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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

#531

Post by aaron695 »

linsomniac wrote: post #46

I once hired a guy who had no experience, but seemed like a good culture fit for our company and seemed very interested in learning. We interviewed him and made e-mail communication a large part of the interview, because it is a critical part of our business. And his communication was great! After hiring, a recurring problem we had was his e-mail to us and to customers were terrible. Bad grammar, bad spelling, uncorr…

> "My wife wrote all of those."

Of course.

You would never ever send an important email without getting it checked, or having someone write it, if it's not your thing.

I do like the way the replies to this seem like they are frankly, retarded.

I get you are single but if you don't understand how relationships work this might be a good start at retrospectively thinking about it.

Relationships are about teams of two putting the best of either forward.

This does not make you twice as good, it's somewhat exponential. It's even more powerful when you decide to do it for life.

(And single people use friends, this is exactly how you apply for jobs, with the help of others if available)

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

#532

Post by oblio »

aaron695 wrote: post #531
linsomniac wrote: post #46

I once hired a guy who had no experience, but seemed like a good culture fit for our company and seemed very interested in learning. We interviewed him and made e-mail communication a large part of the interview, because it is a critical part of our business. And his communication was great! After hiring, a recurring problem we had was his e-mail to us and to customers were terrible. Bad grammar, bad spelling, uncorr…

> "My wife wrote all of those." Of course. You would never ever send an important email without getting it checked, or having someone write it, if it's not your thing. I do like the way the replies to this seem like they are frankly, retarded. I get you are single but if you don't understand how relationships work this might be a good start at retrospectively thinking about it. Relationships are about teams of two pu…

What if you need something urgent and the wife is not available?

You're looking at this from the wrong angle. First that person needs to have basic competencies for their job, before involving someone else.

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

#535

Post by brianpan »

jawns wrote: post #54

Earlier this year, I was asked to interview a man who was procured through a remote-staffing firm. He was based in Southeast Asia, and on his resume it looked like he met all of the competencies we needed -- including English proficiency. But on the call, I noticed that whenever I asked him a question, he would turn off his camera, pause for 10-20 seconds, answer the question, then turn his video back on. Eventually,…

I had a similar experience early in the pandemic. I had to ask for the candidate to keep his video on.

The voice was much more enthusiastic than the person's demeanor and eventually it became obvious that he was trying to randomly mouth words in sync with the person talking (and presumably doing the coding) then blaming it on lag.

Yikes.

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

#536

Post by WalterBright »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #194
intpx wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently went through a round of interviews for a job where strong communication skills are vital. One interview was just me responding to simulated emails in a shared google doc so the interviewer could see me work through the responses. In addition to witnessing my real time edits, I guess they also had the benefit of a higher level of confidence that the product was my actual work effort.

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.

The cure for performance anxiety is to do more performing until it goes away.

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

#537

Post by gamblor956 »

rootusrootus wrote: post #104
giantg2 wrote: 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.

> marital status ... is not a protected class.

Yes, it is, in some states (including CA): https://www.shouselaw.com/ca/labor/discrimination/marital/

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

#538

Post by xmprt »

WalterSear wrote: post #275
dahfizz wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Crafting a message well is important but more often, fast writing and decision making skills are more important. Why do you think so many professors and managers write extremely short, almost informal sounding replies. If you're an excellent writer who takes 20 minutes typing up a single email and then need another 20 minutes to destress because emails in formal settings make you anxious then you probably aren't a good fit for that type of job.

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

#539

Post by vmception »

JohnBooty wrote: post #518
vmception wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of my gripe with interviews and tests, they neglect the reality of rapid corrective and evolutionary iteration towards the desired outcome by each employee. Do we really have no way of evaluating candidates more holistically for an accurate signal?

they neglect the reality of rapid corrective and evolutionary iteration towards the desired outcome by each employee I've been in the industry for 20+ years and have done my fair share of live coding interviews. Some of them were horrible. There was one where I had to code on a literal whiteboard while a pair of, uh, let's just call them "people with distinctly non-wonderful personalities" critiqued everything. I did…

> I've also had many that went well. There was a live coding environment, and they allowed for exactly what you said - correction and iteration. They also collaborated with me to an extent. I felt these sorts of interviews were excellent and I did well. They also gave me a great feeling of what it would be like to work with these folks.

My best interview experiences were like this. I thought I did well and left those interviews feeling great, positive reinforcement, great performance of code, plenty of time left over! Just for a faceless and ambiguous rejection letter :) I started getting an aggregate view that people just didn't want to pay me that much, or that there's some external factor on a search engine or within the industry about me that I'll never be aware of, but I landed on my feet on the entrepreneurial side.

So guess I'll never know!

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

#540

Post by robertlagrant »

giantg2 wrote: post #96
NikolaNovak wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my team, Duty Managers / Service Delivery Managers / Operations Managers. Communication in every which direction is #1 skillset I look for in the team (as well as being organized, disciplined, eager to learn, sense of ownership). A lot of the job is talking to technical teams, talking to functional teams, talking to business teams, talking to management and executives; translate, summarize, liaison, co-ordinate, p…

"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.

> Edit: Sucks that my feelings are being downvoted

There was more there than feelings. Saying you know how most organisations work is probably it.

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