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The new hire who showed up is not the same person we interviewed

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Re: The new hire who showed up is not the same person we interviewed

#271
My son reports working with a person who had always worked at the same company as his sister. Soon after hiring (both of) them, the sister changed to another company.

This guy's performance dropped to zero. He never finished another task. At lunch he often commented he had always enjoyed working with his sister, since he got lots of good ideas when they worked on the same projects.

My son's take: this guy had never had an original idea in his life, his sister had always propped him up since high school. And she had finally cut the apron strings. But the guy was so clueless, he never realized how little he could do and how his sister had essentially done his job his whole life.

Re: The new hire who showed up is not the same person we interviewed

#272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A lawsuit to recuperate the wages and damage to the business might even be worth looking into. No, probably not. Speak to any business owner who has been in a lawsuit and they'll likely tell you it's not worth the headache. A close relative told me that even if a customer straight up won't pay for a done job, he'd rather forgo the payment then deal with a lawsuit. Lawsuits usually have: 1) monetary costs - those la…

The Ford dealership quoted me wrong on a trade-in payoff and later tried to get me to pay it ($1000). Letter in the trash. Next one came on a law firm's letterhead quoting a bunch of stuff about a contract. In the trash. Never heard from them again.

More extreme one -- my auto loan provider accidentally double-charged my bank account for the amount of my car loan payoff (it didn't bounce, either). They instructed me to go through my bank to get the second charge refunded as fraudulent (which I was able to do and I was refunded and happy within 4 days), but then on their end they also sent me a refund check for some reason. When I received the check I gave my auto loan provider a call and they told me they were sorry there is nothing they could do and I would have to cash it, so I gladly got the remaining $6k of my car paid off for free by their own human error. I already had the certificate from them showing the car was paid off and the account was fully closed at this point. One year later and it's still fully paid off on my credit report. They gave me free money. The error on their part was their system had no way of handling "what if our charges are reported as fraud and get yanked back". Well, that and sending out a check after the fact.

It makes me wonder at what $ amount they would have begun to care about their error and tried to correct it.

Re: The new hire who showed up is not the same person we interviewed

#273
post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Old people who manage legacy systems, like that one guy duct-taping a bank's online operations.

Are they really the "best" developers? It just sounds like a different skillset and mindset, not necessarily better or worse.

I am willing to wager in a broad sense, that the best COBOL, Fortran, and RPG, that "Old people who manage legacy systems" is probably a fair estimate, and there is probably narrow overlap between developers for those languages and git experience.

There are lots of younger folks who fall into supporting these platforms through experience, but I would also wager that the number of fresh, doe eyed engineers graduating from uni/college thinking "I am going to be the best COBOL programmer!" can probably be counted on one hand :P

Re: The new hire who showed up is not the same person we interviewed

#274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> tangible benefits to more diversity People say that a lot, and even say it's been researched, but outside of product focus groups, I've never seen the actually research that supports that claim.

> Profitability is, of course, necessary to keep any business alive, and studies show that racial, ethnic, and gender diversity contribute to business success. A McKinsey & Company study of 366 companies revealed a statistically significant connection between diversity and financial performance. The companies in the top quartile for gender diversity were 15% more likely to have financial returns that were above their…

Are there any studies demonstrating causality? I can think of plenty of reasons diversity would correlate with success. For example, being based in a large city will have a lot of advantages for many businesses, along with having a more diverse hiring pool available that will naturally lead to a more diverse staff. But this doesn't suggest to me that adding a diversity quota or similar policy, all else being equal, will help a company succeed.

Re: The new hire who showed up is not the same person we interviewed

#275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dear lord, that sounds horrible. I understand the reasoning, but corresponding with people — especially in formal settings — makes me anxious, and I end up composing and re-composing (and sometimes re-re-composing) a lot of my messages. The end result isn't bad, but if I were being watched and graded in real time I'm pretty sure I'd fail.

Sounds like the interview would effectively filter out candidates that would not be a good fit for a job that is mostly corresponding with people.

IMHO, to the contrary: crafting one's message is a valid process for effective async communication.

Re: The new hire who showed up is not the same person we interviewed

#276
The worst thing about this case, if its true, is that this kind of thing will poison the pool for others. for legit people.

its already getting a little nauseating with the number of shops who insist on coding tests -- for people with tons of evidence already that they are legit programmers. This type of incident will be used to justify even more creepy and insulting behaviors on the employer's side. everybody loses

Re: The new hire who showed up is not the same person we interviewed

#277
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"eager to learn, sense of ownership" Well, that disqualifies me. The way most organizations tie your hands means one is given all the responsibility without real authority. I'm completely unmotivated because of that. Edit: Sucks that my feelings are being downvoted.

I once was a team lead for an team of outsourced software developers. It was the worst part of my career. The whole outsourced team was awful. Wholly incompetent. I had the responsibility of delivering a product, but I didn't have the authority to fire these folks who were a net negative on the project. I would have been happier with implementing the whole project myself, which I mostly did. I too was unmotivated, bu…

I have also been bitten by this and I also ascribe it as the worst part of my career.

A warning to anyone who hasn't experienced this, if you're ever tasked with doing this the correct answer is "no" followed by "goodbye".

Re: The new hire who showed up is not the same person we interviewed

#278
post #55

"John is talking extensively about working in a garage because his three children and wife are home. In the interview, he made references to being single and was visibly in an indoor desk area." If John is reading, you now have documentation that marital status has played a part in the decision process (even if not the sole issue) should they decide to let you go.

Ehhhh, I mean, sure, John could sue about this and cost the company some money (because you can sue about anything), but marital status did not at all play a part in the decision process. It was, however, a signal that the employee was lying about material things.

Regardless, John quit. He wasn't not hired in the first place, and he wasn't fired.

Re: The new hire who showed up is not the same person we interviewed

#279

It's like the flip version of the guy that got let go and then re-recruited for his just vacated position. https://twitter.com/firr/status/1456324664628846599

This is GOLD!! Edit: I am laughing my balls off at this "I offered him a gummy bear. He politely declined."

Its funny because thats how many devs here get promotion :^]

Quit -> apply to the same company for higher grade job and often way better pay.

Why companies dont value their current employees is beyond me.

Re: The new hire who showed up is not the same person we interviewed

#280

In my experience, At large companies that hire a lot of contractors, it is not that hard to pull this off. I've seen where the contractors A team do all the interviewing, then you get a C or C- team assigned to work in your project. By the time you "give them a chance", complain up the management chain, go sideways to HR and actually change the team, the contracting firm already got 6 months worth of salary from the…

I don't even understand how that happens. At one point I was a consulting pimp for my dad, and multiple parts of the contract required me to attest that he would be doing the work and if he had help he would be doing the majority of the work and if his time on the contract dropped below 50% of the total the contract would be cancelled and there would be penalties. There was no way I could have switched him with someo…

Legally, yes - But remember that those provisions are there because someone tried that in the past and so they added legal provisions against it. And remember that those legal provisions are hard to prove; What is 50% of the work? How would they know if he'd had another developer submitting code?
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