I actually have a slightly different opinion of what "hot" questions are good for: entertainment. When I'm bored, tired of doing actual work or waiting for something to finish running, they're almost always good for a quick - and ideally informative - diversion. This is what I've always used the ...
> Guess what: if your site is full of crappy questions, your site sucks - even if they're not highly-ranked by your own users, folks are finding them via Google, and that's where the vast majority of your readers are coming from. You can work to fix that - as painful as that process is - or you can bury your head in the sand and blame it on all of those stupid people from elsewhere.
> If you think "hot" questions are a serious problem for your site's quality, then you're already ignoring a much bigger problem. Blaming someone else is easy and fun for the whole family - but it doesn't fix anything.
Damn. That's some seriously misguided reasoning.
The problem isn't the questions, it's the horrible quality of the people that zerg rush the site as a result of the HNQ.
We are a small start-up and I'm one of the senior members. After a hard work day, I went to a bar, where I met an attractive young nonlocal man. We had a one-night stand.
We conducted job interviews the next day, and to my surprise, he was one of the candidates...
To clarify: In our candidate re...
I figured at least 4 answers would pour in in 5 minutes to attack the OP but people are actually refraining from answering and trying to figure out whether there's a real problem or what the OP's line of thinking is.
@Lilienthal I'm trying to figure out if it is a real question or a troll. I'm personally at a loss at how to answer it if it's real. If it is real the OP sounds like she's trying to find an excuse to hire a guy she slept with because she's having post coital regrets
I cannot answer that question and remain faithful to the "be nice" rule.
I did what I could to answer, I think I got it sort of right. However, with these kinds of gender-centric questions, you'll never please everyone and I'll inevitably get negative comments.
Well, I know plenty of people I work with really well who act totally differently in bars. All of them are professional enough to keep locker-room talk out of the workplace (and do a very good job).
And thanks for the comment, it's appreciated.
I see that the question is slanted toward "how do I disclose this guy's bad personality?", but I chose to side-step that and address the issue.
I agree that me using the "sabotage" word might be a little provocative....
The face of it seems so ridiculous that I can't be sure if we're not missing some important detail that makes this all make sense
Surely there's something more behind this then "We had a one night stand and I think only misogynists go for one night stands so thats immoral and we shouldn't hire him" since that sounds wildly antifactual. I concur with your comment on the Q, OP is probably omitting some details here.
@Magisch I resisted numerous temptations with that one. I will be good. I will be good. I will be good. I will be good. I will be good. I will be good. I will be good. I will be good. I will be good.
@RichardU I'm not even mad, I don't think OP is acting in bad faith there, I just think she omitted some details and the omission of those makes it sound too fat fetched
@Pᴇᴛᴇ Easiest way to do that is to go "Hey boss, I've had a one night stand with the guy and didn't like it, please pick someone else, it may affect my performance"
It's very difficult to distinguish between "He did X therefore he must be Y" and "We spent a lot of time together in an intimate setting, and the subconscious impression I got from his character and actions is, concerning".
The question is written like the former, but in reality, character judgments tend to be based on the latter, and only rationalised to the former after the fact.
@RichardU I got three DVs and had the pleasure of "the drinking one" picking my answer apart in terms of brining Saudi and Iran into the question for some reason. That situation would NEVER easily happen in those places.
@Magisch I really did not get the impression from the question that she was judging him simply for having a one night stand. I took it to mean that from the conversations they had throughout the night she thought he was kind of a jerk.
Even if you think the person is a jerk, is that really a reason to reject them? There's plenty of people in my office that I wouldn't get along with on a personal level, but they're just colleagues and that's fine.
The chances are that this guy (if he's a real guy) will simply pull out (sorry, bad pun) of the hiring process altogether and avoid any future uncomfortableness.
Yep, I've worked happily with a guy in the past who I might well punch in the face when he's had a few drinks.
@DavidK RE your answer - alcohol isn't the only thing to consider here, it's testosterone on top. Those two things together can have the effect of inflating a macho attitude more than is normal.
@RichardU I don't think it's unreasonable. The human brain has evolved to make incredibly quick, pretty accurate character judgements of other human beings based on incredibly limited information. When it comes to things like character, I'd be inclined to say that human intuition is probably a lot more accurate in most cases than any objective criteria.
The human brain has also evolved to let us present ourselves the way we want to be perceived based on the situation. To counter exactly the previous ability.
Favourite piece of research on that subject: Show somebody a picture of a face, and their mind has already decided how trustworthy that face is in less than one tenth of a second.
@Kaz that whole "first impressions" thing doesn't really work in this context. There was a "first impression" in the bar the night before and a "first impression" in the interview. Which "first impression" is the more accurate?
I wouldn't want to presume that your first meeting with a person, in a bar, after a few drinks, gives you a fair view of how that person will act in a professional environment. And that's generally the only thing that matters.
@Pᴇᴛᴇ There's a first impression in a bar, and then another 12 hours of intimate proximity in which to establish further impressions.
Totally agree that there are aspects of behaviour that might be completely different in different environments, but there are also some that might not be.
@Pᴇᴛᴇ I'm not discounting that. Just saying that there are judgements that might apply regardless. And it's much harder to fake character traits for 12 hours in an intimate setting than it is for a brief, structured interview.
Where those character traits are outside of the workplace, fuelled by alcohol, hormones, fatigue, and a temporary devil-may-care attitude. The two situations are just completely different to each other.
As such, insight gleaned from those 12 hours should at least be taken seriously. Not dismissed as "you can't reasonably form an accurate impression of someone after just one night".
@Pᴇᴛᴇ And I'm not disagreeing. These are all things that should be considered. But it's not a reason to dismiss any judgments as useless and without predictive value.
And you're ignoring the fact that people can (and frequently do) act completely different outside the workplace without affecting their ability and interpersonal relationships within the workplace.
@Pᴇᴛᴇ And you (at least to me), seem to be arguing the opposite extreme, that because some people might act completely differently, you can't make any kind of useful inference about them in other situations.
Interviews are unfair on all sides. People are supposed to make fundamental judgements about a persons's character and competence on the basis of a few brief, highly structured and prepared conversations. I'd say adding more observations from different contexts would, in general, add more signal than noise to the decision process.
@Kaz I get your point, but I'm trying to make the point that the more correct "first impression" would be the one that's in-context (i.e. in the workplace). Anything else is a personal issue between the two parties involved. I don't think an alcohol/hormone fuelled interaction has the required level of "truth" behind it outside of the workplace.
@Pᴇᴛᴇ Personally, I think it depends. There are some character traits that probably aren't important. And several more that are so variable between contexts that you can't make accurate judgements about them between contexts. And then there are some which are fundamental and important where having observed someone in a situation where they don't know that they have to keep their guard up would be invaluable.
People's "bad vibes" can be completely unfounded and prejudiced, and other times they can be your brain sensing that something is off even when the person appears to be absolutely great.
Yeah, I can imagine. I think it's bad enough that some companies want to go over your social media accounts to see what you post, let alone going to judge you on the stuff you do off the clock.
@Magisch It's always subjective. I'm just suggesting that in an ideal world, you'd want to have a complete picture of the person you're hiring. In the real world, you only get a very brief, highly obfuscated view, so anything that provides observations from different angles is worth considering.
In the ideal world, you don't need the complete picture; only the stuff that matters for their professional role. In an ideal world, nobody cares what you do as long as it doesn't harm your ability to your job to the best of your abilities.
@Magisch Sure. And there are all sorts of traits which you would want to know about, which you might observe in other contexts. I agree that hobbies, interests, and all sorts of behaviors are pretty irrelevant when hiring. But what about judgements like somebody's fundamental honesty, or trustworthiness, or temper, or prejudices or any one of a million other things?
To try and bring this back to a more centrist tone: The point I'm trying to make here is that if you got a bad impression from somebody in a context when they weren't trying to hide certain aspects of their character, that might be useful information when deciding whether to trust them as a potential employee.
@Magisch Depends on what you observed. Which we don't know and is unclear form the question. So preemptively dismissing it as not useful is, IMO, not justified.
Whether someone is trustworthy or prejudiced is usually something interviews try to figure out anyway. But a single interaction in a different context isn't likely to give you very good information there, either.
@Kaz if you came to a show and observed my comedy routine and observed me cursing, acting WAAAAAAAAAY over the top, and generally being a goof, then saw me on a job interview, would you think I was unqualified?
@Kaz I'm with you on this Kaz. Say, for example, the OP was on a date initially and saw the guy treating waiting staff badly, or being rude to people for whatever reason, I'd definitely see that as a reason not to hire into my team as they would not be welcome.
@RichardU When you're performing stand-up comedy? Probably not. It's explicitly a performance, all it really tells me is how funny you are and gives some insight into your presentation skills.
@RoryAlsop unfortunately, the OP didn't give details. If I observed someone abusing wait staff or a cashier, I would definitely not want them on my team.
I think it really shouldn't have all those people weigh in with the "you regret seleeping with him" etc quotes until that info is there in the post. Assume good intent
Personal views that are deeply troubling are already murky waters. I probably hold quite a few views that quite a few people find deeply troubling, but that doesn't impact my work in any way.
@RichardU And this is basically my point. The OP may have seen stuff that is worth bringing up which informed their negative impression. So saying "they can't possibly have formed an accurate impression" is, IMO, wrong.
@RichardU Is it "out of line" to question the mods now? That doesn't strike me as very constructive. Please leave this discussion to me and the mods then.
I never worked in retail but damn everytime I see someone flaunting their wealth and client -> server privilege into someone's face and being rude with it a strong urge to punch rises in me
@Kaz Oh I don't disagree entirely. I don't think there is enough info in there. She wasn't specific. Soooo, is he really a jerk, or does she have regrets. We don't know from the info.
@RichardU I agree. This discussion went off on a lot of tangents, but the point I'm trying to make is that we don't know, so statements of the form "her opinion is justified" and "her opinion can't possibly be justified" are all equally wrong.
@RoryAlsop It exposes a complete dishonesty in character. If someone is only nice to people that are in the same socio-economic class then them, then it shows they're really not nice people. Instead they just manage to barely control their ugly character in front of others so it's not too apparent
How nice you are really can only be determined by how you treat people that you have no reason to treat nicely. It's nice to hear that everyone here agrees that you should treat service staff nicely :)
@Erik, I can't tell you how many times I've seen a wave of relief wash across the face of a cashier when something went wrong and I said "No worries, I used to work in retail, I know how it is".
By the same token, if someone is OBVIOUSLY not doing their job, I'm an unholy terror.
I've never really paid attention to it. But I heard some stories from my girlfriend about how terrible everything was, from the customers to the management and it makes me glad I missed out on that.
@RichardU That was the right close reason, I think. I couldn't see anyone really answering the answer as the OP wanted it - "how to sabotage someone's career because I had a one-night-stand with him".
I had recently been accepted a job and have already been working there for one month plus. However, today, as i was collecting my first paycheck, the HR manager approached me and told me that they had cross-referenced my employment dates with them. Apparently, i had lied in my resume, stating i w...
@DoritoStyle In doing so, instead of looking like someone who started a job they then hated and quickly quitted, you're dealing now with a liar and falsifier of documents
@DoritoStyle It's one of the reasons in interview(and on my CV) I tell folks that while I am an experienced professional in my field, I also have a heavy rock band with flamethrowers. It helps get it out of the way early.
@Kaz I just don't trust hiring managers to be impartial enough in that regard, they will always overcorrect in their hiring requirements and that's a slippery slope IMO.
@Magisch Someone I wouldn't let anywhere near a job. Period. Deliberately lying on your resume is fundamentally dishonest, deceptive, and just pretty stupid.
If you're going to lie, at least don't get caught.
I wonder how common lying is at entry level (I doubt I'll find any science to answer that wonder though). The job market fluctuates as a whole, but entry level remains miserable. Can't get experience because every job requires experience, etc.
@DoritoStyle This is why I work hard encouraging companies to run apprenticeships, internships or at least graduate placements, and my role as Research Director with ISACA has one of its aims to get universities involved with industry earlier on, and in a more formalised way to give undergrads experience
@DoritoStyle IMO, in those cases, you've just got to go out and hustle your way into whatever is going. And/or relocate to where the jobs are. In my case, I think I went out into town and handed in my CV everywhere I possibly could. Gave out about 100. Got 1 response from a pub chain. Came in, worked a 2-hour trial shift, started the next day, gritted my teeth for 5 months and then went somewhere else.
I've been pushing for it in my company as well. They've only just recently posted an opening for a traineeships, but now they have to look for people who are willing to teach.
:35735300Do you think it's a worthwhile concept to integrate that into lower education? We seem to be on the declining end of the current academic heavy college pred education trend :/
Yeah. If I weren't already in charge of way too much (and didn't work remote 3 days a week), I'd have gladly done it because I believe in how valuable it is.
@Magisch companis that get it don't do that. For example, we maybe have 20 interns a year in my office. At the end of their tenure, we try and hire the best ones
Anecdotal question: Would any of you hiring managers consider hiring someone with a solid blue-collar resume (maybe even with good references) over a recent college grad?
@DoritoStyle maybe? depends on what position, but generally speaking I'd rather work with a motivated and good communicator with weak or no technical skills than a highly technical person who is lazy and can't communicate at all
@DoritoStyle not sure what a blue-collar resume is, but I have hired everyone from interns, biomedical degrees, no degree but loads of experience, sport qualifications, you name it
University degree to me just means you can learn
So I can teach you what my company/team needs you to know
for experienced hires I don't care about a degree - the experience is more important
@DoritoStyle I can appreciate the rationale. Generally speaking, avoiding bad employees has far greater ROI than hiring slightly better ones. Hiring college grads does at least set some minimum bars on intelligence, work ethic, and/or ability to fudge your way through things.
Even when there isn't more supply than demand, companies still try to do it. I work for a small company outside the main IT-hub of the country, and they still only want senior developers with years of experience for years. It's only our newly hired recruiter that finally convinced them that we couldn't fill positions because we're too picky.
That being said, if I were ever recruiting, I'd try hard to avoid it. It's refreshing to see more companies explicitly remove colleges, degrees etc. from CVs before considering candidates.
@Magisch Yep, and even if you get the internship, you still need another job to pay the bills. Now that's not inherently a bad thing, but when are you gonna finish school in all that? Or have a life?
I think some of the "big four" go as far as to remove all personal information (name, age, degrees, etc.) from their CV system before giving them to hiring managers these days.
@Kaz I originally assumed that, but my experience differed so I thought you must be talking about another big-4. I hired many folks into roles when I was at EY and PwC and that was never done
@Magisch The great thing about software is that it's relatively easy to determine somebody's technical aptitude as part of the hiring process. It's far easier to get a software job with "Just personal experience" than it is in most other lines of work.
The nice part about software at least is that you can make your own experience to some extent. If you show people you can code properly, they'll be likely to at least invite you for a talk.
@enderland I see your point. I managed to get around these concerns, but only because of heavy privilege (and slight street smarts enough to recognize opportunity) on my part.
@ChristopherEstep They realised the numbers just didn't add up rejecting folks without degrees. I mean look how many successful leaders dropped out before graduating!
I've gotten in the back door as a consultant, let them see my work, and after I save them a few million dollars, the degree seems less important to them for some reason
@ChristopherEstep Some of my team in EY had degrees as varied as 'liberal arts' - the value that degree brought was proof 'they can learn' and that's about it
the personalities, intelligence and drive the individuals brough - now that was valuable
@ChristopherEstep I actually yelled at a recruiter for turning me down despite having 20 years of experience at the time by telling them that it was a stupid requirement and that they couldn't hire Bill Gates or Steve Jobs with that nonsense.
@RichardU because that is all it means. In my field it's helpful if someone has an IT based degree, as they have a head start, but it doesn't really matter, as I have an entire training plan for people from entry to retirement
It's also the case that most requirements can be side-stepped if you can make contact with a hiring manager without going through the "submit your CV" process.
IT has always amazed me. Who has demonstrated more passion and desire for learning than a self-taught hacker who has been doing it for years before college
Referrals, networking, sending actual goddamned letters. Here in the UK, if you send post Special Delivery to a named person, it will sometimes even bypass their secretary.
For some of my industry boards I do the rounds of universities to try and get folks involved on the committees. Very low time investment, but invaluable for networking, gaining experience of a committee, etc
I don't go direct anymore. I always use recruiters. They're pretty good at getting around some of that crap with "I got a guy you really need to talk to. You know me and i know you'll like this guy."
@Kaz We haven't had "Special Delivery" since the 70's here. I can't think of a way to get something directly to a person except "personal and confidential" which would work but would piss them off it's it's not really.
@Kaz unfortunately it would then have to go back in the pile with big organisations, but it may get noticed. Whether or not that is a good notice... unsure
Wow - didn't realise the NHS is the 5th biggest employer in the world with over 3 million employees
sorry @ChristopherEstep - was trying to find out who the 10th was :-)
The worst part about networking is that lots of people suck at it and often those people are amazingly skilled because they spend all day on their own doing code and they don't know anybody. Other than that, networking is great :P
kalzumeus makes a compelling point that the most lucrative skills are negotiation, and networking puts you in front of the right people to negotiate with.
Guess what is not taught in any school though (^^)
@ChristopherEstep I hate it too, skills aren't always enough to pay the bills -_- especially at entry level.
But it also sucks both ways. Negotiation and networking are valuable skills, but a lot of super useful people are being missed by companies because they can't reach those people either.
Yep. It's because of employer scarcity once again. It's a better return on investment to sift thru people lining up at your door than to seek out the best candidate or invest in educating the population.
You hear a lot about how people need to learn to network to get a job, but I don't think I've ever heard the advice for companies to try and find the guys who are hard to find.
@DoritoStyle but there's no employer scarcity where I live and it's still not being done very much. I think in some countries there is a lot to gain from working on that as a company.
idk, some of the people we interview are completely unqualified and yet I'm pretty sure most of the CS/Computer Engineering grads from the local university are getting jobs >.>
@Kaz I actually applied for my current company three times in total :) haha
@enderland That's probably true in technology fields, but my understanding is that college graduates as a whole are a lot less likely to get jobs in their field of study today than they used to be even a decade or 2 ago.
From the interviews I've sat in on, the interns I've supported and the other coders I've talked with, I usually get the feeling that both education and work experience have very little to do with qualification.
I think the important thing to consider is that if you get 100 people applying for a senior dev position, many of them are not qualified, because most senior devs are working and not looking for work
I am curious about the division within programmers. Every wants "qualified seniors", but is that the top 33% of developers (fair divide between junior/medior/senior) or does "qualified senior" mean someone in the top 5% of workers?
so if you get 100 applicants, even if 5 are great it doesn't mean only 5/100 senior devs are great, just 5/100 of people who are actively looking for jobs
@Erik when my mother was my age she worked multiple jobs while going to night school. there are... very few people in the < 30 age group who even remotely are interested in something like that
@RichardU There are probably 100 other factors to consider in that equation. We certainly can't make a general assumption based on your few data points.
The Water Cooler
The Water Cooler