In my recent posts, I took a job candidate (Mr. Flop) to task for his inability to answer some basic questions (e.g. his past designs; how transistors work), even though his résumé clearly implied this should be common knowledge to him. While Mr. Flop may not be the worst candidate I've ever interviewed, in terms of a performance-to-expectations ratio, he probably ranks as the lowest ever for me.Yes, I may be a little uncharitable here, both in the paragraph above and in my previous posts on this issue. Some may even call me smug, or that I'm full of myself. And those "some" may be correct. As John Lennon's song goes, Instant Karma's gonna get you.
Days after this horrendous interview, our team received an e-mail from the No. 3 in command at FluxCorp. Number three! He e-mailed us to say that he is aware that we had recently interviewed Mr. Flop. Futhermore, he highly and personally recommends Mr. Flop as an analog IC designer. I'm not sure how No. 3 can even make such a recommendation since he's not an IC designer himself. And I wondered how in the world did No. 3 even hear about this interview down in the trenches. Needless to say, this had become a delicate situation, especially with regards to our own livelihoods.
It's obvious there's some sort of close connection between No. 3 and Mr. Flop. A nephew? An illegitimate son? A May-September love affair? Who knows?! Let's just say my esteemed colleague, Mr. Halal, handled the situation with great care to everyone's satisfaction.
What would you do? Would you choose self-preservation? Sticking to your principles? Or think happy thoughts until the problem goes away?
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4 comments:
Scary. We just hire those people. Maybe not in the group they wanted, but in some usually high paying but low technical job elsewhere. Maybe the two of them are alumni of the same fraternity? Maybe Mr. Flop's Dad is important or #3's fishing buddy?
We stuck to our principles; we didn't hire Mr. Flop. Mr. Halal had to finesse how it was communicated to No. 3 while I had to finesse a similar message to Mr. Flop. Did we save ourselves in spite of ourselves? It's too early to tell. As for Mr. Flop, I'm sure he'll do just fine with his connections in high places.
I sometimes worry about how people view the fact that my husband and I work together. I know there are some people who are under the distinct impression that I'm just doing whatever the husband tells me to do, but other people (and I think/hope this includes my supervisor) seem to know that there's a good deal of independent thought on my part. And I don't think a lot of people realize that I originally started working there because my advisor asked me to work on a project with the center...and it had nothing to do with my husband.
Nepotism can be a very uncomfortable thing for a lot of people, including the nepotists.
Still, if I wasn't good at what I was doing, I certainly wouldn't want someone to stick their neck out for me for the sake of connections or whatever. I wonder if Mr. Flop knows and what he thinks of the situation.
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