March 2, 2011 at 11:13 pm
Eric M Russell (3/1/2011)
CirquedeSQLeil (3/1/2011)
Koen Verbeeck (2/28/2011)
CirquedeSQLeil (2/28/2011)
Worst / strangest question was "how many of _______ can fit in a bus?" The interviewer wanted to argue with my answer - which I thought was somewhat bizarre.We all know, as with every question in this industry, that the only correct answer is:
It depends.
Funny enough, that was part of my answer - and the interviewer was vehemently arguing it. Not all buses are created equal - too many variables.
There are persistent rumors that some employers in the US just go through the motions of posting jobs and interviewing local applicants, whatever minimal number is required by the Department of Labor before offshoring a contract. I'm not saying the rumors are commonly true, I'm just saying the rumors are persistent. I don't know why some people think that way ...
Oddly enough, companies in New York are now outsourcing to {drum roll please}.... Michigan. 😀
--Jeff Moden
March 2, 2011 at 11:17 pm
GSquared (3/2/2011)
Koen Verbeeck (3/2/2011)
GSquared (3/2/2011)
Actually, to partially refute my own assertion, I was once told why I wasn't hired. It was because "I was too strong a candidate". The recruiter wasn't sure why that was a bad thing either.too strong a candidate = too expensive?
We'll never know. They didn't say anything more than that.
BWAA-HAA!!! Too strong a candidate? You didn't eat garlic before the interview, did you? 😀
--Jeff Moden
March 3, 2011 at 7:53 am
Jeff Moden (3/2/2011)
Oddly enough, companies in New York are now outsourcing to {drum roll please}.... Michigan. 😀
hmmmm
that might have something to do with Chrysler's 'Imported from Detroit' slogan?
🙂
Though I remember a restaurant menu in Tennessee which listed Sam Adams as imported beer (well it's north of the Mason Dixon)
...
-- FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers --
March 3, 2011 at 8:25 am
Jeff Moden (3/2/2011)
GSquared (3/2/2011)
Koen Verbeeck (3/2/2011)
GSquared (3/2/2011)
Actually, to partially refute my own assertion, I was once told why I wasn't hired. It was because "I was too strong a candidate". The recruiter wasn't sure why that was a bad thing either.too strong a candidate = too expensive?
We'll never know. They didn't say anything more than that.
BWAA-HAA!!! Too strong a candidate? You didn't eat garlic before the interview, did you? 😀
No, but it was in Florida in the summer, so I may have been sweating.... :sick:
- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
Property of The Thread
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon
March 3, 2011 at 1:58 pm
I don't know if companies still have to do this, but ten years ago when I owned my development shop, we had to fill out a form for each position we had open. We listed the position and required qualifications, who applied for it (including things like race, gender, and so on), why each applicant wasn't selected and why the "winning" candidate was chosen. It was a PITA, and I can't remember if it went to the state (probably) or the feds, but they seemed to take a dim view of "candidate not qualified" as an excuse for not hiring someone.
March 3, 2011 at 2:09 pm
ACinKC (3/3/2011)
I don't know if companies still have to do this, but ten years ago when I owned my development shop, we had to fill out a form for each position we had open. We listed the position and required qualifications, who applied for it (including things like race, gender, and so on), why each applicant wasn't selected and why the "winning" candidate was chosen. It was a PITA, and I can't remember if it went to the state (probably) or the feds, but they seemed to take a dim view of "candidate not qualified" as an excuse for not hiring someone.
All candidates are qualified, but some are more qualified than others.
Baaa...
March 3, 2011 at 2:21 pm
Michael Valentine Jones (3/3/2011)
ACinKC (3/3/2011)
I don't know if companies still have to do this, but ten years ago when I owned my development shop, we had to fill out a form for each position we had open. We listed the position and required qualifications, who applied for it (including things like race, gender, and so on), why each applicant wasn't selected and why the "winning" candidate was chosen. It was a PITA, and I can't remember if it went to the state (probably) or the feds, but they seemed to take a dim view of "candidate not qualified" as an excuse for not hiring someone.All candidates are qualified, but some are more qualified than others.
Baaa...
Ha! And that's basically how we were counselled to phrase the responses: "Person A was more qualified than Person B," not "Person B sucked because they were sweating all over my desk and looked like that guy from Galaxy Quest". :w00t:
March 3, 2011 at 2:30 pm
ACinKC (3/3/2011)
Michael Valentine Jones (3/3/2011)
ACinKC (3/3/2011)
I don't know if companies still have to do this, but ten years ago when I owned my development shop, we had to fill out a form for each position we had open. We listed the position and required qualifications, who applied for it (including things like race, gender, and so on), why each applicant wasn't selected and why the "winning" candidate was chosen. It was a PITA, and I can't remember if it went to the state (probably) or the feds, but they seemed to take a dim view of "candidate not qualified" as an excuse for not hiring someone.All candidates are qualified, but some are more qualified than others.
Baaa...
Ha! And that's basically how we were counselled to phrase the responses: "Person A was more qualified than Person B," not "Person B sucked because they were sweating all over my desk and went by the name 'GSquared'". :w00t:
What was the code you used to identify people that you would never want to hire?
"Person A was more qualified than my pet rock, but less qualified than my kitten, Frisky"
March 3, 2011 at 2:42 pm
Michael Valentine Jones (3/3/2011)
What was the code you used to identify people that you would never want to hire?"Person A was more qualified than my pet rock, but less qualified than my kitten, Frisky"
"This applicant doesn't appear to be a solid fit into the current team dynamics."
or
"I fear his skills may not be a good match for our current requirements."
Never stop learning, even if it hurts. Ego bruises are practically mandatory as you learn unless you've never risked enough to make a mistake.
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March 4, 2011 at 7:33 am
It was a PITA, and I can't remember if it went to the state (probably) or the feds, but they seemed to take a dim view of "candidate not qualified" as an excuse for not hiring someone.
Just to give the bureaucracy the benefit of the doubt here - If I was the person collecting this data I would take a dim view of that response also, because it isn't detailed enough (Of course, the other suggestions: "Not as qualified/not a good fit, etc. are also bad responses). In what ways is this person not qualified? Which qualifications do they fail to meet?
Regarding Affirmative Action, there are good programs and bad programs. Any quota system is a bad program. However, up into (at least) the 70s one of the easy ways to "keep the corporate culture" (e.g. discriminate) was to only advertise jobs white areas. So, if you were a large corporation and wanted to get rid of the culture of discrimination in your various facilities an easy way to do it was to require that your job advertising went to the entire workforce pool and that you instituted a metric based hiring process that was as blind as you could make it and still hire good people. That program still falls under the Affirmative Action rubric but it is a good program and, in fact, good company policy. (Expanding your pool of potential employees helps you to both hire better people and keep wages down.)
--
JimFive
March 4, 2011 at 8:06 am
James Goodwin (3/4/2011)
It was a PITA, and I can't remember if it went to the state (probably) or the feds, but they seemed to take a dim view of "candidate not qualified" as an excuse for not hiring someone.
Just to give the bureaucracy the benefit of the doubt here - If I was the person collecting this data I would take a dim view of that response also, because it isn't detailed enough (Of course, the other suggestions: "Not as qualified/not a good fit, etc. are also bad responses). In what ways is this person not qualified? Which qualifications do they fail to meet?...
This is the big problem. On paper, especiallially in hindsight, especially to some bureaucrat far removed from the situation, lots of people look just fine on paper. The actual process is far more nuanced than that. It might be the speed with which they answered a question, perhaps an eager smile when the job was described, or any one of countless other things.
Needing to justify one's actions to a nameless disconnected person who actually has little vested interest in how well the candidate works for your organization poisons the whole process.
...
-- FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers --
March 4, 2011 at 8:33 am
This has gotten off point a little. The original response that was being discussed in this thread was "Over qualified", not "Not Qualified". These are two totally different responses. 😀
"Technology is a weird thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ...:-D"
March 4, 2011 at 9:28 am
Jay,
In your response you are assuming that the bureaucrat's job is to punish you. In truth the bureaucrat (who is, after all, just another office worker like the rest of us) has a job that e.g. requires em(*) to collate those responses into policy recommendations related to the future education of the work force. Is the workforce deficient in basic skills? people skills? technological skills? etc. By making the answer generic and meaningless the employer makes it more difficult for the government to formulate good policies that will help the employer in the future.
--
JimFive
(*) Proposed 3rd person gender neutral pronoun E (subject), em (object), es(Possessive)
March 4, 2011 at 11:10 am
James Goodwin (3/4/2011)
Jay,In your response you are assuming that the bureaucrat's job is to punish you. In truth the bureaucrat (who is, after all, just another office worker like the rest of us) has a job that e.g. requires em(*) to collate those responses into policy recommendations related to the future education of the work force. Is the workforce deficient in basic skills? people skills? technological skills? etc. By making the answer generic and meaningless the employer makes it more difficult for the government to formulate good policies that will help the employer in the future.
--
JimFive
(*) Proposed 3rd person gender neutral pronoun E (subject), em (object), es(Possessive)
Which brings in the whole question of what idiot ever thought the government would be competent at predicting workforce needs more than about half an hour in advance?
If, four years ago, the government, or anyone else, had tried to predict what we need more people educated in, it would probably have been either home construction, or derivative market math on home loans. Those were driving the economy four years ago. So, education based on those would result in ... people with no connection to the post-bubble economy.
What's driving the economy now? Well, FUD seems to have a pretty high market value at this time. So I guess policies should be crafted to ... no ... wait ... that won't work.
Computer education! That's it! We need ... no ... that was tried in the 90s, and it really didn't get us anything there either.
Hmmm ...
How about government policies on education making it generic enough to get children trained on how to learn, so they are flexible enough to pick up whatever skillset is needed in a bubble-burst-bubble economy (as favored by the US Fed), or any other economy? Then you never need to worry about specific goals and recommendations beyond that! Great idea! Except it puts whole government beaurocracies out of business. Well ... okay, so that's actually a side-benefit, not an "except".
(As an aside, "em" is completely unnecessary. "Him", "his", "he", etc., are all already gender-neutral pronouns with a multi-century tradition of being used that way. What the language actually needs is male-specifying pronouns, since it hasn't got any at this time.)
(As a second aside, yes, I do step on toes periodically. This time, it's on purpose.)
- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
Property of The Thread
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon
March 4, 2011 at 11:29 am
James Goodwin (3/4/2011)
Jay,In your response you are assuming that the bureaucrat's job is to punish you. In truth the bureaucrat (who is, after all, just another office worker like the rest of us) has a job that e.g. requires em(*) to collate those responses into policy recommendations related to the future education of the work force. Is the workforce deficient in basic skills? people skills? technological skills? etc. By making the answer generic and meaningless the employer makes it more difficult for the government to formulate good policies that will help the employer in the future.
--
JimFive
(*) Proposed 3rd person gender neutral pronoun E (subject), em (object), es(Possessive)
Well GSquared made some good points, but I'll get into it too.
There is a big difference between collating information for background recommendations which is probably largely a waste of resources but not that harmful, and coercive mandates based on the data collected (which appears to be the original case where the interviewer was held accountable for the contents of his evaluation). Their goals may be noble, but they are not there on the ground, they have no direct stake in an optimum employee choice: the bureaucrat has accomplished his job when the hire looks (on paper) like a non-discriminatory fit and the bureaucrat (unlike the interviewer or other employees) has nothing to gain from the selection of someone who is actually a best fit.
The government (not just ours) has never demonstrated any omniscience in micromanaging the details of the market. This is no surprise. They are much farther from the action, are hobbled by legal structures which adapt at glacial speed, and they have not stake in the outcome.
...
-- FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers --
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