Hacker News Reader

From my experience with interviewing in SF, most companies don't have a Human Resources department. You're mostly dealing with people who are winging it.

The timing issues you described are rampant. In my opinion, that is because there is a tension between companies fearing that they will find no one to hire and trying to find the best candidate for their money.

The textbook way to hire is to publish an ad and set a closing date for weeks later when you will start considering candidates. You interview everyone in an orderly fashion and make your decision at the end of the process.

I think that some companies will argue that they can't wait for 2 weeks to collect resumes because the early applicants will get snatched up by another company. Though, in my opinion, I'd rather know how long I am waiting than to be subjected to delay tactics every few days.

> Set up a time to Skype call me, cancel hours before the call, send an email 2 days later saying the job was filled before my interview. Black listed

> Tell me on the phone interview that I will be called in for the face to face, send me an email 2 weeks later saying the job was filled. Black listed

I don't really see what's wrong with this. Consider this from the companies perspective...

They've got an interview scheduled but decide they've found their candidate. They cancel your interview out of curtosy to you.

They then wait for the candidate to accept the offer and then tell you that the job was filled.

That sounds like the company was actually acting like a good citizen here.

What's your major beef with this?

See my comment below to someone who also wondered what the problem was.

  | Tell me it will be a week and it takes two? Red Flag.

The thing that frustrated me the most about dealing with DeviantArt's interview process. No specific timelines, and 'soon' could mean anything from a couple of days to 3-4 weeks (with no response / contact).

All are fair except the Skype one, which actually sounds pretty straightforward:

- communication was frictionless (Skype)

- they found someone worth serious consideration

- they were courteous to cancel in advance with some notice (plus no travel time wasted)

- they followed up by confirming they made their choice.

They told me if I passed the first interview, I had, I would be interviewing with 5-8 people and it would take about 3 weeks.

They set up my expectation and didn't live up to their end of the bargin.

Are your "black lists" based on poor communication, or making an offer to another candidate while they haven't interviewed you yet?

If an interviewee said they'd do something, and then didn't do it, it would be regarded as an integrity problem.

So, you'd regard a candidate as lacking integrity if you scheduled an interview with them, but they then cancelled because they'd accepted another offer first?

Yes I would and this happened when I was on the other side. The candidate reached out after 2 weeks and asked if the job was still open and that he had made a mistake. The job was filled.

So, knowing that he was going to take another job, you'd rather he still came to your interview and used up hours of your employees' time? To me, that's the action that would lack integrity.

Your example of the guy who made a mistake is certainly a bummer for him, but presumably he didn't know he was making a mistake when he turned you down. And that's got to be a very small fraction of hiring situations.

I think the integrity test came when he made up his mind and accepted an offer before the interview. If I knew he had already accepted the other position then it would be a waste of time.

The problem wasn't that he cancelled the interview, it was that he made up his mind before a scheduled interview with me.

The difference between a Red Flag and a Black List, is that a Red Flag I might forgive given circumstances. A Black List means I'll never apply again, and often call or email to remove my resume from their database.

That didn't actually answer my question, which was about what the reason for that being a "black list" offense was.

To me it showed a more serious issue within the company. Integrity isn't a part time thing, you have it or you don't.

That still fails to answer my either/or question...