Re: Job Description(s)

On Sun, 03 Apr 2005 15:04:32 GMT, "Genome" <ilike_spam@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

><RANT>
>Recruitment agencies, scum more like.
>
>I'm taking a shotgun to my next interview.
>
>'Ask a stupid question and I'll blow your fucking head off.'
>
>'What would you say are your main strengths and weaknesses?' BOOM!
>'How do you feel about teamwork?' BOOM!
>'How do you work under pressure?' BOOM!
>'Where do you see yourself in five years time?' BOOM!
>'So you are willing to re-locate?' BOOM!
>'Do you prefer flyback or forward converters?'....... nice try
>BOOOOOM!
>
>
>Much of this crap comes down to the other side trying to determine
>if I'm going to blow their fucking heads off when they act too stupid.
>Either that or the previous employee(s) fucked it all up, probably
>with assistance from the employers.
>
>What's wrong with......
>
>'Are you going to *** it up like the last guy did?'
>
>or
>
>'We're rather crap and will *** you about. Don't even think that
>we're
>interested in improving. Do you like dealing with Assholes like us?'
></RANT>
>
>DNA
>


I've been on both sides of that particular barbed-wire fence. Now I'm
the guy doing the hiring, and it ain't easy. Nobody presents a bad
resume or bad references; everybody says they're cooperative team
players; everybody says that all their projects were successful and
that they earned $39 million for their last employer (for whom they
worked for seven months before they went out of business.)

Last guy we hired sounded great - everybody loved him in the
interviews, looked like a perfect fit. And things appeared to be
working out OK. It was marketing, so results are hard to quantify, but
"the optics" were good. Then he applied for a week off (with pay) for
"jury duty" which didn't exist. When we checked his pc for an email,
we found they he actually spent most of his time downloading and
viewing asian porn, and burning stacks of dirty CDs. We shipped him
back all his "personal effects", some of which were *absolutely* not
job-related.

The sad truth is that you never know anything about a person (or an
employer, as far as that goes) until you work with them. And there's a
lot of responsibility on both sides of the issue, which is why
employers tend to "over-interview" out of caution, even when it
doesn't do a lot of good. Interviewers tend to pass the prospect
around to a lot of other people, who tend to ask the same dumb
questions, to distribute the responsibility and potential guilt if the
guy is hired but doesn't work out. The worst feeling one gets in this
business is when you hire somebody, maybe move them thousands of miles
to a new place, and six months later come to the horrible realization
that it's not going to work.

Having been on both sides, being the applicant is a lot easier. Which
is not to say that there aren't a huge lot of HR fatheads out there.

Roger agencies being scum.

John



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