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Things I said as a manager part 2: Hiring is emotional

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Re: Things I said as a manager part 2: Hiring is emotional

#13

Post by rcurry »

euvin wrote: post #7

> They were close and had potential, but we also saw some gaps. I would be really interested to hear more about the specific "gaps". > After lots of discussion with my management chain, we decided not to extend the offer. I wonder exactly what was said, given that this candidate was led on for months by this point and I presume the management knew about everything along the way. Also, was someone else hired, or did t…

It was on the thirtieth interview when things went south. While excitedly explaining how they’d just scaled a business to eight million users the candidate casually picked up a shrimp fork and dug into the house salad with it!!

It was right then I realized we’d made a terrible mistake. I feigned gastric distress and headed for the restroom where I immediately called HR.

Months wasted but I feel we dodged a bullet on this one. Now it’s back to the drawing board but I’m sure we will eventually find a qualified junior web developer.

Re: Things I said as a manager part 2: Hiring is emotional

#15

Post by drewcoo »

All human decisions involve emotions. We're human.

This piece is a bit over the top, though, verging on "seek counseling immediately" emotional. I hope you're not a bull, author, because I don't want to make you even more emotional when I tell you this is full of red flags.

Re: Things I said as a manager part 2: Hiring is emotional

#16

Post by no-such-address »

It sounds as if the hiring managers got cold feet and made an emotional or impulsive decision. It's not surprising they could feel bad for treating a candidate that way, for indescribable reasons. It's not as if the justification offered was, "We lost our budget and couldn't go through with our offer" or "We have another much more highly qualified candidate and the organization needs that person." Managers that interact with candidates should be decent enough to anticipate the possibility of not going through with an offer and create sufficient emotional buffering to leave people with their self-respect, or give the candidate more useful clues about how they're really doing. There are many ways hiring managers can increase their skill at this difficult work. I will never forget, I made someone cry in an interview once. You can ask hard questions but we all have to decide if this is the kind of human being we want to be.

Re: Things I said as a manager part 2: Hiring is emotional

#19

Post by mgh2 »

chairs wrote: post #4

Appalling. You were lucky the candidate was available for months of interaction. You deliberated too much and you lost out on what sounded like an excellent fit. No one is going to be perfect. No one is going to be at their best during interviews. Yet not understanding that when someone shows strength and promise that you bring them in to the role where there's a probationary period to do further evaluation shows a c…

Goes to prove that sometimes hiring and work itself is bs, based on the whims of whether someone will get along. In the end, hiring decisions are not made objectively based on competency but subjectively based on superficial and biased preferences. Complete incompetence as a higher up, seems to be a lesson for management.
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