HIRING

Why I Wont Hire You

If you've ever hired anyone for a job, you understand a whole new perspective on what makes an applicant stand outand what makes you toss an application to the bin. Fair or not, blogger, consultant, and hirer Charlie Balmer discusses honestly the mistakes that can ruin your chances with a potential employer. Photo by StockLite (Shutterstock).

BY CHARLIE BALMER

JAN 16, 2012 1:30 PM

I will be very honest with you in this post. Most interview articles only show obvious mistakes,

as if most people don't know showing up late is bad form. I will tell you the things I didn't really know about until I was the one interviewing, and interviewing for a variety of positions and person-types. No interview prep article ever prepared me in the right way for how interviewers really think. That is what I will be sharing with you today. When you first walk in to my office, I am expecting you to be one of the 99%+ people who I know I won't hire in the first 5 minutes. I am hoping I will be proven wrong, because I really want to hire you and be done interviewing. Unfortunately, most people looking for jobs don't deserve them. Here are the most common ways I know you don't deserve any job I have to offer.

You send me a stupidly long resume

If I have to spend more than 30 seconds finding out what you have accomplished, forget it. You have annoyed me. Somehow, since resumes went digital, people feel like they can cram in 10 pages of boring essays talking about this achievement or that role, and expect me to read every juicy word. More likely, I will ignore the whole thing, write down in my notes "poor communicator", and move on. If you have a good set of skills or something catches my eye, you might still get an interview, but I'll still never read the resume. And you had better be a better communicator on the phone or in person. Think about it this way the resume items communicate to me your past successes in a (supposedly) succinct manner. If you can't nail it in one sentence, do I really want to look forward to your rambling emails every day? If I can't read your resume, it doesn't bode well for your emails, and I get enough of those in my inbox as it is. To craft a great resume, tailor it to my job posting. If I have a skill set in there like "Windows Administration", make sure you have at least one bullet point talking about success in a project where you used that skill. Make the bullet no longer than three sentences. One is better. I am likely to read one sentence. I might read three. More than that and I won't even know what you wrote there. You wasted my time and your own.

You can't tell me why you like your current job

I always ask people what they like most about their current job before I get into any details about a role. Why? I want to see if you'll be happy working in this new job. If you can't tell me

anything you like, or you tell me something you like but it sounds really generic? Then forget it, I have no idea what you want to do in life and you probably don't either. Come see me when you know what you want to do. I would even be happy with something like "Well, this job doesn't enliven me, but my last job, I loved doing XXX every day, and man, I miss that. It looks like this role will let me get back to that." Let me know you're passionate or don't waste my time. The worst answers? "Well I like the challenge" or some other BS. Don't BS me. I have a super BS detector, and most other interviewers do too. The worst BS is the kind where more than 50% of candidates say the same thing. If you can't be original about what you like about your unique job how can I expect you to be creative working for me? If you have a generic answer like you enjoy learning, the challenge, helping customers, that can be alright. Just sound excited when you talk about it. Give me an example of a time when you got really fired up about it. I don't mind if it doesn't relate to the job I am interviewing you for, though that helps. Just expect me to ask why you think this job will give you the same passion and have a good answer ready. Really, why else are you applying if you don't know this?

No career plans or vision

When I ask you what your next role is going to be after the one you're interviewing for, you had better have a good answer. Everyone should have a story about why you want to come work for me, in this specific role. If you can tell me how this role helps you accomplish your long term goals, I'm much more likely to think you'll be happy here and work hard in the job. If you just want a job, why should I care? Someone else will come to me with their vision. Eventually. A good answer is a well thought out vision. You should have that anyway. Here is a good example: "I am looking to move away from working in my current small company to a bigger company with more career growth and opportunities. I want to rise to an executive level in the next 10 years, but my current company is too small to allow me to stretch effectively in that way. [This role] builds on my strengths in communication and project management, and will help me grow as a leader and improve my influencing skills. In a few years, I would look to becoming a senior manager" and on with how this role fits into your life vision.

No Skills

Please, don't bother applying if you don't have the required skills. I will know. If you'll be programming, expect to program in the interview. And program well. If you'll be project managing, you had better be able to tell me about the right way to build a project plan and project vision. I'll probably even describe a project and ask you to build a plan right there, with me. Just because the title has something in it you vaguely think you can do, if you don't meet the requirements, please don't waste my time. I might be ok if you are up front with me and tell me you want a career change and are willing to take a more junior position to learn. I might take a chance on you if everything else is solid. But tell me that in your resume so we don't waste time. Yes, telling me that in your resume improves your chances of getting hired, even if not necessarily for this job or winning an interview. I won't claim this is true for all interviewers, but it is true for me. It's about setting expectations. If you come in, and my expectation is, for instance, that you know Unix administration, and then you tell me "Well, I read a book and I really want to learn it", no, I won't like that. If instead you put in your resume an objective line "Looking to grow skills in Unix administration from a project background", now we are on the same page. If I don't need an expert right now, maybe I will invest in training you since you have the vision and self-motivation. Oh, and describing what you are doing to prepare is also good, even if you don't have on the job experience. See how the expectation can change my perspective? Give me happy surprises, not unhappy surprises.

Answer my questions with conjecture

I will test you in a lot of ways. I will ask you to describe a lot of situations where you failed, where you succeeded, what you would change, what you hate and what you love. Don't sit there and tell me what you would do in the future. I didn't ask what you would do, I asked what you did. If I have to wait for you to finish talking, then say "Could you give me a specific example where you did something like that?" Then you have failed to answer my question. If I ask for an example, please give me one. If you don't have one, that's ok, tell me you have never been in that situation, but you have some ideas if I would like to hear them. Yes, I probably would like to hear them, but I might also have another question with different examples I would rather know about. If you don't think well on your feet, spend some time reading through and practicing situational interview questions. I won't ever use one I see online, but it will help train your mind to answer, and give you fresh memories to draw from. I also don't mind when a candidate pauses to think. I will wait. I know everyone has different styles of thinking and

responding.

How to Win the interview

I think it's pretty simple. I look for a few traits in people I am going to hire. If you are missing even one, I'm probably going to pass you up for someone who doesn't. Do your best to show off these traits and you'll win. This is true in every case, from hiring a janitor to an executive. Show me you can get things done. This means you can accomplish challenging tasks quickly, come up to speed when necessary, go the extra mile if you have to, influence peers. You must be self-motivated. Show me you are intelligent. I will ask you questions that are designed to make you think. Show me you can. Don't confuse intelligence with education. I don't care what kind of schooling you had, if you can't think, no job. If you can think, and aren't educated, no problem in my book, though I'll probably look for more experience instead. Show me how I fit into your vision. Truthfully, we'll work best together if you think this job is the best place for you to be right now. I want to help you succeed in your career, let me. Be highly skilled. Unfortunately, I don't hire awesome people who don't have the right skill mix. But I do keep their information around for when I need their skill mix. I also tend to recommend these people to others who are hiring as strong candidates. The skill level required to be hired depends on the job and expectations. Entry level can get away with rough skill sets or classwork. Senior needs to be top of the field, regardless of years in the workforce. Be Passionate. If you are bored working in a similar job somewhere else, you'll be bored with me. Period. I don't want any of that.

The End
Most of the stuff I am talking about here has nothing to do with Golem Technologies, but more about what it is like to hire in the first place. There are so many articles out there with bad advice for both those hiring and those trying to be hired, I wanted to inject some raw honesty into the equation. If you are looking to hire people, then I would recommend you use my 5 points above to screen people. As for me hiring, no, I am not currently hiring, so please don't ask me. When I am hiring though, and if you happen to apply, the above is the criteria I

will use to decide. This is true across business functions and across companies. The people who have the stuff I listed to win the interview will get jobs they want consistently. If you are lacking something, then figure out a way to get there. Just having a plan puts you ahead of 99% of job candidates. I also like giving people a chance whenever they let me, as long as I have the flexibility to do so. So far, I haven't been disappointed. Do you have hiring war stories (interviewer or interviewee)? Share them in the comments! Why I Won't Hire You | Golem Technologies Charlie Balmer is an entrepreneur, technology blogger, and website consultant. He has worked for multiple fortune 500 companies in IT management, marketing, and application design. His latest company, Golem Technologies, is a cloud based website security scanning application for IT departments and security professionals.
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timgray WHY I WONT APPLY FOR YOUR JOB..

Mon 16 Jan 2012 2:27 PM

1 - require me to fill out your company's "application" that simply repeats all the information that is on my resume. Why are you showing me that your company is more interested in busywork than skills? You will never even look at the "application", it is a waste of everyone's time. 2 - Require yet another login to post my resume to your company's website. your company is not special, why are you cluttering up your own servers with the silly logins for people that will never be used again? Hire some competent IT people and design a resume submission system that does not require a un-needed login for them to have to remember. The best one I have seen emailed the submitter a pincode and allowed them to login with their email and

pincode if they ever needed to update the resume. 3 - Post ridiculous requirements. 30+ years in java, astronaut that has been in space 10 times, has god's cellphone number. If you are letting the idiots in HR write the job description at least take some time from golf or your fantasy football to proofread the job position. It just makes you look like a very uneducated manager, a big red flag for the real professionals. 4 -Do not post a salary range. You want me to waste my time to find out you are paying 30% under industry average? Be honest and post the salary range so you get real professionals that don't want to waste our time to apply. The above are the reasons that most companies get 5000 resumes or more for a single position that are not what they are looking for. Mostly because the hiring manager is incompetent at writing a proper job posting. The HR department think they are godlike. And everyone thinks their company is so good they don't have to give any real information about the position. Want a better list of hires to choose from? Do the above and look like a respectable company to work for. Honestly, if you want top notch professionals, you have to look good enough for us to apply.

ian.g.case @timgray Also this, this and more this. zakany001 @timgray Interviews are two-way communications. Many companies don't understand that.
promoted by Steve Climaco

katiew @ian.g.case What Tim Gray said. Plus: "When you first walk in to my office, I am expecting you to be one of the 99%+ people who I know I won't hire in the first 5 minutes."

Try: When you first walk into my office, I know within the first 5 minutes if you're going to be one of the 99% I won't hire. If MY first instinct is to edit your writing for clarity, you might need me more than you thought. Perhaps "obvious" mistakes aren't obvious to everyone.

DaveyNC @timgray Bingo. Especially the salary range. Why employers hold that back until everybody has put in lots of time and had multiple interviews has always been a mystery to me. I suppose they like to think that their company is such a wonderful place to work that they want to see who wants to work there without the single most important fact being divulged. Note to employers: We want to like your company, too. We want to be paid fairly for what we do for you. We no longer expect any loyalty from you, not should you expect loyalty from us. But you can buy that loyalty for a while. So give us the number up front and we will decide if we want to learn more about you. jp182 @DaveyNC I think places do that when they REALLY want to pay before the industry average. This way they can try to rope people into taking a lower salary. Johann Schmidt @timgray #3 I love it when I find job postings with ridiculous requirements. I once found a posting for Microsoft that required a number of years experience with a code language that actually exceeded the age of the language itself. But really if HR is tired of so many applications being sent in they need to be more specific/detailed in their job posting. Hell if the person is being hired to work on a project say what the project is about.

promoted by Steve Climaco

Dear Zeus @timgray Every. Single. One. May I also add: 3a- If you posted a job for an entry level position do not say I need 5 years of experience. Also do not say the job is perfect for those right out of college and still want 5 years of experience. I was so fed up of not having enough experience for entry level work which meant I couldn't get a job to get that experience. A few summer jobs/internships and great grades as well as good references seemed to be moot without x-years of filing and faxing paper. 5- If you don't pick me after the interview, at least tell me and tell me why. I don't expect a huge letter that tells me why, but a sentence or two in an email won't kill you (unless you have 500 applicants, but then you likely did not interview all of them.) If I also, "grow up and ask them myself", actually respond to me instead of ignore me. I may not like you for not picking me, but at least I'll still respect you. 6- If you ask what my goals are, don't use them against me. If I want to learn the basics of business; learn how to do xyz specifically; get experience in an office; get team environment experience; get customer support/service/relations experience; get managerial experience; and so on so that I can one day become an executive/maybe start my own business, don't say that the job isn't a fit for me because I have a goal other than, "Work here at the same desk for the next 45 years." 7 - Actually listen and confirm what I've said. I actually had an HR person reject me because he mistook my 5-year-plan for a 6-month-plan and told the HR manager, who was ready to hire me, that I wasn't worth it if I was only going to stay there for 6 months. The HR manager apologized after she found out the truth but sadly the job was gone.

Kamatari + approved this comment

dollen @katiew While a good and valid point katiew, this is why lifehacker.com is mocked as "Life Haters."

jamescobalt @timgray Has Gawker made a statement on why we can't +1/like/thums-up/etc comments? Cause seriously, +1 times a thousand for Mr Gray's. yalestar @katiew The imperious and arrogant tone of this article really pissed me off. There are valid points here, but I wish more employers would come to realize that this whole "I'm God, and you beg me for the privilege of interviewing here, and I fully expect you to fail" dynamic isn't helping anyone. This approach to interviewing and hiring is sure to get you toadies and people who are good at being obsequious. Talented people won't tolerate this kind of thing for very long. Also: Spell out whole numbers that are smaller than ten, e.g.: "When you first walk into my office, I know within the first five minutes..." ;)

katiew @yalestar Hee, very true. Also, on reflection, I'd edit even further by deleting one of the "firsts." "When you walk into my office, I know within the first five minutes..." Kamatari + @Dear Zeus F***ing approving. Thumbs up stopped working for me long ago. Plus I agree the hell out of what you're saying. Dear Zeus @Kamatari + Haha thank you! I don't comment here much but I had to on this one because timgray was so, so right.
Kamatari + approved this comment

Kamatari + @Dear Zeus I honestly think everyone not agreeing with this guy is right. I don't mean that in a mob

mentality way, but honestly, Hiring managers like this person straight up fail to take into account that on the other side of the application process, WE ARE FREAKING HUMAN LIKE YOU. brianbrereton @katiew That's not what he said, or what he meant. RvLeshrac @DaveyNC +1 for salary range. I've not given a fuck about "the process" for a while now, and ask for the pay up front. If I have to drive across town and sit in traffic for three hours every day, I need to know that you're paying me enough to fill up the tank and maintain my car, as well as cover the fact that I'm spreading my pay across all that extra time.
promoted by DaveyNC

cyclocrossmechanic @Dear Zeus With regards to #5 there's a reason companies won't say why they didn't hire you: lawsuits. This is especially true for larger companies - the bigger you are the bigger a target you become. As someone who has been a recruiter and a hiring manager I've had several times where I'd love to have told a person why they blew it in an interview but was strictly prohibited from doing so. Often it's been due to something that a person could probably improve in with some effort. If you get rejected following an in-person interview don't be afraid to ask the recruiter for areas you could improve in. Don't do this in an email - pick up the phone and call them. They're more likely to be honest with you over the phone and "off the record". I've given advice to people following interviews because I know they're otherwise sharp people who simply don't interview well or make easily corrected mistakes. Interviewing is a skill and if your job doesn't require frequent interactions with strangers then you're going to have a harder time interviewing. Also be aware that as the economy recovers there will be more *quality* candidates*** out there competing for the same jobs so it is very likely that the other candidate simply had more experience or greater expertise in a given area. *** it's a bit of a myth that higher unemployment creates more competition for jobs. While it makes sense it ignores human nature. While the number of applicants goes up that doesn't mean the number of qualified candidates goes up. When the economy is tanking the people

who still have jobs will cling to them rather than roll the dice by changing jobs. This makes it MUCH harder to recruit passive candidates (who are usually top performers and thus the most desired)

promoted by Steve Climaco

Guvmint_Cheese @timgray I cannot speak for all companies re: #4, but the reason they don't do it at mine is because they are usually willing to exceed the range for a person who is a perfect fit for the position and brings experience that exceeds the requirements. They do not want to scare those people off who might be at a job with a higher salary than the range from applying. This was true for me when I came to work for them, and I actually took a small pay cut to take the position because it offered better work/life balance and is one of the top places to work in the industry. Re: #1, my company uses a third party application to manage applicants and resumes. The profile you fill out on the website is actually your application for employment, so there is no additional paperwork to fill out for that if they hire you. If you're good enough, and the position is hard to fill, you could probably get away with filling out minimal information on the profile and just attaching your resume. Most people, and positions, don't fit this profile. I think it took me 15 minutes to fill it out on their website, and honestly if this is too onerous for an applicant, I doubt we would want to hire them anyway.

rmagere1 @katiew Actually I do not think that your rewrite captures what the original poster actually meant. Your rewrite states that within 5 minutes he knows whether the interviewee belongs to the 99% he won't hire. Original poster states instead that he expects the interviewee to belong to the the 99% that, within 5 minutes, will be marked as not to be hired. The emphasis of the poster is on expectations that (a) most of the interviewees do not get the job (reasonable assumption as soon as 3+ people apply to the same position) and (b) that most of them get themselves out of the "hiring" group within a short time frame due to things

they could have prevented (possibly true / possibly not) The emphasis of your rewrite is on (as I read it - might be different on others) "I am just another power-hyped manager who comes up with broadly speaking generalisations about how bad most people are for jobs" Hence the two statements are not the same at all (or at least when I read them they do not convey the same message)

Moon @jamescobalt Because we don't want another Digg. brentbuchh @timgray Agree!

MacnairCorinthus @katiew Meh. His original sentence was fine... "expecting" and "I know" could be argued to have a slightly different level of finality. And reorganizing the sentence your way only changes the order, not the clarity. His sentence was fine. paolo.scaramuzzino @timgray WHY I AM SKIPPING HEADHUNTERS You are so right Timgray. I have even stopped applying for posts that involve recruiters or headhunters. After nearly 20 years of career in 4 different countries in 2 continents in over 10 companies I consider the headhunters somewhat totally incompetent frustrated missed psychologist/sociologist. I have been involved in more than I can remember recruiting processes meeting over 30 self-declared top-notch international headhunters, and I can only think of one single case when the interviewer knew let's-be-good and say 10% about the position I was applying for.

So since about 6 years ago, when applying for a position, fist question is:"does the recruiting process involves headhunters?" If the answer is "yes" I immediately say:"I will deal with you directly, I will provide any background documentation you require without arguing but I won't accept an interview with an headhunter, if it's fine with you, we can go ahead". And guess what... I haven't found even ONE SINGLE company that has declined my approach... and haven't found ONE SINGLE company that was happy with the staff the so-called top-notch international headhunters had found. And guess what? I have doubled my salary at each career step ever since. So what can I tell you? Headhunters and outsourced recruiters are useless expensive parasite of the job market luckily being decimated by this crisis which might turn out to be one of the very few positive side effects of the crisis. Companies don't need them, candidates even less. Go make your path by yourself.

DaveyNC approved this comment

DaveyNC @RvLeshrac Yeah, I eventually came to regard time spent driving to and from work as being part of the job, mostly because I have worked from home for many years. I decided that if it were something that I would not do in the course of a normal day then it was work related. One of the reasons that I left Atlanta was that 2-3 hours a day I spent in the car going to and from. I don't understand why so many people regard that much car time as an acceptable trade off.

DaveyNC @paolo.scaramuzzino Reply to promote. Make your own path! Love it! MindedOne @cyclocrossmechanic

I actually got an engineering co-op last week with one of the big 3 wireless companies because, after being rejected, I asked if there was anything I could do within the next six months/year in order to be better prepared and more equipped for my next interview with the company. I also let her know that I understand if it is company policy not to answer these questions. Turns out the next day they opened up another position, and I was the first person she thought of. "Unfortunately, I don't hire awesome people who don't have the right skill mix. But I do keep their information around for when I need their skill mix. I also tend to recommend these people to others who are hiring as strong candidates. The skill level required to be hired depends on the job and expectations." - this is also so true. I'm only a junior, and tbh, I haven't accomplished much. I'm going for internships/coops against people in masters programs, and I will not always have the right skillset. But I keep getting calls for interviews from the same companies, because even though I may not have the right skill set for the job, I think I'm impressing during the interview.

Palin 4 Pres! @Guvmint_Cheese Um, you just said that #1 is so your HR doesn't have to fill out that 15 min paper work. You already hired them! :) EscapePod @timgray @ timgray: Well stated. After sitting in as an associate on many candidate interviews, I've walked away thinking (to myself) I wouldn't work for these arrogant bozos if they tripled my current salary.
Edited by EscapePod at 01/18/12 4:14 AM

jamescobalt @Moon I don't even use Digg, but literally THOUSANDS of websites have a way of showing agreeance in comments with a kudos system. It's so common, so far beyond just Digg (which is entirely different because I think Digg is a vote/visibility system versus a kudos/agreeance system) that these days I think people kind of expect that. This is one of the only comment systems I use that doesn't offer that option.

mrsplooge @timgray #Timgray Where is the like button? tracykelly @timgray timgray, What a well written and thought out comment! I agree with every word. Unfortunately, to implement such a policy may simply keep one in an undesirable employment, or halt the process of discontinuing an unemployment situation. Nevertheless, I intend on finding a middle ground. I feel as though I have a higher than average skill set in the I.T. field. Please, no bragging was intended, I only mean I am competent based on several years of continued education and I have come to know the industry fairly well. Given that; I see so many jobs announcements with descriptions that could only leave a person wondering what the "heck" the organization is looking for. All too often it would seem the person who writes the job description is more intent on expressing their abilities as a word-smith rather than providing an adequate narrative of the duties. I guess this ties into the statement you made about certain departments thinking they are godlike. Love you comment!