Most inadequate candidate in my career

There were candidates who, after the first working day, to celebrate, went into a binge ... But yesterday the guys conducted an initial screening and came across one of the most difficult candidates in recent years. Today he issued an opus with the aim of denigrating the company and the interviewers and translated the discussion into the public plane, and this already requires a reaction from the company. In addition, all the lies he said, and the person himself is inadequate. What happened and how to act in such situations? Answers to this question and tips for interviewers and candidates in this post!

Initial screening is a Skype call for 30 minutes maximum. The goal is to find out the adequacy of a person and form a primary idea of ​​a person's way of thinking and his approach to solving problems. This is a kind of smart talk in order to get to know each other and understand whether both parties want to move to the next stage and undergo a full interview.



The candidate liked the first 15 minutes. Apparently, these 15 minutes brought true bliss: these are those 15 minutes during which the participants from the hiring side are silent, and the candidate fluffs up his feathers, opens sails and, shining with a polished stern, talks about his military exploits. The first marker and the red line - the person declares that everyone offends him, does not allow to introduce new approaches, lambdas on aws, docker and all that.



But, unfortunately, everything beautiful does not last long, and after 15 minutes I had to interrupt it and start asking clarifying questions: what does an enterprise mean and how does it manage complexity. Then Ostap suffered. Talking about his battles with the bloody enterprise, the interviewer went to DDD, CQRS, event sourcing and, having decided to hammer a nail in the interviewer, asked: does the project use these approaches? The candidate was not interested in the answer, but when he heard a positive answer, he immediately put the stigma of degenerates and idiots on us, because DDD, CQRS and event sourcing are dead, and everyone who uses them is idiots. It would seem, why climb into someone else's monastery, and even with value judgments that give rise to doubt the professionalism of a person?









Further more. The candidate begins to attack the interviewer with the requirement to show where we use DDD, CQRS, event sourcing and patterns on the project and prove to him that they are needed there.



At some point, his interest faded away and he announced that he did not see the point of communicating with us further. Well, he doesn't see, ok. They said that in this case we can stop the interview. As it turned out, the person expected that he would be persuaded to stay and he generally called our actions intimidation from the team lead. Marker 2.



Dispersed. Is it over? No! A stream of sewage poured into the personal of the tech lead and the recruiter.





And also the first review and the second review , after the blackmail did not pass.

What are the conclusions and markers?

A man throws mud at his previous jobs.



Remember, if at the interview a person dumps negative at previous jobs, then this is at least a marker of unprofessionalism. He has no respect for himself, or in this way he tries to amuse his POS and exalt himself at the expense of other people. I always have a question for such people: why did they suffer for so long and stay in the company they hated? Take this and he will start to sand your company, even working in it. He will always find the negative and will exaggerate and escalate it, will set others up against the company and conduct subversive partisan activities in the team. It is unlikely that he will be able to express this in the face of his current employer.



The desire to prove to everyone and everything.



Many young professionals have a desire to cheer about code style, about patterns, about agreements on a project. Some of their arguments can be helpful and people will learn from them. Over time, they will understand the meaninglessness of these disputes and, having crystallized in senior, will talk about other things. It's worth communicating with beginners! But when a senior (or whoever considers himself so) begins to categorically prove his case, without even trying to go into the details and find out why this approach was chosen, then run away from him. It is always a dead end road. There is just a type of people who will always find something to dig deeper into. It doesn't matter what the opponent says. This type can say today that white is black, and tomorrow that black is white. The main message is for the opponent to choose either side. It's enough.Still such disputes and the desire to find fault with everything in a row is a waste of the company's money, because instead of work, he will be busy with Internet battles.









So, sir. Now for the main question.

How to get out of this situation?

According to the psychotype we have defined, a person looks like a neurotic-show-off.



In personal correspondence, he longs to be answered and continued to prove or argue something to him. Such behavior should not be allowed! But being silent and ignoring is not the best strategy. The best defense in this case is offense. But not in the sense of watering the candidate in return, no. It is worth asking the same question over and over again. “We understand that your opinion is different from that of interviewers and at odds with the company's strategy. We will take into account your comments. We are sorry that you have made the decision not to work with us. Thank you for your time".



No questions, clarifications or discussions. Continues to write again - repeat these words again, you can modify the phrases. Sooner or later, a person will understand that there is no point in this and will stop.



a little more complicated. Let me remind you that I have already written an opus on A4 page on a public resource. At the same time, he has written similar opuses for a number of companies lately. This is the system. It is important to show other candidates who will read reviews about the company that the company hears criticism, reacts to it (yes, I even wrote a post about it) and show its adequacy. Demonstrating its adequacy, the opposite will be provoked by the opponent. Therefore, in the public space, someone from the TOP of the company should answer, not HR. In no case should you insult a candidate, but you don't want to show a weak position either. The best way out for this type is to turn his attention to other commentators and to the crowd. If a person wants to prove that our approaches are wrong and declares that he is a super-professional and understands the topic,then we can invite him to share his thoughts on public platforms and use his useful knowledge for the benefit of society. At the same time, it is worth thanking for the time spent and declaring that the TOP heard his proposal. But don't get involved in a fight! Since a negative was poured on the team leader and he was publicly humiliated, it is also necessary to defend your team. Using the narrative “You’re wrong about the tech lead” will trigger the next wave. Choosing words! “It's a pity that you had such an impression about the interviewer in a few minutes of communication: he is a professional with extensive experience and a very valuable specialist.”. In the response, you can once again weave a reference that the conversation was for the first time and lasted less than 30 minutes. For other readers, this will give an idea that the conversation was short and judge the professional qualities of the other person,especially the interviewer - it is unreasonable and shortsighted. The glasses will go to the company's piggy bank. They also did not give grounds for controversy, but if the candidate decides to prove that the tech lead is not a professional, he will play against himself, because he will show unprofessionalism with his own arguments.

Tips for applicants based on this case

Dear Applicants. Any experience in your past companies is your experience. What matters is what conclusions you draw from this and what you have learned. There are troubled companies, there is a bad attitude, but you should not spit poison and throw mud at them . You yourself made a choice when you got a job with them, because the interviewing party can conclude that a mistake was made in the choice of a place of work and a further communication strategy, and such mistakes may arise in a new place. Errors can also occur in the execution of tasks, if short-sightedness was shown and the risks were not taken into account.



Coming to a new place, you should first understand the rules of the game, and then think about how to change them... You shouldn't come to the project with the words: “we need to rewrite everything”. This is an indicator of the specialist's immaturity. Seasoned wolves have already eaten it all and know how it ends. You can change the system gradually, step by step, and not hack off the shoulder. It is necessary to think about the options for retreat and analyze the risks, and all this is often not realized even in a few months.



Don't say A is better than B unconditionally... Each solution has its own pros and cons. When the decision was made, the balance could have tipped at that moment in favor of A or B. For example, choosing from two frameworks now and at the moment they just appeared, could you analyze all the risks? Has the architecture of the framework itself changed? And who developed it then and now? What was the size of the community and license? To speak unconditionally, without understanding the context for making a decision at the time of making, you can only show your superficiality and insufficient maturity as an engineer. Better to study and find out "why".



I hope my material will be useful to both hiring managers, interviewers, recruiters and HR, and job seekers!



PS I don’t want to put the name of the candidate on the public plane, and if anyone recognized him, please do not write in the comments. Let's not stoop to bullying and the like. Just draw your own conclusions and benefit from our experience!

I write about how to steer people when managing people, how to hire, fire, how CTOs of food companies think on my author's telegram channel About IT without ties . The truth about management, actions and motivators of top management, how to grow in a company and what business owners value. Well, the author's material about modern development!

UPD. 19:00. The candidate is even more inadequate. He turned to insulting the interviewer and began to write threats to the recruiter. Part of the threat was posting a negative review if the tech lead didn't respond. It already looks like a mental problem.