Interviews & techniques

[Keith Houchen]

Best story from an interview I did was we asked a candidate to give an example of learning from a mistake. He told the story of how when he was 13, he was behind the counter in his dads bookies in rural Ireland. His dad nipped out and told him not to take any bets from a local alky if he should come in. 
 

Anyway, the alky came in and wanted to do a stupid long odds bet on a horse race that was about to start. The lad thought he’d impress his dad by making an easy tenner and take the bet. As you can guess, the bet came in. The dad arrived back and wouldn’t pay out as the bloke was barred. I may be paraphrasing here but “Anyway, yer man came back with a sledgehammer and wrecked the placed, put the windows through, smashed the tellys, everything. I learned from my mistake and didn’t take his bets when he came out of prison”

I lobbied for him to get the job but was overruled. Thought he’d be ideal for a high street bank but no, the woke brigade wouldn’t have it. 

[Frankie Crisp]

Top recruitment tip!

If you’re ever in the position where you’re in an interview with a company manager and an insanely beautiful employee, and then the company manager has to leave the room for a few minutes so it’s just you and the insanely beautiful employee, and then the insanely beautiful employee tries to fill the second most uncomfortable silence of your life by asking if you have any plans for the weekend and you say no, and then you ask the insanely beautiful employee if she has plans for the weekend and then she also says no…

… don’t accidentally ask the insanely beautiful employee out and then sit there in silence for about six to eight minutes.

Also, a firm handshake.

Edited November 19, 2023 by Frankie Crisp

[Rossman]

23 hours ago, Fog Dude said:

How are the long-term unemployed ever meant to get back in the game – or into work for the first time later in life – if that very fact is a leading reason for the people doing the hiring to be utterly dismissive? 

You never know, those 'quirks' that supposedly made them unsuitable might have been them actually developing a personality while free from the rat race for a while. 

Unemployment shouldn't mean a complete loss of dignity and equally, having a job shouldn't mean you need to leave your humanity behind completely for 8 hours a day in the name of being 'professional'. 

Interviews are load of bollocks anyway. They cost companies time and money, clearly discriminate in favour of neurotypicals (as shown by your attitude towards a non-verbal candidate), are not fun for recruiters and even less so for interviewees. CVs ought to speak for themselves. If anyone lies on theirs they'll soon get found out, and it's technically illegal to do that so perhaps that law should actually be enforced more often.

To put it into context, the candidate was not long term unemployed or later in life. He was 19, fresh out of college. But my point was, he never had a job, his whole life. No paper round, no Saturday job. No summer job in the holidays from college. I would expect someone has a basic knowledge of how work life is, before coming to their first full time job.

And that's not solely his fault. If he never had anyone pushing him to find a job or learning to drive, he's not going to understand. Whomever dropped him off for the interview, should have had a word in his ear to take the headphones off.

Apart from his qualification was in robotics, which is nothing to do with what we specialise in. He couldn't drive and we work in a rural area. So would have been difficult to get to us on a daily basis.

The now departed HR manager took that initial zoom interview on her own. After I had originally said his CV was not suitable. She then let him through to interview stage because he was more normal than the previous candidate. When it got to pre-interview the MD looked at the CV and said why are interviewing him, he clearly isn't suitable.

He also showed us a product he had been developing. In his right pocket was a Samsung mobile phone and then on a chunky 2m cable it was attached to a power bank, in his left pocket. He gleefully told us, his phone's battery now lasts for a week! He told us, if he replaced the battery in his phone, it still wouldn't last very long. (bollocks) So he took the battery out completely and put this industrial looking connector on it. He didn't see the downside that if he unplugged the connector from the phone, it immediately shut down. So he just made himself an unmobile phone.

 

We have in the past employed an older gentleman (mid 50s) who had been unemployed for a little while. His quirks included.

- Falling asleep after lunch multiple times a week

- Collapsed on the toilet, so now we have special locks fitted.

- Told the workshop, he had been bleeding from his anus. And it was normal for a man of his age to do that.

- Told us, he helped invent the Microsoft mouse.

- Lived with his cousin in a lodge on a golf course. He brought her to the works summer BBQ. She brought along her book of erotic poetry she had written and told everyone, her cousin has a nice bum 

- Put on his CV that he was certified to do fine levels of soldering. He couldn't even solder two wires together. Then would blame the cable was faulty.

[SuperBacon]

8 minutes ago, Rossman said:

He also showed us a product he had been developing. In his right pocket was a Samsung mobile phone and then on a chunky 2m cable it was attached to a power bank, in his left pocket. He gleefully told us, his phone's battery now lasts for a week! He told us, if he replaced the battery in his phone, it still wouldn't last very long. (bollocks) So he took the battery out completely and put this industrial looking connector on it. He didn't see the downside that if he unplugged the connector from the phone, it immediately shut down. So he just made himself an unmobile phone.

The man is preparing for a post apocalyptic world. I'd have made him CEO on the spot.

[Keith Houchen]

Learning to drive costs a load of money, how are you meant to learn if you can’t afford it? It’s a right catch 22 for a lot of people. You have the skills needed but can’t get to the job? Tough shit! 

[westlondonmist]

59 minutes ago, Rossman said:

To put it into context, the candidate was not long term unemployed or later in life. He was 19, fresh out of college. But my point was, he never had a job, his whole life. No paper round, no Saturday job. No summer job in the holidays from college. I would expect someone has a basic knowledge of how work life is, before coming to their first full time job.

And that's not solely his fault. If he never had anyone pushing him to find a job or learning to drive, he's not going to understand. Whomever dropped him off for the interview, should have had a word in his ear to take the headphones off.

Apart from his qualification was in robotics, which is nothing to do with what we specialise in. He couldn't drive and we work in a rural area. So would have been difficult to get to us on a daily basis.

The now departed HR manager took that initial zoom interview on her own. After I had originally said his CV was not suitable. She then let him through to interview stage because he was more normal than the previous candidate. When it got to pre-interview the MD looked at the CV and said why are interviewing him, he clearly isn't suitable.

He also showed us a product he had been developing. In his right pocket was a Samsung mobile phone and then on a chunky 2m cable it was attached to a power bank, in his left pocket. He gleefully told us, his phone's battery now lasts for a week! He told us, if he replaced the battery in his phone, it still wouldn't last very long. (bollocks) So he took the battery out completely and put this industrial looking connector on it. He didn't see the downside that if he unplugged the connector from the phone, it immediately shut down. So he just made himself an unmobile phone.

 

We have in the past employed an older gentleman (mid 50s) who had been unemployed for a little while. His quirks included.

- Falling asleep after lunch multiple times a week

- Collapsed on the toilet, so now we have special locks fitted.

- Told the workshop, he had been bleeding from his anus. And it was normal for a man of his age to do that.

- Told us, he helped invent the Microsoft mouse.

- Lived with his cousin in a lodge on a golf course. He brought her to the works summer BBQ. She brought along her book of erotic poetry she had written and told everyone, her cousin has a nice bum 

- Put on his CV that he was certified to do fine levels of soldering. He couldn't even solder two wires together. Then would blame the cable was faulty.

I get why you didn't hire the young guy but the part about the phone I think you may be are being harsh. His invention sounds a bit shit but he at least showed some excitement and wanted to do something. 

My partner has issues with HR, the head of HR doesn't allow her to see CVs (my partner is senior to the head of HR) as she believes that it could bring age discrimination by basing whether you interview someone on their experience as a 21 year old can't have the experience a 30 year old can. God forbid you should want someone with experience. So my partner has to spend 30 minutes each interview asking about jobs because the CV is blank. She's started using agencies for anything she's interviewing to bypass HRs policy.

I can't tell if the old guy was interesting or a pain in the arse (yours, obviously he already had one).

[Fog Dude]

8 hours ago, Rossman said:

To put it into context, the candidate was not long term unemployed or later in life. He was 19, fresh out of college. But my point was, he never had a job, his whole life. No paper round, no Saturday job. No summer job in the holidays from college. I would expect someone has a basic knowledge of how work life is, before coming to their first full time job.

And that's not solely his fault. If he never had anyone pushing him to find a job or learning to drive, he's not going to understand. Whomever dropped him off for the interview, should have had a word in his ear to take the headphones off.

Apart from his qualification was in robotics, which is nothing to do with what we specialise in. He couldn't drive and we work in a rural area. So would have been difficult to get to us on a daily basis.

The now departed HR manager took that initial zoom interview on her own. After I had originally said his CV was not suitable. She then let him through to interview stage because he was more normal than the previous candidate. When it got to pre-interview the MD looked at the CV and said why are interviewing him, he clearly isn't suitable.

He also showed us a product he had been developing. In his right pocket was a Samsung mobile phone and then on a chunky 2m cable it was attached to a power bank, in his left pocket. He gleefully told us, his phone's battery now lasts for a week! He told us, if he replaced the battery in his phone, it still wouldn't last very long. (bollocks) So he took the battery out completely and put this industrial looking connector on it. He didn't see the downside that if he unplugged the connector from the phone, it immediately shut down. So he just made himself an unmobile phone.

 

We have in the past employed an older gentleman (mid 50s) who had been unemployed for a little while. His quirks included.

- Falling asleep after lunch multiple times a week

- Collapsed on the toilet, so now we have special locks fitted.

- Told the workshop, he had been bleeding from his anus. And it was normal for a man of his age to do that.

- Told us, he helped invent the Microsoft mouse.

- Lived with his cousin in a lodge on a golf course. He brought her to the works summer BBQ. She brought along her book of erotic poetry she had written and told everyone, her cousin has a nice bum 

- Put on his CV that he was certified to do fine levels of soldering. He couldn't even solder two wires together. Then would blame the cable was faulty.

Thanks for elaborating on those very particular cases that clearly irked you. Heaven forfend somebody might be raised with love and support instead of being told they're just another economic unit as soon as they hit their teens.

Barriers to driving aren't just about money, it's not intuitive for many, and a lot of people simply aren't petrol heads so won't be motivated to learn for that reason either. Could also be that where they live the instructors are rubbish, or the roads are far from ideal for learners.

The only complaints there which sound valid as a reason to reject or dismiss someone are the lack of a relevant qualification, and the last one about soldering because as I said, there should definitely be negative consequences when people flat-out lie on their CV. 

Everything else is either unrelated to their ability to do the job (who cares if they're enthusiastic about a crap 'invention', or who they bring to the summer barbecue?) or, depending on whether the positions were customer-facing or not, should fall under reasonable adjustments for narcolepsy/whatever the first guy has. If there's a dichotomy between the employer's idea of "reasonable" and the candidate's, I'd tend to side with the latter until such time as it endangers - not just inconveniences - the public. 

Or maybe we could introduce UBI and let robots/AI perform most roles, then you'd never meet such people in a professional capacity and wouldn't have to be bothered by them... but that's probably a wider topic for another thread.

[Lorne Malvo]

I'm not sure what's worse. Looking down on a 19 year old because they don't drive and haven't worked before (they're 19, for fucks sake!) or looking down on a candidate because they were nervous and said they were going to the doctors to pick up their medication (???)