4 ms·

I'm beginning to notice one cause on why it's tough to find a job. People have pretty strong opinions (and that includes me, and your particular comment also se

I'm beginning to notice one cause on why it's tough to find a job. People have pretty strong opinions (and that includes me, and your particular comment also seems pretty strong in its opinion). I'm not sure how it ties in yet, but I think the strong opinions differ a lot. Thanks for the food for thought. I kind of know what you mean with the "smell" thing. It's also clearly visible when I go to a company that I have no culture fit with.

gwbas1c 7y ago
"smell" It's not really a cultural fit. I'll try to say it differently: Sometimes I suspect that candidates are struggling with mental health issues. It's not why we (the company) rejected those candidates. (We reject them because they can't do the job.) But, I suspect if those candidates took care of their mental health issues, they would be stronger candidates overall. [Edit] I'm not a doctor, so it's not my place to judge or diagnose anybody for their mental health issues.
- 77pt77 7y ago
  >I'm not a doctor, so it's not my place to judge or diagnose anybody for their mental health issues. Yet that's exactly what you just did. I suspect that your mental health cop out is nothing but a rationalization for your unfounded biases.
  - gwbas1c 7y ago
    Well, you weren't part of the interviews, so you have no business deciding if we made the right call to reject particular candidates. I can tell you that these were very obvious "no" situations. In one case, the candidate was incompetent and only made it to on-site because of a horrible HR snafu. The resume shouldn't have made it past screening. In another case, the candidate nearly started an argument with me over what was essentially a game of "let's pretend" so I could ask some very mundane SQL questions. Both of these candidates were extremely slovenly in their appearance. > I suspect that your mental health cop out is nothing but a rationalization for your unfounded biases. I think you also need to inspect your biases. Both of these candidates were fundamentally unfit for office work; not cases of someone failing an interview because they didn't write fizzbuzz exactly the way I would.
    - 77pt77 7y ago
      Thank you for confirming my suspicions. Best of luck.
    - perl4ever 7y ago
      "Both of these candidates were fundamentally unfit for office work" This is the sort of thing that sounds very bleak to people who imagine being judged the same way, possibly unfairly. And it's even more painful because someone on the cusp may not be sure themselves that they can or can't function. However, it can be empowering, in that someone recovering from health issues can realize that technical chops are almost entirely irrelevant; the task is just to convince the interviewer that they can and want to come to work every day and grind it out, and if a person truly knows their own ability to do so, it is possible to convince other people. Unfortunately it's terrifying to hear that success depends on belief, because bootstrapping yourself from not being employable seems like a contradiction in terms. It can make people very bitter when they believe their only chance of survival is to behave in a way they don't feel.
      - gwbas1c 7y ago
        To be quite frank, in software engineering, about half of the job is being able to work well with others. This means being able to make it through a job interview without having a temper tantrum.

gwbas1c 7y ago

"smell" It's not really a cultural fit. I'll try to say it differently: Sometimes I suspect that candidates are struggling with mental health issues. It's not why we (the company) rejected those candidates. (We reject them because they can't do the job.) But, I suspect if those candidates took care of their mental health issues, they would be stronger candidates overall. [Edit] I'm not a doctor, so it's not my place to judge or diagnose anybody for their mental health issues.

77pt77 7y ago
>I'm not a doctor, so it's not my place to judge or diagnose anybody for their mental health issues. Yet that's exactly what you just did. I suspect that your mental health cop out is nothing but a rationalization for your unfounded biases.
- gwbas1c 7y ago
  Well, you weren't part of the interviews, so you have no business deciding if we made the right call to reject particular candidates. I can tell you that these were very obvious "no" situations. In one case, the candidate was incompetent and only made it to on-site because of a horrible HR snafu. The resume shouldn't have made it past screening. In another case, the candidate nearly started an argument with me over what was essentially a game of "let's pretend" so I could ask some very mundane SQL questions. Both of these candidates were extremely slovenly in their appearance. > I suspect that your mental health cop out is nothing but a rationalization for your unfounded biases. I think you also need to inspect your biases. Both of these candidates were fundamentally unfit for office work; not cases of someone failing an interview because they didn't write fizzbuzz exactly the way I would.
  - 77pt77 7y ago
    Thank you for confirming my suspicions. Best of luck.
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    "Both of these candidates were fundamentally unfit for office work" This is the sort of thing that sounds very bleak to people who imagine being judged the same way, possibly unfairly. And it's even more painful because someone on the cusp may not be sure themselves that they can or can't function. However, it can be empowering, in that someone recovering from health issues can realize that technical chops are almost entirely irrelevant; the task is just to convince the interviewer that they can and want to come to work every day and grind it out, and if a person truly knows their own ability to do so, it is possible to convince other people. Unfortunately it's terrifying to hear that success depends on belief, because bootstrapping yourself from not being employable seems like a contradiction in terms. It can make people very bitter when they believe their only chance of survival is to behave in a way they don't feel.
    - gwbas1c 7y ago
      To be quite frank, in software engineering, about half of the job is being able to work well with others. This means being able to make it through a job interview without having a temper tantrum.