4 ms·

At my current job, we had a position that an absolutely stellar candidate supposedly ghosted HR on. Same thing; candidate reached out to me asking about next st

At my current job, we had a position that an absolutely stellar candidate supposedly ghosted HR on. Same thing; candidate reached out to me asking about next steps, and I was like, "let me check". Went and asked HR, and was told they'd handle the rest, and not to talk to candidates outside of HR-scheduled interviews. Never heard back again. That was 3 months ago (and 3 months into the position posting), and the position is still unfilled.

brandall10 3y ago
Same question - were you and are you continuing to actively interview candidates? That's the mystery for me, why put the team through a charade that actively harms their productivity? The only thing I can think of is the candidate disclosed something that would be a legal red flag and can't really divulge that is an issue without threat of a lawsuit. Or something came up in a background check, but I imagine it didn't get to that point if the candidate reached out to you directly.
- hlfshell 3y ago
  The "why" is because people quit environments that are toxic, but hold out if there are signs of improvement. People don't want to quit - it's a large investment of time and investment to job hunt. It's annoying as hell. So if you can string together promises: - We'll hire more people, it's just so hard to find candidates! - We're doing bonuses right after evaluations, but we're doing a new evaluation system that's taking a bit longer than we expected this year - We're just finalizing talking to a customer we'll have them signed next month, we swear That delays people looking, delays that large investment, and you can extract engineering time with little investment. If you ran a company that couldn't afford another engineer for a team that desperately needed another engineer, are you going to paint the bleak picture for your team and risk losing those engineers that you have, or lie? If you have morals and say you'd be upfront, great; but that's unfortunately not a universal answer.
  - ang_cire 3y ago
    Honestly, the weird thing is we don't need another person at all.
- ang_cire 3y ago
  Yes, were still interviewing. Harming productivity only matters for hourly staff (in the minds of bad executives leaders). Salaried folks have to finish the with no matter how long it takes, and it doesn't cost the company more.

brandall10 3y ago

Same question - were you and are you continuing to actively interview candidates? That's the mystery for me, why put the team through a charade that actively harms their productivity? The only thing I can think of is the candidate disclosed something that would be a legal red flag and can't really divulge that is an issue without threat of a lawsuit. Or something came up in a background check, but I imagine it didn't get to that point if the candidate reached out to you directly.

hlfshell 3y ago
The "why" is because people quit environments that are toxic, but hold out if there are signs of improvement. People don't want to quit - it's a large investment of time and investment to job hunt. It's annoying as hell. So if you can string together promises: - We'll hire more people, it's just so hard to find candidates! - We're doing bonuses right after evaluations, but we're doing a new evaluation system that's taking a bit longer than we expected this year - We're just finalizing talking to a customer we'll have them signed next month, we swear That delays people looking, delays that large investment, and you can extract engineering time with little investment. If you ran a company that couldn't afford another engineer for a team that desperately needed another engineer, are you going to paint the bleak picture for your team and risk losing those engineers that you have, or lie? If you have morals and say you'd be upfront, great; but that's unfortunately not a universal answer.
- ang_cire 3y ago
  Honestly, the weird thing is we don't need another person at all.
ang_cire 3y ago
Yes, were still interviewing. Harming productivity only matters for hourly staff (in the minds of bad executives leaders). Salaried folks have to finish the with no matter how long it takes, and it doesn't cost the company more.