We have been aggressively hiring sales persons at work. We have used a recruiter out of Los Angeles called CyberCoders to build our sales team. They specialize in engineering talent, but our man Vahid has been very effective with inside sales (sales engineers) talent. In fact, our entire sales team is built from Vahid’s referrals. By the way, the rates are very reasonable. I recommend Vahid highly.
In the interest of readers who too are hiring we’ve begun employing OMNIA personality testing for candidates that make it through initial interviewing. It’s too soon to tell how successful this is, but it preliminary results are very positive.
At this point you might be wondering about the relevance of this blog post’s title. Well as mentioned, Vahid at CyberCoders typically sends us well qualified candidates, but this week a whacko managed to slip by his usually effective screening. In Vahid’s defense, the guy looked good on paper. A US Army veteran (++) that served in the first gulf war. He made Sergeant quickly (++). He’s educated (++). However, he was weak on relevant work experience and most of his experience was short term or contractor (–).
The candidate arrived for the interview appropriately dressed. He spoke articulately enough and initially Rion thought he might make a decent candidate, but he had some concerns. Nonetheless, Rion brought me in as he always does with candidates that make round two of interviewing. The interview deteriorated rapidly. The candidate exhibited disturbingly poor listening skills. It became clear he was less entrepreneurial and more of a temporary employee pedigree. Finally, he became awkward and a even a tad manic near the end of the interview. It was a clear pass.
Rion notified the candidate the next day we were passing and wished him luck. About 12 hours later, shortly after 2 AM, Rion and I received the following email:
I found out that I was not selected. I’d hoped against hope that I would be, but in the nearly 15 minutes Rion left me sitting in the receptionist area, LATE for our interview, I knew I wouldn’t be chosen.
During that period, I had an opportunity to observe your personnel. From what I saw, they are 100% white guys, 20-to-30 years old, who wear shorts and flip-flops to work. As soon as I saw that, I KNEW I wouldn’t be hired. I’m a black guy in my late 30′s. As qualified as I am, I knew you wouldn’t feel I’m a fit for your culture of 20-something white boys who wear shorts and flip-flops to work. Let’s be real; you know it and I know it.
I did my best during the interview to persuade you that I’m the PRACTICAL, most experienced choice, but clearly your culture won out.
I have no idea who you hired, but I’d bet $1000.00 you hired a 20-something white boy, FAR less experienced than me, who would LOVE to wear flip-flops to work.
It’s sometimes very difficult to hold my tongue, and I’m trying not to say, “FUCK YOU, racist bastards” or “I don’t know what that smell is in that total dump of an office, but whole place smells like feet”. It’s difficult to restrain myself, but I’m able to hold my tongue in these matters and would NEVER say things like, “Weird, ugly kike who BADLY needs a haircut!!!”
Wow. Good thing he “held his tongue”. As Steve pointed out, he could have just ended the quoted sentences with a ‘?’ and it would pass the FoxNews slander test. Also, I guess he is not fond of Iraqi food. We had Shwarmas, hummus, etc… catered that day. Flashbacks?
In all seriousness, my first reaction was to feel sorry for the guy. Times are tough right now. It sucks for a lot of people. Obviously, it’s not a happy time for this dude. I’ll be honest, for a fleeting moment I got little defensive and pissed off. I thought: fuck you man, I spent four years of my life busting my ass starting two non-profits and helping two other non-profits that were all tasked with serving under-served minority communities. Again this was fleeting.
As I am often want to do, I made light of the of the email with humor and imagined myself sending the following email with the subject: “you had me at ‘fuck you’”
Thanks for your candid and insightful email. Your statements about us being racist flip-flop wearing white boys, ugly, weird, and kikes in need of haircuts really opened our eyes. Will you come back for another interview? You had me at ‘fuck you’. I think we’ve made a grave mistake.
I can tell you this email did make me reflect on the diversity of my work place. We employ 6 women (21% of our team), 1.5 Jews, 1.5 Latinos, 1 Indian (south-Asian), 1 Asian, 1 French national, 1 German national, 1 German that was recently naturalized an American citizen, 1 UK that was recently naturalized an American citizen, 1 Luxembourg national, 2 Russian nationals (living in Russia), 1 six foot rabbit, and the remainder are run of the mill American “white boys” in flip-flops. Living in San Diego it is difficult to be more diverse.
Finally, I promptly emailed Rion and asked him to draw up an offer letter for the fellow. Just kidding. 
publicizing this insightful and strangely humorous interview, though entertaining, probably isn't the best step for a CEO with today's HR culture.
To be fair Aaron, he could be right about the haircut.
I've never met .5 of a person ("1.5 Jews, 1.5 Latinos"). Isn't it messy having 1/2 a person in the office? Think of all those bloody stumps. Hope you have a good cleaning crew…
Seriously, though, the guy's a tool. And he's in sales? Can you imagine what he might have said to any of your potential customers if they turned him down? Yikes!
I feel as though you should give him some credit for skillfully telling you to f*ck off, without actually saying that.
…and Dude…Kike is not the proper nomenclature.
Hey now, leave the flip flops out of it!
CyberCoders may do a good job at sending in qualified individuals but they obviously fail at letting candidates know about the environments they are applying to. I saw the guy show up in his suite and thought 'aw poor guy got dressed up no one must have explained our environment to him'. He did seem extremely uncomfortable waiting in the lobby for his interview.
If respect of individualism is a bad culture to this candidate that's very sad to me. It is unfortunate that he had to wait for his interview but I think we've all had to wait for interviews. Brian and I had interviews that lasted a couple months for example.
Before MindTouch I never worked at an office where i was allowed to be myself and focus on work. I've never been more refreshed to work in my life.
I fine HR people really interesting and the fact that you enjoyed the email response from the potential even confirms my deepest fears. Part of themess this country is in, is because of the new power HR people have. They started out as a group to help bring new people aboard and now they have the power to change peoples lives, but employees and potentials. We built this country on instints, not a personality test, graded by BA degrees with 1 week of training, as does the Omnia group employs.
I have seen disasters with hires, who “scored off the chart” with Omni. It really is a shame that is what we are going to. And then to make fun of someone who felt it was a bit racist, tells me alot about your personality too and I dont need a test to know this. Sure based on the email, I am sure he probably was not a good fit, but it is all in the presentation. As a HR person, I love the fact, I will give them a verbal account of why I did not choose them and how they can improve for the next interview. I dont hide behind a email, they cannot respond to, as so many HR depts do, for fear of what they might get inthe email. I do take a personal interest in hiring. I will tell you, I use a personality test here at this fortune 500 company and listen to it, less then 10% of the time. My dept is the most successful and productive in the company and the powers to be, believe it is because of the test. If they only knew……
Seems like I am late to the party and I certainly recall this story. Geez…I just had a guy just last week email a death threat and call me a f***ing indian and tell me he was gonna drag me and Obama in to a ditch and well…kill me…just for offering him an opportunity to work.
I am not Indian…not a big thing, but come on at least hit me with something that's more accurate.
But these are crazy times. Test scores and screenings, interviews (phone and in person) don't always give you a clear picture.
No one can foresee the future (except in FlashForward) but the other what 4-5 people that we placed with the Mindtouch Sales and Engineering teams…not to bad.
Now, lets get back to business.
BTW – Aaron, thanks for the recommendation.
Respectfully,
Vahid Behzadi
vahid@cybercoders.com
http://vahidbehzadi.wordpress.com
http://www.twitter.com/vbehzadi
http://www.linkedin.com/in/behzadi
Wow! Sorry to hear of your latest crazy.
I wasn't sure if he meant me or Rion. We both currently have relatively short hair currently. He might have just left had my hair been it's usual length.
This is one of those posts that I wasn't sure if I should post. Obviously this blog is my personal blog and represents no opinions other than my own. Clearly, I'm very open about my thoughts and feelings here. And, of course, the post doesn't mention the guy's name. Moreover, I don't believe there is anything written here that could be misconstrued as mean spirited or an HR violation.
Nonetheless, I asked myself: "what is the purpose of posting this? And if the only purpose is to be amusing then I won't publish it." In the end went ahead and published the post because I think it does provide value to persons hiring; specifically, CyberCoders has been great and OMNIA seems to be a valuable tool in hiring. Lastly, I am proud of the diversity we've managed to build into our team even though we are in a disproportionately white region of the United States. In fact, it was my reflection on our diversity that was the deciding factor in me publishing this.
We need more halves to make a whole.
It's interesting to note "Kike" likely comes from Kikel, the Yiddish word for circle, which is what many of the illiterate Eastern European Jews used to sign their names instead of an X, which they thought was a cross, when immigrating to the United States. At least, this is what I've read before. Wikipedia has alternative etymologies though: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kike
Wow, this is nice to read. Thanks for sharing.
As for suits at interviews, if you're applying for a sales or marketing position you've got to arrive well dressed. Suits are not necessary, but you definitely need to look put together. Obviously this is less important if you're applying for position within the product team. To be clear, wearing a suit has no bearing on your success, or lack thereof, in an interview at MindTouch. People should wear whatever they feel comfortable and most confident in when they interview. For most people in the "front of the house" this is a suit.
What this guy didn't realize was that he was looking into the developer pit from where he sat. He couldn't see the "front of the house" (sales room). Not that the sales team is all dressed up, but they do tend to wear shoes and shirts with buttons.
I guess he didn't see any of our skateboards.