Is recruitment these days really this crap ? WTF

TelkomUseless

TelkomUseless

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Ok .. long story short.

I have been developing for 13 years+. I started with GWBasic days :).. and finished my N Dip IT 10 years ago. I have been working/developing since then. Net experience 7-8 years +.. and the usual other crap.

So I went for an interview this week.

First a technical test (2hours) . Passed.
2nd Interview techincal test #2 (more hardcore, 2 hours) .
Passed , they are happy. BUT .. I have to pass the final personality test (WTF). Another 3 hour test.

You got to be kidding me. That is almost 7 hours for 1 job? What happend to 3 month probation period? And this is for 12 month contract position, not even perm. I'm seriously peeved, because they said if you go perm, then you have to do 3hour personality test. Now.. different story.

And this is not the first time.

Last year happend the same thing, going to be retrenched (or writing was on the wall) after 4.5 years at company. First telephonic interview. Then a technical test 2 hours on the web. Passed. Then I had to do the final interview, and guess what.. another test with them sitting there .. (While talking to the guy, I realised they were looking more for DBA/SQL Dev than c#, which wasted my time)

Please tell me.. is this the "new" standard or wtf is going on?
 
Considering how damned hard it is to fire people nowadays, yes this level of caution is called for.
 
But what about probation periods etc? Is it seriously this bad?
 
Yes, it's seriously that bad. I think even probation periods are pretty unenforceable. The odds are stacked against employers if they get a "problem" employee signed up.
 
Sinbad said:
Yes, it's seriously that bad. I think even probation periods are pretty unenforceable. The odds are stacked against employers if they get a "problem" employee signed up.
Click to expand...

How times have changed...

Edit: Explains at the previous company, the newly appointed guy did squat for months on end...
 
You seem really experienced, so I'm assuming this is a very senior position that is very well paying.

Since it's a contract, I'll also assume that the company in question has quite an important project that you are going to be working on that they need to bring in some serious skills for.

All assumptions being equal, seems reasonable to me.
 
Also you should see the number of "creatively written" CVs I have received for jobs I've advertised.
I swear people just see what the ad lists as required skills and just put them into their CVs.

"Oh yeah I saw someone log into Informatica once. Skill level - Expert"
 
dequadin said:
You seem really experienced, so I'm assuming this is a very senior position that is very well paying.

Since it's a contract, I'll also assume that the company in question has quite an important project that you are going to be working on that they need to bring in some serious skills for.

All assumptions being equal, seems reasonable to me.
Click to expand...

I'm senior yes.. but you always learn new stuff.. everyday. I don't mind perm position of the pay is right! I just want to enjoy my work and co-workers must be great :D

Edit: Define well paying :). I see people talk here about jobs for R20k p/m for 2-3years.And 4 years is like R40/k pm.. which is makes me seriously underpaid if you continue with that rate ... he he
 
Last edited:
Sinbad said:
Also you should see the number of "creatively written" CVs I have received for jobs I've advertised.
I swear people just see what the ad lists as required skills and just put them into their CVs.

"Oh yeah I saw someone log into Informatica once. Skill level - Expert"
Click to expand...

I can understand that. But seriously .. 2 test (4 hours) .. do it in 1 shot, go for gold.
 
TelkomUseless said:
I'm senior yes.. but you always learn new stuff.. everyday. I don't mind perm position of the pay is right! I just want to enjoy my work and co-workers must be great :D
Click to expand...

Well at least you'll know that they all passed the 'personality test' :p
 
Yeah, I agree with most of the posts, most companies I have been interviewed for have been really painful, I have > 10 Years experience, in linux / windows / mac support both software and hardware , Java , JSP, HTML/CSS and Javascript, as well as IT management, Sales, and I struggled to get a Job when I was retrenched last year.
Some of the companies, I could see I was just one of the "we need to interview at least 5 candidates, but we have already filled the position" fillers. One company, I will not mention names even though they distribute my favorite brand of phone and computer, I had *THREE* interviews with them, they were very happy, at the point of offering me the position, and then out of the blue, I found out via ANOTHER recruiting agency , who phoned me to get me to interview for the job (that I was already interviewing for), so I phone up this company, and ask them umm... Hello what is going on? Did I not get the job? - their response, oh, whoops sorry we forgot to tell you... Really professional.
 
ozziej said:
Some of the companies, I could see I was just one of the "we need to interview at least 5 candidates, but we have already filled the position" fillers. .
Click to expand...

Yea.. I had the same feeling last time round that companies do that.

ozziej said:
One company, I will not mention names even though they distribute my favorite brand of phone and computer, I had *THREE* interviews with them, they were very happy, at the point of offering me the position, and then out of the blue, I found out via ANOTHER recruiting agency , who phoned me to get me to interview for the job (that I was already interviewing for), so I phone up this company, and ask them umm... Hello what is going on? Did I not get the job? - their response, oh, whoops sorry we forgot to tell you... Really professional.
Click to expand...

OMG!! That is bad... I would be pi$$ed.


I had an interview with a company via agency last year. She said "sell yourself" lol. Got to the interview, the 1st thing (and I mean the 1st thing) the guy says "we aren't hiring currently. But let's talk ... and he bombarded me with questions about everything about a pc. After what felt like a maraton session, he says.. if you want to work here.. you still need to write the test".

W T F!
 
TelkomUseless said:
Ok .. long story short.

I have been developing for 13 years+. I started with GWBasic days :).. and finished my N Dip IT 10 years ago. I have been working/developing since then. Net experience 7-8 years +.. and the usual other crap.

So I went for an interview this week.

First a technical test (2hours) . Passed.
2nd Interview techincal test #2 (more hardcore, 2 hours) .
Passed , they are happy. BUT .. I have to pass the final personality test (WTF). Another 3 hour test.

You got to be kidding me. That is almost 7 hours for 1 job? What happend to 3 month probation period? And this is for 12 month contract position, not even perm. I'm seriously peeved, because they said if you go perm, then you have to do 3hour personality test. Now.. different story.

And this is not the first time.

Last year happend the same thing, going to be retrenched (or writing was on the wall) after 4.5 years at company. First telephonic interview. Then a technical test 2 hours on the web. Passed. Then I had to do the final interview, and guess what.. another test with them sitting there .. (While talking to the guy, I realised they were looking more for DBA/SQL Dev than c#, which wasted my time)

Please tell me.. is this the "new" standard or wtf is going on?
Click to expand...

Yep, its the new standard, and its a good thing. That is actually a substantially easier series of tests than we give our interviewees
 
This irritates me too as you have to come up with excuses 3 times to your employer because you need to go to just one job interview. Now you don't always necessarily get the first job you apply for so lets say you do five job interviews - that's 35 hours of you working life pissed away!

I can understand that prospective employees need to be checked but I think this is a bit over board. What kills me even more is that 90% of these companies don't bother to even tell the recruitment agency if they are not interested in you leaving you hanging for no good reason. Most IT companies out their are completely disgusting!
 
^^vampire^^ said:
This irritates me too as you have to come up with excuses 3 times to your employer because you need to go to just one job interview. Now you don't always necessarily get the first job you apply for so lets say you do five job interviews - that's 35 hours of you working life pissed away!

I can understand that prospective employees need to be checked but I think this is a bit over board. What kills me even more is that 90% of these companies don't bother to even tell the recruitment agency if they are not interested in you leaving you hanging for no good reason. Most IT companies out their are completely disgusting!
Click to expand...

If after the 1st interview/test the company finds you valuble enough they can schedule the remaining interviews/tests before/after hours to suite you.
 
Jeez, sounds like IT guys have a really tough time :/ On the business side, its usually an interview with HR, then an interview with directors/managers etc and finally a personality type test (this is often left out with only 2 interviews being held, depending on how senior the role is - I find personality tests stopped once I became senior).
 
I have mixed feelings about this topic. On the one hand I recently went through a hiring process (not as a dev though in the IT space) and it was a pain in the ass. A large part of the problem lies with the unproffesional nature of the recruitment industry, with barriers to entry so low, any fool thinks that they can "do" recruitment, and many do.

However, having said that, in hiring devs in the past, it is easy to make mistakes. Firstly skills vary wildly and CV's are well padded so there is a need for good technical testing. However, more importantly, for some reason development seems to attract more that its fair share of social retards. If you make this mistake of hiring these guys you will sit with a sullen, annoying, team killing dev who would prefer the intimate company of his mouse than to have a business conversation with a colleague.
 
When I interview prospective employees, they do not write/do "tests".

I think that the persons responsible for recruitment at the places that you mentioned do not have the knowledge required to determine whether a person is suitable (EDIT: prolly because that's how it works in large companies/corporates). Because I'm doing the same work that the employee would do, I can ask them a few questions and immediately determine whether they are competent.

I also find that a better yardstick than a test is looking at stuff he/she has done in the past. Also, community involvement is a must... i.e. active on forums or opensource projects etc.
 
@grimstoner, agree 100%, if you are a dev, hiring other devs must be easy (easier). For relative lay people though it is a bit of a dark art so tests are the only way. Especially if you need to replace a technical lead, which is what we had to do..
 
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