what’s the best time to send rejection letters? by Alison Green on April 27, 2022 A reader writes: Is there a standard for when to send out rejection letters? I deal with a lot of hiring in my job and I usually know as soon as I review a resume or hold an interview whether or I’m going to reject someone, but I have always figured that people don’t want […] Read the full article →
job candidate was distracted by her baby throughout our interview by Alison Green on March 15, 2022 A reader writes: I’m a manager for a nonprofit and I was thinking about an interview situation that happened late last year. Last year we were looking to hire someone who can conduct telehealth meetings with families who just had a baby as a part of a federal program. I was calling applicants over the […] Read the full article →
why is this interview question stumping our candidates? by Alison Green on February 16, 2022 A reader writes: I’m wondering why a particular interview question that we ask our candidates is so fraught. Something we commonly ask candidates at the very end of our process is quite simple but is for some reason astonishingly difficult and unexpectedly challenging for a lot of candidates. It is just this: “Is there anything […] Read the full article →
the new hire who showed up is not the same person we interviewed by Alison Green on January 31, 2022 A reader writes: This is a situation currently unfolding at my husband’s office so I’m a very amused bystander and thought I’d get your opinion on this craziness. My husband works in IT and is on the leadership team at a midsized private company. He was part of a panel that recently interviewed a number […] Read the full article →
why aren’t the companies “desperate” for workers doing the one thing that would attract them? by Alison Green on January 24, 2022 If you believe reports from employers, they’re desperate to find good employees but can’t lure them at any price. Dig deeper, though, and it turns out that many companies are still operating on a model of underpaying and overworking at a time when workers have much better options. At Slate today, I wrote about employers that […] Read the full article →
how do I reject a difficult internal applicant? by Alison Green on December 13, 2021 A reader writes: I am building up a new team and struggling with how to handle an internal applicant. The job I’m hiring for is fairly customer-facing and requires mostly independent work. One internal applicant who’s currently on another team, Marion, is a train wreck. She is barely competent in the fundamentals of our work. […] Read the full article →
should employers pay candidates for their time in the interview process? by Alison Green on November 23, 2021 A reader writes: I just saw a job ad which includes: “We didn’t want to take our applicants’ time for granted, even though we are a small publicly supported organization. Because of this, we decided to pay each our five finalists $500 to proceed with the rest of the interview. While $500 is not a […] Read the full article →
a candidate told a random lie and doubled-down when we asked about it by Alison Green on November 18, 2021 A reader writes: We recently interviewed a very strong candidate in a role we’d like to fill asap. His interview went very well, and at the end he mentioned that it was his first ever Zoom interview. He told us that he had been nervous about the format, but the fact that we were so […] Read the full article →
is there any point in “courtesy interviews”? by Alison Green on November 10, 2021 A reader writes: What is your opinion on “courtesy interviews”? Specifically, interviews for the sake of appeasing other stakeholders when you have no interest in the candidate? Several of my more senior colleagues have been emailing me about applicants they are referring and encouraging me to interview them. After looking at their applications (and comparing […] Read the full article →
employers shouldn’t use video for short first-round interviews by Alison Green on November 9, 2021 A reader writes: I wanted to share an interview experience I had yesterday, which connects to a suggestion or request I have for hiring managers. One of the most annoying things about the way Covid has changed the workforce, at least to me, is the fact that now hiring managers seem to want to skip […] Read the full article →