> We found it and needless to say, he was not hired.
I guess it's good to know that Hootsuite considers consuming alcohol during non-working hours - while attending a conference intended to improve one's social media skills - to be a firing offense. They should probably include that in their job ads to make sure "bad" candidates don't apply.
They didn't fire him. They just didn't hire him. Tweeting that you're drunk going into the interview says a few things: you don't take it seriously, you aren't preparing as best you could, and possibly that you're driving drunk to get to the interview.
While I agree with you, the article mentioned it was a phone interview, so hopefully he wouldn't be driving drunk. I suppose he could be driving drunk while talking on the phone, which would explain some of the people I see on my morning commute.
It stops being "during non-working hours" if you're drunk when you roll into the office. I personally don't care what you drink and how much, but you should not be intoxicated when you walk through the door.
The tweet wasn't "I got so drunk last night, yo!" it's "I'm going into this thing drunk".
I think getting drunk prior to going for an interview is an obvious no-hire. It shows piss poor judgement.
On the other hand, if you're looking to work at an employer that doesn't mind how much alcohol is in your bloodstream while at the office, it might be a good way to filter out places you don't want to work at.
What if the person in fact has amazing judgment and there were circumstances you weren't aware of and that e.g. there was good reason for him to get drunk at that conference (networking, other opportunities, etc.)? Would you be ready to admit your deductive reasoning ability is seriously flawed?
I love how everything is so black and white with some people. If he performed just fine on the phone interview, why should you give a flying fuck? No really, please answer that. And it doesn't show "poor judgement" if there were no adverse consequences.
>Either don't schedule a phone interview
Perhaps he didn't have the option.
>or don't drink at the event.
As others have said, networking opportunities may have presented themselves. Who are you to judge his situation with absolutely no information? Judge him on how well he conducted the phone interview. That's all that matters at this stage.
What I see are people who are obsessed with irrelevant information when it comes to hiring. Its modern-day tea-leave-reading and it has no place in what should be a rational business decision.
I've seen a lot of people say they get nervous and freeze up in an interview, performing far less well than they do on a job. Perhaps for some people this also applies to phone interviews, and perhaps a moderate amount of alcohol might help them avoid freezing up.
To some extent I'm playing devil's advocate, but you did ask for possible circumstances. I suppose in the employer's shoes I'd pretend I hadn't read the Twitter post and go ahead and carry out the interview. If he aces it, great. If he muffs it, I wouldn't make allowances for him being drunk, because he would have demonstrated showing up drunk was lousy judgment on his part.
I've seen a number of people over the years who would take smoke breaks nearly every hour of the day. That doesn't necessarily impair judgment, but it may have an impact on performance. In theory this is something on which you can crackdown, but it doesn't always happen.
Actually it significantly boosts my performance, which is why I do it the first place. (Obviously if you were hiring e.g. a surgeon, whose job requires several hours entirely without interruption, that would be a different story, but few IT jobs have that requirement.)
i've worked at and seen plenty of places where they drink beer at work. usually it starts around 3 or 4 though, not in the morning. this is both california and the east coast.
I guess it's good to know that Hootsuite considers consuming alcohol during non-working hours - while attending a conference intended to improve one's social media skills - to be a firing offense. They should probably include that in their job ads to make sure "bad" candidates don't apply.