4 ms·

> I have heard people come out of interviews with negatives as fickle as "they didn't make eye contact." Lack of eye contact is often considered to be a trait

> I have heard people come out of interviews with negatives as fickle as "they didn't make eye contact." Lack of eye contact is often considered to be a trait of poor communication. Do you mean to suggest that poor communication is not a valid reason for choosing not to hire someone?

codezero 13y ago
I have ADD, I am conscious of my lack of eye contact, but I am actually a great communicator. All of human behavior occupies a wide spectrum. It's probably OK to say that on average, people who avoid eye contact may be bad communicators, but it's not universally true and to use that signal as an indication of a person's quality is cheating. If you need someone to make eye contact for you to feel like communication is good, the problem is with how you feel, not with the actual communication.
- valleyer 13y ago
  There are a wide variety of engineering jobs and some of them require regular communication with people who might not know you and who are therefore are more likely to misinterpet things like lack of eye contact. Tech leads, developer relations, etc. People who are not good communicators and people who don't seem like good communicators, to the people being communicated to, are at a disadvantage for these jobs, at least until we eliminate miscommunication from human interaction (which I most sincerely hope someone, somewhere, is working on...)
rwallace 13y ago
It's superstition. The entire interview process is, to be honest. Whenever anyone studies how potential candidates are rated, compared to how they actually end up performing on the job, it turns out there are two things that have significant predictive power: an IQ test (illegal in some jurisdictions), and a test of skills that will be required on the job (e.g. for a programmer, asking the candidate to write some code). Nothing else has predictive power significantly better than random chance. You might as well choose candidates based on their star sign.
DanBC 13y ago
If the candidate is rejected for poor communication the reason given should be "poor communication; eg did not make eye contact". It's worth remembering that many people with Asperger's do not have a diagnosis, or would not consider declaring their diagnosis at interview. It might be worth while for interviewers to gently ask - in the spirit of making reasonable adjustments - about that. But, really, we know that interviewing is a hopelessly broken recruitment method.

codezero 13y ago

I have ADD, I am conscious of my lack of eye contact, but I am actually a great communicator. All of human behavior occupies a wide spectrum. It's probably OK to say that on average, people who avoid eye contact may be bad communicators, but it's not universally true and to use that signal as an indication of a person's quality is cheating. If you need someone to make eye contact for you to feel like communication is good, the problem is with how you feel, not with the actual communication.

valleyer 13y ago
There are a wide variety of engineering jobs and some of them require regular communication with people who might not know you and who are therefore are more likely to misinterpet things like lack of eye contact. Tech leads, developer relations, etc. People who are not good communicators and people who don't seem like good communicators, to the people being communicated to, are at a disadvantage for these jobs, at least until we eliminate miscommunication from human interaction (which I most sincerely hope someone, somewhere, is working on...)

rwallace 13y ago

It's superstition. The entire interview process is, to be honest. Whenever anyone studies how potential candidates are rated, compared to how they actually end up performing on the job, it turns out there are two things that have significant predictive power: an IQ test (illegal in some jurisdictions), and a test of skills that will be required on the job (e.g. for a programmer, asking the candidate to write some code). Nothing else has predictive power significantly better than random chance. You might as well choose candidates based on their star sign.

DanBC 13y ago

If the candidate is rejected for poor communication the reason given should be "poor communication; eg did not make eye contact". It's worth remembering that many people with Asperger's do not have a diagnosis, or would not consider declaring their diagnosis at interview. It might be worth while for interviewers to gently ask - in the spirit of making reasonable adjustments - about that. But, really, we know that interviewing is a hopelessly broken recruitment method.