

I was not hired because I speak slowly. - supervillain

I was interviewed 2 days ago for a software engineer position and though I'm very confident of my technical skills, the main reason I was rejected is that I speak slow.<p>As far as I know, I was speaking at a reasonable pace, I was keen at answering all the questions and I elaborate my answers further so that I can express my message clearly. I wasn't trying to answer the questions without even thinking about it so I was careful and keen.<p>How do you find the interviewer's decision? even if I speak slowly do you think that it is justified for a company to reject their candidate based on how fast one can speak?
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tptacek
Interviews suck. You could get turned down for speaking too fast, too!

Anyone who thinks they're making sane hiring decisions based on conventional
job interviews with developers is deluding themselves.

From just the circumstances you've described, obviously they made a dumb
decision. They're allowed to make dumb decisions, though, unless your slow
speech is related to a disability.

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pfedor
_Anyone who thinks they're making sane hiring decisions based on conventional
job interviews with developers is deluding themselves._

So for example Google, Facebook, Microsoft, are all deluding themselves? Would
they be not any worse off if they replaced interviews with say rolling dice?

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tptacek
Yes. That's what I'm saying.

I'm _not_ saying that (eg) Google has a better option than conventional
interviews; Google has unique hiring problems. That doesn't make the interview
system they use better. (Also, I don't have great intel on how Google
interviews work; nothing better than you have. Maybe they've solved this
problem in other ways... though, I'm skeptical.)

Startups, though, have no excuse.

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pfedor
So do you believe that if you take a random sample of (eg) Google engineers,
and a random sample of all software engineers, there will be no difference in
ability between the two groups? Or do you think there would be a difference
but attributable to something else than their hiring practices?

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tptacek
I think conventional job interviews do allow you to target a broad range of
competence, with a large margin of error, so if you were to compare Google
employees to, say, State Farm line-of-business .NET application developers,
sure, the Google engineers would outperform.

It's an interesting question whether a random sampling of Google engineers
would outperform a random sampling of tech industry product developers from
other companies. I don't know.

The bigger is, within the broad set of candidates that an interview process
selects for, the conventional job interview is arbitrary bordering on
capricious; it's inhumane for no business benefit.

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groundCode
eh....companies say the darndest things.....I was rejected for a job a while
ago because I preferred VIM over Sublime Text during my pair coding interview.
Apparently, I didn't have the "right experience with their toolset". c'est la
vie. Sometimes they just need "a reason" to not hire you because they just
don't think you'd fit in.

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xauronx
It depends on how it came off. If it sounded like you were talking slowly as a
way of talking down to them, I probably wouldn't want to work with you either.
A lot of developers can come off as demeaning, and this can be compounded by
insecurity by the interviewers (if they think you're a better developer then
they'll be more sensitive to you being uppity).

Otherwise, it could just be that you seemed like you were too slow moving for
a fast paced environment. If I pop my head into your door and say "Hey, how do
you feel about XYZ?" (looking for a one or two word answer) and you take 10
minutes to answer, that's not ideal.

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27182818284
I'm sorry this happened, but I have an anecdote that might cheer you up. A
friend was flown out to Silicon Valley and put up in a hotel after completing
their programming challenges. He was rejected because of just how bad his
anti-social mannerisms were. Well that hurt him a lot, but a few months later,
he did find a job.

If your speech is the type of thing you can work on, work on it. If it is
something more medical that you can't control, think about mentioning it up
front. I'm sure you'll get a job in a month or so if your technical skills are
there. Don't sweat it, even if this seems is an utter kick in the gut.

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orangethirty
Interviews are the sole reason I started to do consulting. Guess what? Three
times the money, more flexibility, and less headaches.

~~~
onlyup
How did you get your first clients? Did that lead to more clients? What did
you start consulting?

~~~
orangethirty
Advertising on various internet forums (such as YC). These days, I offer my
complete marketing system to others. Shoot me an email if you want to learn
more. (:

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jgrahamc
The company told you that?

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supervillain
It was previously a New York based startup that is now fully based in
Singapore.

My english is fluent and compare to Singaporean english it was excellent,
considering that majority of their employees are Singaporeans, they might have
preferred Singlish speaking candidates.

