy (40+). If he just waited a few weeks with that second mail, we could hardly fault him for being unprofessional could we? I don't believe she would have gotten then job with another interviewer (the "more experience" part sounds plausible). And if she was a really interesting candidate, another tech screen or phone interview would be natural. I'd tell any friend to say "…
Boy, you're really going out of your way to defend some guy you don't know who already admitted that what he did was wrong.
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So making sexual advances in a professional setting is A-OK, as long as you only do it once per person?
It's not sexual advances. It's not in a professional setting. Not saying that what he did is OK (it's not) but let's keep our facts straight.
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HR exists for addressing problems like this. You absolutely should talk to them. I don't think it will "ruin his life" but whatever action is taken (if any) is ultimately up to his bosses. This is unacceptable behavior and if no one ever says anything about it, there's no reason to think it won't continue.
> HR exists for addressing problems like this. They address problems for this for the company . HR is there to defend the company, not the employees. Letting HR know about the incident will likely cause this person to be terminated. I'm not saying OP should or should not do it, just clarifying the consequences. Personally, I think what this guy did is - a bit creepy - pretty mean since he probably turned her down so…
HR doesn't generally have the ability to decide to fire people. So if this person's bosses, in consultation with HR, think this is worth terminating someone over, that's certainly their right.
I don't want to parse words with you, but this is wildly inappropriate behavior and it certainly should not be ignored. HR is the correct department to make sure it gets addressed.
And, frankly, some companies may believe that "creepy" and "mean" behavior on its own is a serious offense even if, as you assert, no abuse or harassment occurred.