r/recruitinghell • u/Coach-Emmanuel • 4h ago

My coworker rejected a graduate for "not being technical enough." The role has zero technical requirements.

Saw a guy standing outside our building this morning, overdressed for the weather, on his phone. Security mentioned he'd just come from an interview. Asked him how it went, he said "not really" and gave this half laugh that wasn't really a laugh.

Later found out from my assistant that a coworker had interviewed him for a junior analyst opening and rejected him for not being "technical enough."

That role has zero technical requirements. It's literally listed as entry level with no coding or technical skill needed anywhere in the description.

Pulled his CV out of curiosity. Normal fresh grad resume. One internship. Nothing that would explain a rejection like that.

Asked the coworker what he meant by technical. Got a vague answer about wanting someone who could hit the ground running, which isn't the same thing at all.

Still bothers me a little. Not my department, not my call, but I keep thinking about that half laugh.

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574

u/Prepped-n-Ready 4h ago

Lol yeah then you find out a month later the candidate they hired is his cousin's new husband.

158

u/L44KSO 4h ago

You'd be surprised how often this happens. The stories I've heard from my friends, the stuff I've seen myself. We used agencies where the owners were good friends with the hiring manager, prices weren't negotiated, hires were waved through, etc. 

Or just statements like "interview this person, your opinion doesn't matter because the person is X,Y or Z."

And HR is supposed to be ethical according to it's own guidelines from their governing bodies.

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u/MadeinDaClouds 3h ago

Hey but DEI is the problem right?

/s

-22

u/TributeToStupidity 2h ago

Anything driving hiring decisions besides the qualifications of the candidate is a problem.

28

u/GoodishCoder 1h ago

Proper DEI programs specifically exist to ensure the qualifications of the candidate are the only consideration.

-20

u/TributeToStupidity 1h ago

And other lies we tell children. Empirical evidence has confirmed that isn’t the case. Race gender etc are not qualifications.

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u/GoodishCoder 1h ago

Race gender etc are not qualifications.

Which is exactly what proper DEI programs reinforce. When I say on the DEI review board 100% of what we did was check the unconscious bias of the hiring team and as a result the hiring teams became better at hiring. People who have never been involved with anything DEI related always claim it's a quota system but in my experience that hasn't been the case.

After the first year we saw a huge decrease in things from the hiring teams like "They remind me a lot of myself when I was younger", "He seemed like a natural born leader", "I think they will have a hard time understanding technology", etc. Suddenly the hiring teams were bringing objective reasons to explain why one candidate should be hired over the others.

-3

u/Tyr--07 1h ago

This going to be one of those things where it's never worked correctly, "But it just hasn't been done properly or it would totally work!" things?

15

u/GoodishCoder 1h ago

It has been done properly and worked correctly though. People just convinced themselves if a person of color or female got a job over them it was a DEI thing.

•

u/lelakat 53m ago

Yeah. People would rather blame DEI for not getting the job rather than the fact they were underqualified in comparison. It protects their ego and makes them feel better.

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u/Tyr--07 13m ago

That's the problem is that people can't tell if it was done proplerly, so they don't know if this was one of the situations where the person is truly competent and a qualified at x job, or was hired to fill a quota. Please go ahead and provide sources where you have confirmed it is done properly.

A certain BC insurance company has been known in their DEI meetings that if 64% (roughly, it was awhile ago) was female in management that's fine, nothing to do there, but in this other department it's only 46% female in charge so they had to work on.

Definitely not DEI done properly. Definitely just a bid for power and control for those people involved.

You introduced the problem when you introduced DEI.

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u/TributeToStupidity 1h ago

That’s a cool story, but there’s a lot of empirical evidence on this subject and every study on the effects of dei on outcomes has concluded it does nothing to improve results. If it actually helped things companies would love it. Instead they’ve virtually universally abandoned it at this point. Empirical evidence > anecdotal evidence from anonymous Redditors.

6

u/GoodishCoder 1h ago

If you've never done anything with DEI just say that. Companies dropped DEI because it became political and people wrongly believed if a woman or person of color was hired instead of a white man, it was a DEI hire.

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u/TributeToStupidity 50m ago

I have worked with dei.

If you don’t have empirical support for dei just say that.

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u/IPv6forDogecoin 56m ago

Doing DEI well is a huuuuge pain in the ass. It's a lot of work and the size of the impact isn't that big.

It has a lot of benefits, but a lot of companies doing it aggressively poorly by implement quotas or different criteria for minorities.

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u/Acetius 51m ago

Chief does a lot of talking about empirical evidence, but very little showing of it. It's all anecdata until you have citations.

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u/MadeinDaClouds 50m ago

What studies? Your ignorance is crazy. There are hella companies that are still racists. No shit they will find ways to make DEI look bad. Our current president didn’t even want black people in his hotels.

How do people not understand it’s simply about fair hiring practices.

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u/curiousitykills_ 43m ago

With such an overwhelming amount of empirical evidence, surely you can provide us the wealth of peer reviewed publications on the matter, no?

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u/otherguy--- 38m ago

"It does nothing to improve results"

Really not true, depending on the company, or what anecdotes you decide fit a narrative.

For example, "it does nothing to improve results..." except for the people and families that never would have got an interview, but in fact got a job that they were qualified for, to support their family.

Sorry if that is not something a company considers a win. But it objectively is a win.

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u/NaughtAught 52m ago

You are the child in this case. And you are lying to yourself.

-35

u/Prepped-n-Ready 3h ago

DEI is definitely being used to steamroll COI controls. Same with ESG/Climate initiatives. There's a reason all these companies dropped DEI the second they could. It was being used to funnel billions into fraud. And minority businesses suffer reputation loss as a result.

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u/JaeDJ 3h ago

You are the definition of delusional. Agreeing with someone for describing nepotism as the baseline while claiming DEI was an issue. WOW I genuinely fear for America’s future with you nutjobs. 

-7

u/Prepped-n-Ready 2h ago

Im not delusional. I joined the meetings a top 10 bank by AUM and am relaying you the decision to drop DEI from both supplier and client portfolios for this reason.

3

u/MadeinDaClouds 1h ago

Lmao. You believe everything that’s said at these meetings? Do you believe everything Trump, the president of the most powerful country says?

People will say shit and skew information to justify their beliefs and not facts. This is typical in the corporate world.

Kristi Noem sent 220m to a bs company(friends/family) for a fucking ad

Trump wasted millions on the pool in the same way. That’s just 2 quick examples. Nepotism shits on DEI in terms of fraud and waste on every level.

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u/L44KSO 3h ago

Simply not true. But I guess you live in your little bubble rather than reality.

-9

u/Prepped-n-Ready 2h ago

I joined the meetings a top 10 bank by AUM when I worked there and am relaying you the decision to drop DEI from both supplier and client portfolios for this reason.

-21

u/Separate_Welder_682 3h ago

yes? why would one bad thing mean another bad thing isn’t a problem? especially when it has or had institutional backing while the former thing didn’t and doesn’t?

12

u/GoodishCoder 1h ago

There's a huge misunderstanding about what DEI is. When I sat on the DEI panel at my last job it was 100% about making sure the most qualified candidate got the offer by checking unconscious bias.

12

u/Catlenfell 2h ago

I had this happen. I was let go from a job and a couple months later I talked to my former boss and I learned that he was forced to hire the VP's nephew who just graduated from college to replace me. It's fine. I was depressed but then I got the job that I'm in today.

7

u/Prepped-n-Ready 3h ago

Lol yeah I was thinking of an example that happened to me with a supplier bid. Like oh what a coincidence, you have the same last name as one of the Sales VPs. How did you hear about the bid?

6

u/L44KSO 3h ago

Yeah, once you pay attention to it... frustrating.

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u/ColonelTime 41m ago

HR only exists to protect the company.

18

u/cooking_question 3h ago

I think a big investigation needs to be launched in jobs for visa workers giving kickbacks to someone in the hiring company. 

3

u/MetroSimulator 3h ago

My exact thoughts

3

u/_ArsenioBillingham_ 3h ago

Same at it ever was

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u/TGerrinson 17m ago

Yup. I got refused an interview by a general manager because my six years of experience wasn’t “enough” to stock grocery shelves in his store.

He then hired his 18 year old nephew for the job, a kid with zero experience. Kid proceeded to run up $45k in damages goods in a month because he liked cutting things with his utility knife. Like every bag of dog food he stocked one night was sliced open so they spilled when picked up. Dude thought it was hilarious. Corporate did not.

145

u/sundials22 4h ago

I'm having a hard time understanding how people who recruit think. We all went to school and studied hard, did more things on the side, internships and volunteering, but nothing seems to be good enough. Are they operating on ego, a power high, or just boredom? Not to mention the generic rejection template emails from someone who's supposedly been hired but is unable to fill in the blanks in the template. wthh

73

u/L44KSO 4h ago

It's often the problem that the person hiring is being held accountable for the person they hired. So they rather hire safe bets that don't fuck things up so they don't get shit from above. 

Companies don't actually want to train people, they want people who make money, profit, gains, whatever. Everything that isn't bottomline and shareholder dollars is a waste of money and resources. This is capitalism in it's purest and ugliest form. 

The situation we are in, is why we needed unions, works councils, and governments to be on the side of the worker. This is sadly our own making in the end. 

23

u/VoyeurBarelyKnowEr 3h ago

They don't think. They don't have any actually useful skills or talent which is why they became recruiters in the first place. Reminds me of a story I saw on IG this morning from someone who worked in IT who received an order from HR to install spying software on every employee's work device and start sending monthly reports with emails sent, productivity scores, etc. and a top 10 ranking of the least productive employees. The very first month they sent the report, 7 of those top 10 were in HR. They declined to fudge the numbers after HR asked them to do so citing potential compliance issues and then were asked to uninstall the software because it "violated our culture of trust." I recognize that it could all be made up, but the fact that my own experiences with every HR department I've ever encountered made it so believable is telling.

3

u/Web-splorer 2h ago

We all didn’t go to school for the same thing.
Junior analyst may be entry level but they role may still requiere someone that can write in SQL which is a typical standard for most analysts. They may be missing key tools that you dont learn as you go.

1

u/sundials22 2h ago

I was making more of a general statement. I’m not in even tech but noticed a common thread. 

42

u/Web-splorer 4h ago

I’ve never heard of any analyst role that doesn’t require some level of technical aptitude. How exactly are you doing any kind of analysis?

23

u/TeachRemarkable9120 4h ago

Yeah the OP here is kind of missing things. While you may not build technical things having a good understanding of the underlying tech is almost certainly required.

19

u/AnneTheQueene 3h ago

I feel like either this is ragebait or OP is actually the candidate.

If it's not their department then it's not their business. The hiring manager knows what they're looking for and they're gonna screen for that.

Why is OP pulling the CV of people who aren't their candidate? How do they even find that? Why are they so nosy?

If my counterpart is hiring, I sometimes get copied by mistake by recruiting, but if I tried to access any info in the system, I would get an access denied message because it's not my req.

Unless, of course, they work at some Mom and Pop outfit that just leaves CVs in a tray on the desk.

OP is way too nosy to be a manager of anything, and if they truly are a manager, then they would already know this stuff and stay out of other departments' business.

I call ragebait.

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u/_Zso MAMAA Global TA 44m ago

3 month old account with over 100k karma

It's a farming bot, posting engagement bait.

3

u/tangoliber 3h ago

I feel that some technical know-how is an asset in almost every role: Accounting, Purchasing, Sales, etc. Personally, I prefer that accountants have basic coding skills so that they can automate busywork for themselves. I think that is usually the difference between someone who can create their own tools and processes as needed and "hit the ground running", versus someone who needs a lot of guidance.

27

u/za72 4h ago

A bit of power goes over peoples head I guess

30

u/HFT_Bear 3h ago

This is fan fiction. A security guard, secretary, and coworker all know about a interview, and all make small talk to the op? The op pulled a resume for a department he's not in? Getting a straight answer from a coworker on an interview that isn't moving forward? Poetically ending the post my reminiscing on a quote?

This didn't happen.

6

u/BlackEngineEarings 1h ago

While what you're saying is likely, based on the lack of OP's replies in the comments alone, where I work the security guard and admin assistant would absolutely know someone was there specifically to interview and with who, and the coworker was the one interviewing, not just an unaffiliated coworker.

13

u/unskippable-ad 3h ago

Sounds like a bad job description for an analyst role.

“No technical experience necessary” for analyst means you don’t need Rust, deep learning experience or specific experience with whatever in house fuckery is being used. You do need python or Julia, and tableau or PBI. That’s the price of entry = ‘not technical’

5

u/4321999 2h ago

Could be as simple as them not liking his look. Of course, they'd never admit it.

3

u/The-10ft-line 1h ago

how many times are you gonna post this

3

u/Ballistic_86 1h ago

Finding someone who can hit the ground running means you want to hire someone with experience. That means it is not entry level.

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u/lifesabeach_ 33m ago

Got rejected for a Knowledge Management role for not being able to answer a code debugging question, they even said so in the rejection mail. QC guy was smug as hell during the call.

The company (Komoot) shortly after got bought up by an aggressive investor (Bending Spoons) and let go most of their staff. I did get some satisfaction looking that  guy up on LinkedIn and seeing him lament his fate of being let go.

7

u/proWww 4h ago

just another disgusting example of ageism

2

u/Ok-Energy-9785 3h ago

That means someone else was more qualified for the job or they didn't like him

1

u/Equal_Veterinarian22 2h ago

Maybe he was just a fucking idiot. There's a reason we interview people rather than just hiring them on the back of their CVs.

1

u/BrevardBlitz 1h ago

" someone who could hit the ground running" is what every company wanted which is why they have entry level as minimum 3 years

1

u/Patient_Head_2760 4h ago

you mea like data analyst or what is the role? Like sure entry level whatever, but you can't just fall out of the trees without knowing Python or power bi or something and be like "hey yeah i will learn on the go".

Like there are countless business students who already know these things from university, and software engineers who are changing roles.

Its like going to applying for a professional dance group without ever knowing how to dance

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u/EducationPlus505 3h ago

I mean sure, but then I feel like those skills should be in the job description. You could say that those could be givens, which is why they weren’t in the announcement. But then why did he get selected for an interview?

1

u/southpawflipper 3h ago

It’s just an excuse to reject someone on more legit sounding grounds. I’m fairly certain the skill requirement inflation is entirely for this purpose: to make it easy to reject someone.

0

u/Dazmorg 3h ago

now this sort of story is what I joined this sub for.

-1

u/karma_is_a_spook 3h ago

Report your coworker to ICE

-1

u/More_Effect_7880 3h ago

Oh God. I hope you sleep okay, and don't wake up screaming on a pool of sweat, thinking about that half laugh.

I think you need the Samaritans.