Ishidan: falcon176: loyalty is dead don't give employers 2 weeks notice, they won't give you 2 hours

Let me guess, you've gotten the "Here's a box, clean out your desk, your computer access has already been locked, this security guard will make sure you don't take company property with you" treatment at least once.

*checks profile*

Why I can't imagine why somebody would do such a thing to a person with SUCH a charming personality.

checking profiles to judge people while having a profile that says "I piss people off"
mine says the same thing but it's longer get on my level kiddo

jcadam: If I had a nickel for every time I got to the final stage of an interview process and heard the "not a cultural fit" line....

/eventually learned to stop saying "start my own software company" when asked about my long term goals.
//telling people what they want to hear really is a good idea during job interviews.

I can't imagine how saying "I hope to one day quit this job" would be a bad statement to make. :)

Ishidan: falcon176: loyalty is dead don't give employers 2 weeks notice, they won't give you 2 hours

Let me guess, you've gotten the "Here's a box, clean out your desk, your computer access has already been locked, this security guard will make sure you don't take company property with you" treatment at least once.

*checks profile*

Why I can't imagine why somebody would do such a thing to a person with SUCH a charming personality.


Oh I can.

Serious douchebaggery.

i'm NOT an outgoing "people person" so when the interviewer is looking for a buddy or a fluid exchange of pointless small talk, it's game over for me. like i'd even WANT to work for a company that heralds fluffy social behavior over quality of work.

Smacker: I'm always curious; what metrics do HR personnel use to justify their processes and techniques? Do they have actual evidence that their system of irrelevant and arbitrary qualifiers results in better hires than, say, letting some random person in the office pick somebody?

THIS.

My interviews are pretty straightforward. Ask questions with one right answer and many wrong ones, and count how many right answers they give. I'm concerned only with competence, because you at least have a hope of measuring competence and using it to objectively compare candidates. I don't care if you like golf or play poker on weekends. Are you smart and can you get shiat done? Those are the only relevant measurements.

shoegaze99: When I've been in charge of hiring, you'd better believe that "cultural fit" (I didn't use stupid terms like that) was just as important as skill set. I'd take someone with slightly less skills but who would be a great fit for our team and my management style than someone with great skills who wouldn't be right for our workplace. If a person fits well with the rest of the staff and is someone you feel good about working with/managing, that a huge plus over someone who will be an outcast on your staff or who you'll hate working with.

This kind of mentality is how likable frat boys get hired over people who studied hard and know their shiat. Feel lucky you don't have a "Google equivalent" in your industry to compete with.

Weirdest question anyone asked me in a job interview: "What would you do if you were on a bus and someone was drunk and threw up in the aisle?"

Somehow I must have given the right answer. I was offered the job, and accepted it. Didn't stay long. The place was stranger than the interview.

my alt's alt's alt: i'm NOT an outgoing "people person" so when the interviewer is looking for a buddy or a fluid exchange of pointless small talk, it's game over for me. like i'd even WANT to work for a company that heralds fluffy social behavior over quality of work.

Problem is, the two aren't disconnected in a lot of jobs. What you call "fluffy social behaviour" could just as easily be called good interpersonal/collaboration skills. And the blunt fact of the matter is, those are important. I've seen firsthand the differences in quality that result from teams that really jive well together, and teams where effective collaboration is killed by a lack of cohesion or overly introverted people.

Yes, there are a lot of jobs where being introverted isn't as big a deal. But a lot of knowledge worker type positions require people who enjoy interacting with others.

The other reason employers care about "fluffy social behaviour" is that even if there's not a direct impact of said behaviour on employee collaboration, a sociable workplace often boosts employee morale and engagement, which in turn leads to higher job satisfaction and less turnover costs.

csb...
Funny that they chose an accounting firm as the first example. I had to go through that type of process myself at PricewaterhouseCoopers but it wasn't with the people in HR. They scheduled me to have a couple of lunch outings with current staff members. The first lunch was with a group of 3 managers and the second lunch was with associates and senior associates. I knew I had to be absolutely on my best behavior. No swearing, no politically-incorrect speech, steer clear of anything negative, try to be as blandly unoffensive as possible. Got the job.

Later when it was my turn to be on the other side of the table, they brought us in for a meeting run by the woman who was head of HR. We were given a long list of "no-no discussion items", and also told what sort of qualities we should be looking for in candidates. Most of the candidates were pretty good, but we had a couple who were clearly not cut out for the firm. One guy was a top accounting student from USC, but he used the word "fark" a few times during lunch, which upset one of my female coworkers quite a bit. Didn't bother me too much, but it did make me question the guy's judgement - this was clearly a job interview disguised as lunch.

The culture there ended up being too uptight for my personality, and it felt pretty good when I left.

my alt's alt's alt: "what would you say your biggest weakness is?"

"tolerating bullshiat interviews."

That's a strength. If you can tolerate bullshiat interviews you can tolerate bullshiat meetings.

stiletto_the_wise: This kind of mentality is how likable frat boys get hired over people who studied hard and know their shiat.

If you're incapable of telling the difference between a likable bullshiatter and a likeable person who can also do the job, you have no business hiring people in the first place.

/the general "you," not the specific, obviously.

I interviewed at Pillsbury this last year, and really enjoyed how they did things. There was a quick phone interview with HR, just to go over education, history, and other boring matters, and then you had an interview day at the plant. You spend the entire day at the facility, take a tour, have lunch with your potential teammates, and interview with 4 or 5 other people from various departments along the way. It was a nice way to interview, and I think a even better way to gauge "cultural fit" than asking canned personal questions.

shoegaze99: I'd take someone with slightly less skills but who would be a great fit for our team and my management style than someone with great skills who wouldn't be right for our workplace.

What defines this, though? It doesn't seem to be movies and hobbies, like they are suggesting asking about. At my last job before going back to school, the person with the most similar hobbies was probably the person I got along with the worst of anyone. On the other hand, there were plenty of people quite different from me who I got along with fine.

shoegaze99: stiletto_the_wise: This kind of mentality is how likable frat boys get hired over people who studied hard and know their shiat.

If you're incapable of telling the difference between a likable bullshiatter and a likeable person who can also do the job, you have no business hiring people in the first place.

/the general "you," not the specific, obviously.

I take it that you never worked in banking.

/good god, hopefully never again

stiletto_the_wise: This kind of mentality is how likable frat boys get hired over people who studied hard and know their shiat. Feel lucky you don't have a "Google equivalent" in your industry to compete with.
You're creating a false dichotomy between "qualified" and "sociable/cultural fit". This isn't the case. Most employers often have more than one well-qualified candidate. So they're going to pick the candidate who is qualified AND will work well on their team. It's not an either/or situation in most cases, especially given it's still an employer's market in most industries.

falcon176: checking profiles to judge people while having a profile that says "I piss people off"
mine says the same thing but it's longer get on my level kiddo

Get on MY level.
It's called efficiency.

"what would you say your biggest weakness is?"

Blunt honesty. . . That's an inane, loaded question that you are only asking because it's on your script.

DiggidyDan: "what would you say your biggest weakness is?"

Blunt honesty. . . That's an inane, loaded question that you are only asking because it's on your script.

This is probably one of the most useless interview questions ever. It's so common that most people, unless they're completely clueless, will have some carefully crafted non-weakness "weakness" to respond with.

zedster: FTFA:""These trends are being driven by millennials because they care about culture," says Dan Schawbel, author of Me: 2.0. "Research shows that millennials typically stay at a job for about two years-and they have different priorities. They'd rather have meaningful work over more pay, or work for a company that gives back or cares about the environment. They want a culture that's less hierarchical, more flexible, and more understanding of difference, because millennials are the most diverse generation."

NO NO NO NO NO NO

WWII Gen: Hey I'll get a job and work at it for 20+ yrs, return you'll give me benefits like a pension
Business: Okay

Baby Boomers: I'd like what my parents had
Business: nope you'll have a 401K that we will raid and no job security

Millennials: If I'm not going to be making great money and have no job security I'd rather work someplace I like and move on when I burn out
Business: Why do you have no loyalty? come back?

If I had the choice between culture or a place that actually took care of it's employees without screwing them over I would take the security. Having fallen into IT I have to say the contractor system is not going to inspire me to do anything less then the bare minimum, what incentive do I have? I have no profit share, no chance of getting hired on (always a false carrot they dangle), and very little security. At best Millennials are just waiting for the huge delayed wave of Baby Boomer to retire and open up the job market for them, at worst you are looking at generation that will have far less opportunity and quality of life then their parents.

Dan Schawbel, from that quote, seems to be under the asinine impression that employees have (or ever had) the choice to determine if their company--or businesses at large--would have a sense of loyalty to their employees that they do not have. I agree that it'd be sweet to be able to find and remain at a secure, long-term job without being completely screwed over in one's old age, but I don't think that is applicable to the vast majority of Americans.

Bullshiat.

Otherwise why would companies continue to rely on work visas? Those Indians from one of many diploma mills is not a cultural fit, nor do they wish to be.

Sygonus: Problem is, the two aren't disconnected in a lot of jobs. What you call "fluffy social behaviour" could just as easily be called good interpersonal/collaboration skills. And the blunt fact of the matter is, those are important. I've seen firsthand the differences in quality that result from teams that really jive well together, and teams where effective collaboration is killed by a lack of cohesion or overly introverted people.

Right. Someone with great skills who is also office poison can impact your entire staff, dragging everyone down with them. Those people are toxic. They can be the most highly skilled person you can imagine, but if they're dragging down morale and preventing your staff from functioning as a team, you're better off with someone else.

No one is asking that everyone be buddy buddy, hanging out on weekends, etc etc, but getting along with everyone else? Yeah, that's important.

The other reason employers care about "fluffy social behaviour" is that even if there's not a direct impact of said behaviour on employee collaboration, a sociable workplace often boosts employee morale and engagement, which in turn leads to higher job satisfaction and less turnover costs.

Right again.

At my last office, my staff was a good group, loyal and consistent. No turnover to speak of. People came on board and they routinely stayed with us 5+ years. Everyone got along well, and when it was crunch time I knew I could rely on everyone to gel really well. Another team we worked closely with, the hiring handled by someone else, was plagued by constant turnover. I think the average stay was about 9 months. They hated one another, everyone else hated them, they couldn't do their job, they didn't function as a team. They routinely fumbled projects and had no cohesion. It came down to poor hiring choices.

falcon176: loyalty is dead don't give employers 2 weeks notice, they won't give you 2 hours

I remember at the first staff meeting I had with my job, our CEO told my department that if we didn't like our jobs, he's always taking resignations (although his demeanor implied "turn in your access card and go play in traffic"). I won't even mention what we have to do if we want to leave with our accrued vacation time. My state is "at-will," so I could be fired the moment I walk into work tomorrow and I'm under no obligation to give them any notice or reason whenever I quit. Either situation makes me look bad because of a little thing called social conditioning.

ReverendJasen: I interviewed at Pillsbury this last year, and really enjoyed how they did things. There was a quick phone interview with HR, just to go over education, history, and other boring matters, and then you had an interview day at the plant. You spend the entire day at the facility, take a tour, have lunch with your potential teammates, and interview with 4 or 5 other people from various departments along the way. It was a nice way to interview, and I think a even better way to gauge "cultural fit" than asking canned personal questions.

That was the way my interview for my first job was at a university. Meeting with search committee, tour of the building with the immediate supervisor, interview with the dean, lunch with the staff, meeting with the department, presentation, last meeting with the search committee. You get to meet everybody including in an informal session.

Lsherm: When I was in college I was a manager for the engineering school's "tech crew" - students who fixed computers on campus.  They were cushy jobs, and there were 10 slots to hire for every year.  The first year I got to hire students I was informed by another employee that it was a "Pakistani year."  Turns out for years the Indian students and the Pakistani students had been swapping out the tech crew jobs because they refused to work with one another.  So on an Indian year, only Indian students would apply, and on a Pakistani year, only Pakistani students would apply.

I asked the employee what would happen if I hired a white or black employee, and he assured me that wouldn't happen.  I asked him why.  "Because I throw those resumes out," he said.

Few places are more racist than in the Mecca of liberal thought.

i've interviewed at zappos many times for multiple positions. they usually decide that i'm not a 'cultural fit', sometime around the time i say ' hey if maybe you took a break from the cube wars and telling everyone how wacky you guys are and hired real security guys like me, you maybe you wouldn't have had that security breach back in January'. really, they're not interested in people that WANT to get shiat done, they want people who spend 2 hours a day writing haikus in Klingon. It's been a year since their breach, they still don't have an infosec program put together. Like I told their "ZISO" the last time I talked with him "culture is fine. culture is fun, but at some point you have the let the serious guys roll up their shirtsleeves and do serious things. It's not cool, it's not hip, but it's how you keep your data".

To play devil's advocate for a moment:

It's not such a black and white issue. If I have two candidates in front of me, one with excellent qualifications and an OK personality and the other has good qualifications but a great personality, I'm going with the latter.

The ability to interact with other human beings, play well with others, and generally not walk around like you're the hottest shiat since sliced bread goes a long way.

/ A software manager who would blame sun spots and your own personal failings before her code is on maternity leave.
// I sincerely hope she never comes back.
/// Hired on qualifications alone (by someone else). QED.

From the interviewing side, it is incredibly hard to filter for malcontents and incompetents. I have had people tell me to my face: "I think it is my job to help you get things done so you look good" then turn around the day after the probationary period ended and say "Well, sure, but I can't learn stuff from a manual or powerpoint, so you'll have to do it yourself." I've had people get upset - upset! - when I told them their vacation approval was conditional upon coverage for tasks, making sure email was up to date before they leave and basic out-of-office procedure was followed. At that point, they divulged that they were 700 emails behind and felt that I was intentionally killing their vacation by making them answer their emails.

One classic case, after the person got a $50.00 holiday gift card and quit in a huff, the cleaning crew (who came in after 7:00 PM while I was still there working every night after everyone else went home) said "Wow, we're surprised she lasted that long." When questioned, they said she was drinking on the job. When asked how they knew that, they said "Oh, we could tell when you were out of the office because there would be beer bottles in her trash can. When you were in the office, they were in the ladies' restroom trashcan."

Mitrovarr: What defines this, though? It doesn't seem to be movies and hobbies, like they are suggesting asking about. At my last job before going back to school, the person with the most similar hobbies was probably the person I got along with the worst of anyone. On the other hand, there were plenty of people quite different from me who I got along with fine.

I don't think you can define it. I don't think there is some formula, and I think suggesting there can be would be a bad idea. If you're good with people, knowing them and reading them and getting them to reveal themselves, you can probably gauge whether or not they'll fit.

You're absolutely right, it's not about hobbies or what movies you like or any of that other nonsense. It's about the kind of person you are. That's why I said about, the answer to "what's the last movie you saw?" doesn't matter. What matters is the way in which you answer it. And in that case, "right" really depends on the workplace and the people there.

Sygonus: You're creating a false dichotomy between "qualified" and "sociable/cultural fit". This isn't the case. Most employers often have more than one well-qualified candidate. So they're going to pick the candidate who is qualified AND will work well on their team. It's not an either/or situation in most cases, especially given it's still an employer's market in most industries.

Exactly. Especially these days, most employers have multiple qualified candidates to choose from. Some in this thread seem to be treating this like it's a black and white, binary choice. But that's rarely ever the case, especially now.

It's farking weird out there right now. I've never seen anything like it. I'm well qualified, over-qualified in many cases, for the jobs I've been applying for and have never had a single problem getting work before. I've always gotten accolades for my work and was well-liked everywhere I worked. What people in this thread don't seem to be understanding is that nowadays, their definition of "company culture" is less about finding someone who will get along with everyone else to help create the most productive environment possible and it's more about trying to create a clubhouse atmosphere. Ever seen the marketing or production departments at Revision3, CNET, or the like? It's more like a frat house than anything. Now I constantly lose out to kids that seem like they'd be better bar buddies than me. Three months later, the exact same job is back up because the kid couldn't handle the real work involved. I try again, get told again that I'm not a good cultural fit, they hire some kid that seems like he might be a blast to go grab some Pad Thai with, they shiatcan him two months later because he started crying the second he opened After Effects to do his first project without a template or a teacher holding his hand, wash, rinse, repeat. Thankfully I'm not the only source of income and make enough freelancing to fill the gaps. I'm about to give it one more go. If I find something, great. If not, fark it. Time to take the risk and fully strike out on my own. They want to be stuck in perpetual amateur hour because they're more concerned with finding a bestie? They're welcome to it.

What's your favorite movie?
--Tyler Perry
Where would you like to visit?
--Detroit
What makes you nervous?
--Cowboys
Thanks for coming in.

falcon176: loyalty is dead don't give employers 2 weeks notice, they won't give you 2 hours

Protip: Swing things correctly you can keep your old job for months after starting your new one.

\You think I'm not serious...

It's Me Bender: zedster: Business: Why do you have no loyalty? come back?That's OK, we'll get the government to import outsource those positions to a bunch of third world indentured servants to work for half what we'd pay you otherwise.
/ftfy

I had a guy once ask me to name my favorite sci-fi book, along with several other "nerd cred" questions. This was at one of those startups so perhaps not that surprising.

/didn't take the job for other reasons

falcon176: loyalty is dead don't give employers 2 weeks notice, they won't give you 2 hours

Are you kidding? For anyone who's ever given their employer a 2 week notice, that may end up being the best 2 weeks that you will ever have on the job. You can come in late. You can leave early. You can take an extra long lunch. You can work at half speed, or not even work at all. Nobody's going to say shiat about it because you have the ultimate comeback: "So, what are you going to do? Fire me? Ha ha ha ha!". Then for two weeks of barely showing up, they give you a check as you walk out the door. WINNAR!

Aces and Eights: Weirdest question anyone asked me in a job interview: "What would you do if you were on a bus and someone was drunk and threw up in the aisle?"

Somehow I must have given the right answer. I was offered the job, and accepted it. Didn't stay long. The place was stranger than the interview.

How did you respond?

Ive had issues with "zomfg you was laid off, laid off people must have been dead wood" um no I was laid off because i was bottom of the totem pole douche. I have lots of verifiable experiance and a provable good work record.

ReverendJasen: I interviewed at Pillsbury this last year, and really enjoyed how they did things. There was a quick phone interview with HR, just to go over education, history, and other boring matters, and then you had an interview day at the plant. You spend the entire day at the facility, take a tour, have lunch with your potential teammates, and interview with 4 or 5 other people from various departments along the way. It was a nice way to interview, and I think a even better way to gauge "cultural fit" than asking canned personal questions.

In a conference room across a desk, I might add. Which is when humble workers stumble and stutter, but bullshiat artists shine.

I like this approach.

"It was a programmatic non-fit..."...(obscure?)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DlUZh64Ivc skip to 2:25

What's your favorite movie? What's your favorite website? What's the last book you read for fun? What makes you uncomfortable?

- None of your business
- None of your business
- None of your business
- A rock in my shoe

/Not a good cultural fit with any company that thinks these are important questions to ask in a job interview.

KIA: I've had people get upset - upset! - when I told them their vacation approval was conditional upon coverage for tasks, making sure email was up to date before they leave and basic out-of-office procedure was followed. At that point, they divulged that they were 700 emails behind and felt that I was intentionally killing their vacation by making them answer their emails.

Bizarre. I'm on a fairly intense project at present - we go RTM in about 7-8 weeks - so I can't imagine being 700 emails behind. I went on vacation during the last week of December, to enjoy the usual Christmas to New Years Day break, and of course was asked to do the above - it took about 15 minutes, because, well, I'd been doing my job all along. (The biggest fear for our team is having someone leave files checked out in our source control environment - email's trivial compared to the "ensure your crap's checked in" demand.) That's not a "goody-goody for me" utterance, as the rest of our team does the same thing on a routine basis - that's just standard operating procedure. I provide this tiny CSB because I can't imagine anyone becoming upset at doing what's considered the absolute minimum for an expected absence...

Lsherm: Turns out for years the Indian students and the Pakistani students had been swapping out the tech crew jobs because they refused to work with one another.

Seems legit. IIRC, they had a thing for threatening each other with nuclear warfare not too long ago.

OK, personalities can clash, and there are fit/no fit extremes out there. However, can you really tell someone's "cultural" aspects from an interview? I've seen people hired who are charismatic and make a great first impression -- only to turn out to be failures or farked in the head (or both).

If only they'd asked the right question at the start, they could have weeded out those Star Wars fanboy losers...

[ducks]

Its so damn hard to fire people today that these questions help weed out the people who just wont fit in.

BokerBill: What's your favorite movie? What's your favorite website? What's the last book you read for fun? What makes you uncomfortable?

- None of your business
- None of your business
- None of your business
- A rock in my shoe

/Not a good cultural fit with any company that thinks these are important questions to ask in a job interview.

Do you give douchy answers to those questions when they're asked in a casual setting? Because what's being measured here is your ability to have a normal conversation that doesn't involve "talking shop."

It's a little jarring and their purpose is pretty transparent these days, but they can also serve as a bit of an ice breaker in a normally tense situation, like, say, a job interview.

CthulhuCalling: i've interviewed at zappos many times for multiple positions. they usually decide that i'm not a 'cultural fit', sometime around the time i say ' hey if maybe you took a break from the cube wars and telling everyone how wacky you guys are and hired real security guys like me, you maybe you wouldn't have had that security breach back in January'. really, they're not interested in people that WANT to get shiat done, they want people who spend 2 hours a day writing haikus in Klingon. It's been a year since their breach, they still don't have an infosec program put together. Like I told their "ZISO" the last time I talked with him "culture is fine. culture is fun, but at some point you have the let the serious guys roll up their shirtsleeves and do serious things. It's not cool, it's not hip, but it's how you keep your data".

So why keep applying? Apply to a company that takes security seriously, and let the goofy hippy shoe-retailers do whatever they want. There's plenty of serious companies out there...any one with a military contract would be a good start, I'd think.

Just saying.