Interviews

Spent part of the day today doing interviews for some people we need to hire for our company here. Had 10 people that I had scheduled times for, 5 of which actually told me they would be coming, 3 of which actually showed up, 2 of which were late by more than 15 minutes. Not a good rate of success. Met a few interesting guys though.

One of them, when asked to tell us a little about himself launched into a 5 minutes long, obviously well rehearsed speech about himself, telling us all the same things that were written in his resume. He spoke really fast, at times making it hard to tell if he was still speaking English or not. Kind of like the guy who reads the “Taxes and title extra, some conditions apply, See dealer for details.” message at the end of a tv commercial. He would certainly add some excitement and challenge to our team.

Another guy told us he just started a job 10 days ago. When asked why he is looking for a new job so soon after starting another one, he explained that he is working for free at this place. They give him a stipend of about $50/month, but no salary. I asked him if he wanted to come and work for us for free too. He did not think that was funny.

A third guy was not a great communicator in terms of volume and enunciation. Kind of like trying to listen to someone speaking sign language. There was some sound coming out, but often not enough to really get what was being said.

One of the guys who did not show up wrote me an email later that day explaining that he had come to the location and was told by the security guard that no interviews were being conducted for LAMP that day. LAMP is a technology training program that we had mentioned would give someone an advantage in our consideration process, which this individual claims to have been through. LAMP is not the name of our company. Not the brightest bulb on the tree.

There were lots of others who gave me some good laughs through their resumes. Like the one whose technical qualifications for considering themselves a programmer was “I know how to use MS Office, including PowerPoint.” I hope our expectations are a bit more than that.

Another guy mentioned that he knows how to install printers on Windows based systems. Very proud of you, but not what we are looking for.

All in all, a very interesting exercise in the hiring process.