
Congratulations Graduate – Why I Will Never Hire You - z0a
http://www.slideshare.net/markrotoole/congratulations-graduate-eleven-reasons-why-i-will-never-hire-you
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notJim
I don't disagree with _all_ of the advice in this, but the incredibly self-
entitled tone it takes is absolutely disgusting to me. Every slide it's like
he's sneering down at you (the candidate), demanding you bow down before him,
tell him all the right lies [1], and devote your life and every fiber of your
person to pleasing him in just the right ways during and after the interview.

Candidates are real people with emotions and a right to dignity. Some of them
are going to rock, some are going to be meh, and some will be terrible, but
they all deserve a much greater degree of respect than this asshole is giving
them. Interviewing, and advice for interviews should be about giving the
candidate every opportunity to impress you, not tearing them down and
demanding they prove their worth to you.

The saddest part is that due to today's job market for most people, people are
probably clamoring to work for this guy. Explains why he seems to feel like a
god.

[1]: Seriously dude, fucking _no one_ has wanted to work at your shitty-ass PR
and marketing firm their entire lives.

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acchow
I really love this scene from The West Wing where Charlie is interviewing for
a job at the White House:

SAM Charlie, are you gonna come to work early, stay late, do your job
efficiently and discretely?

CHARLIE As I was saying to Mr. Lyman--

SAM Thank you. What more do you need to know?

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rubiquity
I can only imagine the author of this must work for a marketing agency,
because degrading people for ceremonious reasons (like looking away when
shaking hands or writing a thank you note) is quite common at such places.

While I'm not a new grad, nor will I ever be one, I can appreciate that
dealing with a swarm of new graduate applications can probably be tiring. But
guess what? You're hiring and you've chosen to go to that pool of talent.
You're better off keeping your mouth shut than offering up a bunch of
condescending "tips."

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Turing_Machine
Yeah, it's a PR agency.

~~~
theandrewbailey
That makes sense. I'm pretty sure having/claiming social media expertise is
irrelevant to most, if not all, programer candidates.

~~~
Spongeroberto
In my (limited) experience, any company that is so obsessed with social tends
to be filled with idiots.

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Turing_Machine
Reasons I Will Never Hire Your Company To Do PR:

1) I can make ugly Powerpoint presentations full of bad clipart myself.
Thanks, though.

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hacknat
A lot of this is really good advice, but I don't like the presumed self-
aggrandizing attitude behind it. Even if it is affected, it's snotty.

 _Most_ recent college graduates are scared, anything we can do to make the
world a less scary place for them is a classy move, in my opinion.

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sukuriant
So, two thoughts:

1) this is the kind of slideshow that works effectively online and without
vocals. All the words are on the slideshow in the first place.

2) So many of those slides were unnecessarily hard to read, and it would have
been much better as a regular article with a bulleted list. Those font choices
and that trendy style would seem more at home animated in a kinetic typography
setting.

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homulilly
Obnoxious design aside, I do think this is mostly good advice and that fact is
something everyone should find worrying.

A lot of the qualities listed are nice to have, but are probably unrelated to
what a candidate will actually be doing. Some of the things in this list might
even prioritize bad candidates. "Convince me you've wanted to work here your
whole life?" Unless you're Apple or Google, no one has wanted to work at your
company for even a few months and most of them probably hadn't even heard of
you until stumbling across your website or job board posting. What you are
asking is for candidates to lie to you. Is that really what makes a good
employee? I doubt it.

I think practices like these are way so many companies are filled to the brim
with incompetent designers and engineers. If, for example, you're looking to
hire a software developer you should be way more concerned with the kind of
code they write than with the quality of their handshake. Both are nice to
have but only one is vital.

As a semi-recent graduate who has slightly more recently become employed, my
advice to new grads out there is to take the advice in this presentation, it's
pretty accurate. My advice to the person who made this slideshow along with
any other hiring managers who are currently nodding their heads in agreement:
Unless you're hiring car salesmen you need to seriously re-evaluate your
practices because you are terrible at your job.

~~~
Turing_Machine
"What you are asking is for candidates to lie to you. Is that really what
makes a good employee? I doubt it."

This is a PR firm, so yeah, that's probably exactly what they're looking for.

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j2kun
> Make it relevant, concise, and focused.

Like this bloated, scattered, impossible to read slideshow?

~~~
tdicola
84 pages to cover 11 points, insane.

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savvyraccoon
Whoever did the graphics on this crappy presentation out to be fired right
now, and some bright young person hired off the street to replace them.

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hiddentao
One of the nice things about hiring for any software development team that
develops open source projects is that you can often find great hires amongst
the community of developers who are already contributing code and fixes and
such to your projects. This way you already know the candidate is passionate
about the work and thus don't need or expect them to lie to you about "wanting
to work there their whole life".

This got me thinking...why don't more companies do this? if you run a design
or PR firm surely there are some internal experimental/lab projects you could
open up for outside contributors to join in with. I know that many companies
already do this. But I'm wondering whether this sort of software-world
inspired collaboration could be made more prevalent.

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ZoF
I didn't know a thank you card after an interview was considered a mandatory
thing. Is that true?

~~~
notJim
I personally find it slightly awkward/annoying. Wouldn't hold it against
someone, but would prefer they didn't send it.

~~~
ZoF
Despite people's advice to the contrary I tend to agree. I doubt I will ever
send a thank you note unless it is somehow warranted.

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joesmo
Smug bullshit like this that focuses on things that truly aren't important is
killing our economy. I'd rather take someone smart who has "broken" some or
even all of these rules than someone who knows how to follow these rules and
couldn't complete a simple task. These are, after all, recent college
graduates. Yes, it's terrible that they don't have the interview experience
that they've never had a chance to accrue. Give me a fucking break. No wonder
our economy has turned to shit.

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johnwalker
>> [I won't hire you because] You don't have a LinkedIn.

I don't think we would get along.

~~~
kybernetikos
Indeed. Thank goodness I am not in a situation where I have to worry about
nonsense like this.

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zoidb
One piece of feedback unrelated to the content, visually red text on a white
background is very difficult for some people to read..

