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Following that advice will create a bland company of mediocre people. But hey, no a-holes! </sarcasm> :-) To me the evidence to how misguided this advice is, i
by sklivvz1971 13y ago
Following that advice will create a bland company of mediocre people. But hey, no a-holes! </sarcasm> :-)
To me the evidence to how misguided this advice is, is that the author first assumes people are assholes (so it's a quality of the person), but in the last section they assume that it is useful to give "stern feedback" so people can correct their behavior... so people behave as assholes and are free to change if they choose.
Which brings me to the other point. What if these people were the most important contributors in the past jobs? What if theirs skills are more important than the rest? Should they describe themselves as simply "part of a team"? That would be completely hypocritical.
Equally, all the markers they give are completely unqualified by ifs and caveats, and as such are very misguided.
Here's how you don't hire an asshole. imo:
* You use your own empathy to understand if you can work with this person, if they fit culturally
* You look for lack of empathy in the candidate because that's the sure sign of a person that will break your culture eventually
(I would not hire someone with a similar blog post)
- fendale 13y agoOn the we vs I point, there is a class of interview where you get marked down for using we instead of emphasizing your own contribution. I'm thinking of the competency based interview that is typical of internal positions and promotion boards in big companies. If someone has been through a lot of them, they may be inclined to emphasize their own contribution over the team. The feedback I got on my first failed promotion interview mentioned too much we and not enough I!
- walshemj 13y agoyep thats how we had to work at BT as the competition for promotions was brutal maybe 20 for all of systems engineering every 18 months or so.
- fendale 13y agoFunny, BT was the example I was thinking of too! I've moved on now but I had a good 9 or so years there.
- cema 13y agoHorrible company culture. (Widespread, I know.)
- redbad 13y agoI don't mean this glibly, but just in case you aren't playing devil's advocate: you sound like an asshole, and I would not hire someone who made a comment like this one. ($0.02 and all.)
- GuiA 13y agoOh god, really? Is that what we have now- people on HN telling each other "you're an asshole i won't hire you" "no you're an asshole I won't hire you"? Come on guys.
- hobs 13y agoReally? * You use your own empathy to understand if you can work with this person, if they fit culturally * You look for lack of empathy in the candidate because that's the sure sign of a person that will break your culture eventually Does that really sound like an asshole? Someone who uses empathy to determine if people would work together well? Assholes generally don't use empathy. Sometimes there are teams where there is a key player that runs the show, and the team would be lost without. That doesn't mean they do all the work or take all the credit. What I would be asking is how they were a key player, what made them important, what they did to emphasize the success of their teams, etc. This will quickly make them show their true colors.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- tomrod 13y agoYou said everything on my mind. Thank you.
- walshemj 13y agoAnd he seams to imply that nepotism is a good thing "and they bring each other into their companies"