6 ms·
It's hard to suss out attitude, incuriosity, and/or inflexibility in the timeframe of an interview track. There's only so far those will hold a candidate back
by mchannon 9y ago
It's hard to suss out attitude, incuriosity, and/or inflexibility in the timeframe of an interview track. There's only so far those will hold a candidate back before they simply don't complete the interview of their own accord.
Red flags you're likely to encounter if you conduct interviews in the dozens are:
1. Don't know how to say they don't know. Have had candidates call up two screens and google the answers for questions they don't know, all while they're interviewing. (The eyes would give them away). The correct answer was "I don't know", not "let me google that for you".
2. Simple incompetence. They may be able to recite, rote, everything in the Android SDK documentation, but be unable to properly write a for loop. Almost makes you want to hire these people because the former is so rare to find, but, no.
3. Unrealistic expectations as to start date. Have had some great interviews where everything was perfect, but they wanted a year to travel before they would start (nothing against people from Europe, but, sigh..). I doubt that company even survived the full year.
4. Bait and switch. Apparently some devs contract out their end of the hiring process, paying "experts" a couple hundred bucks to interview under their name, get them the job, then on day 1, the interviewers and rank-and-file developers none the wiser, show up as a different person with the same name, without the requisite possibility to pass the interview or succeed in the workplace. They nod, smile, take on assignments, join the team at lunch, try maybe, but fail to deliver, and can glom on to the high-paying job for months before corporate axes them, never realizing the scam they were taken for.
Having been on both sides of the interview process far more than most, I firmly believe that the majority of the dysfunction in hiring software engineers is on the company side. Corporate monopsony breeds systemic incompetence in hiring.
- noir_lord 9y ago#4 is hilarious (unless you work for the team who gets that dev), that's hands down something you'd see on Silicon Valley.
- tytytytytytytyt 9y ago> show up as a different person with the same name They don't interview with people who will see them on the first day and realize it's a different person, like their manager or teammates?
- Fins 9y agoWe had a "DBA" show up like that./ He didn't even seem too concerned that he looked nothing like the guy we interviewed over Skype.
- shortoncash 9y agoThis is absolutely hilarious and I did not realize this was a thing.
- Fins 9y agoAfter some checking, apparently it is a thing. THere's a whole industry of people doing interviews from remote locations. It was quite funny to see when we complained to the recruiting agency how they had to call him back to "sign some more papers before he can get paid". Apparently he did not realize that we are a small enough shop that people who interviewed him might remember that and start feeling suspicious when the guy who showed up looked nothing like any of the ones we did talk to before; it helped that one of the admins took a screenshot of his Skype image, too. But the scariest thing is that he didn't even feel bad about it -- he told the agency "what? I need a job". That he did not know a database from a hole in the ground wasn't going to stop him.
- vorg 9y agoCandidates often turn up in person to the interview with their new manager, but send a double to the aptitude test which is only supervised by HR staff. Because HR often get bonuses based on how many new recruits they bring in, they often skip ID checks and turn a blind eye to anything suspicious they see.
- ryanx435 9y agoAs for 1), I've had several recruiters and my former professors say it's better to Google it than admit you don't know. Our industry needs to professionalize with some kind of standard certification that proves holders are at least minimally qualified. Like the bar exam for lawyers.
- bernardino 9y ago> I've had several recruiters and my former professors say it's better to Google it than admit you don't know. Oh, western culture. Please, it’s okay to admit you don’t know something!
- tedmiston 9y agoIt's better im a startup environment — shows initiative. And sometimes you find out that you already know the thing and forgot it, know it by another name, etc.
- ccajas 9y ago#4 actually happens? I thought paying someone to interview in your place is a pie-in-the-sky idea, as it's definitely more effort required than to BS on your resume.
- punchclockhero 9y ago#4 is quite a bright idea. Couple of months of inflated tech salary can go a long way if you are good at frugal living.
- bradhe 9y ago> Bait and switch. Apparently some devs contract out their end of the hiring process, paying "experts" a couple hundred bucks to interview under their name, get them the job, then on day 1, the interviewers and rank-and-file developers none the wiser, show up as a different person with the same name, without the requisite possibility to pass the interview or succeed in the workplace There’s no fucking way this is real. There is NO possible way that a human could actually think this could work in their favor and be OKin any way.
- bryanrasmussen 9y agowhy not, I mean criminality of all sorts happens and this isn't even criminal. Of course it requires not meeting HR or interviewers after interview/on hire, which means it's really only good for big companies.
- mchannon 9y agoSpeaking from experience, small companies can fall for this too. Companies that completely isolate the existing employees from candidates are just asking for trouble. A single-digit percentage of recruiters will now make a point of photographing the interviewee as part of the process.