When it’s not a match made in heaven

During interview

For the last hire that we had, she was articulate & kept saying these, “I’m a single-mother. I’m very hardworking, I stay back to work a lot & I am willing to learn.”

She was highly recommended by 1 of our colleagues in customer’s company where she works as a receptionist. As she had worked there for many years, she had some knowledge & practice of what this colleague does. In fact, both the colleague & her claimed she helped out in that colleague’s job – hence the high recommendation.

Why is the candidate looking for job?

Since her company was going to outsource her position to another company, which already had its own staff for her position, she would be made redundant. She wanted to “find another job FAST.” Desperate but she had lots of years of using computers, though not IT literate.

Although people look for job for various reasons from wanting better life to losing the current job, we can’t be certain how they’ll fit in the new job. For a high performer in company X doing A could be depressed in company Y doing B. Likewise, a low performer in company X doing A could be successful in company Y doing B.

I got the feeling that she told us she was a single-mother because she wanted to get our sympathy (that she would have a harder time raising her children with only 1 income) & she wanted to potray herself as someone responsible as she need the work & money to raise her family.

Interview vs real performance

Of all these, only 1 remained true: She’s still a single mother. Not that it’s a snide remark – her personal life, whether married or not, single parent or in a family – has nothing to do with her work. As long as she doesn’t let it spill over to work.

For training, my team had a Training Guide – which is a list of things to train the newbies. The list wasn’t updated before I joined, so I updated some relevant things with the existing ones, delete the old functions that we do not perform anymore. It said to train the newbies in 4 days for Volume portion. There’s another portion which is only trained for the next level – after newbies are familiar (and good) in Volume portion.

The best working way is to train them with the skills & information so that they’ll know how to handle it. Instead of throwing them out in the sea, one must give them floaters & maybe a hand to hold (or push gently). This would prevent wasting time as they are putting customers on hold or asking irrelevant questions or worst, giving wrong info; which then other people have to clean the shit.

During her training, I noticed that she preferred to chit chat with another staff about personal things instead of work. Sure, newbies should get breaks on and off for easier learning. One can’t learn all 8hrs. In truth, I only had a few hours per day to train her. Some days, I trained her for 1-2hours only because there were some staffs not in and she couldn’t take it in.

After each section, I would ask her some questions – some straight forward, some tricky questions to detect her way of thinking, how she would find her answer when she’s on her own, if she would refer to her notes & the resources that I had given to her. Sometimes she could answer them correctly.

When I saw her frown, which was a lot, that meant trouble. I asked her, “Do you understand this portion?”

She nodded, “Yes, I understand… it’ll take sometime.”

It’ll take sometime?

That meant she hadn’t understood!

For almost 1month, the amount of training she had and could received was only until Day 2, which was 1/2 of the training for newbies. By right, all newbies take about 2 weeks for training. She asked me after 2 weeks, “Can I take calls?”

She couldn’t even understand several portions & I had to spend more than 3 days to train her on 1 section only! 1 section is supposed to take 1hour max. When I asked her questions to find out if her nods and “Yes, I understand” meant she really understood, she made the same mistake on consecutive days. Thrice! How could I let her handle calls on her own?

How we deal with this

For both our sake, I documented her progress closer than others. If I were asked for proofs of her showmanship so far, I could show the report. Truly, it would be better if the contract included probation duration. Keeping bad apples would only drag the whole team down sooner or later.

Truly, among all the newbies that we had, she was something special.

When she had high fever and was on MC, she didn’t inform us at all! Instead she informed the contractor & contractor informed us that she would be on MC for 2 days. By the 3rd day and she still hadn’t come back to work. We called her, even her “buddy” who always chatted with her called her but she didn’t pickup the phone. Maybe she lost her phone again? Maybe she was in a situation where she couldn’t answer us?

Others suspected she was just waiting for her salary & she would leave once she received her salary. She had moaned, “I stiiiiiiill haven’t receive my salarrrry..” on the day everyone received salary the day before. If this were true, she truly had bad working ethics & we would never accept her into our team again.

Resignation is 1 month notice but for her, we were glad to be rid of her – I don’t have to force myself to train her all over again & she can find something that suits her. Of course, the contractor had lost 1 month of salary but still, it was better to loose 1 month than suffer 12 months for a bad staff that stays and always make mistakes & too darn slow. It’s all good for all in the end. I can now spend more time improving my existing team & hire someone who really wants to work in that position & be happy.

I got a recommendation

That’s why when friends and colleagues say they have friends/families/neighbour/long lost cousin looking for work, I do not jump in joy for I do not want the candidate to blame the “introducer” when the candidate is not happy at work. Nor do I want to hire bad apple & have to deal with telling the bad news to the introducer that the bad apple sucked.

Still, there had been some good staffs joining from others recommendation. Just because the introducer is not a performer doesn’t mean the candidate is not a performer, just as a good performer may not necessarily introduce candidate that performs well.

Oh, which reminds me, I still haven’t gotten the JD to forward to my friend, who has a friend looking for work.

Interview

For those who have not “worked” as employer or interviewer, perhaps we do not think of the other side. Say, you would want to claim OT for the work that you do outside of the normal working hours. You think that you are entitled to them after all. Employers may not think the same way especially when there are times you are free to browse the net, chat, email, etc during the working hours. Do the employers deduct your salary then? No. So some employers would expect you to work OT without pay.

Even with more in depth questions to candidates during interview, tests and observation – one may not find a good staff in the end. It’s the same as some students score high in exams but do not practice what they answer. Except me in Moral exams :p

What you see in interview, may not be what you get. It goes for the interviewers & candidates.

The other day, I was called suddenly by my Supervisor to interview someone. Personally, I prefer to get the resume beforehand and not reading it during interview.

There were times when I had been to interviews when I was the candidate where the interviewers asked “stupid” questions when the info was already in the resume. I thought they didn’t do their homework – they should’ve checked the resume before calling me for interview! It wouldn’t waste the candidate’s time while the interviewer reads the resume.

Now I know, those are not “stupid” questions though they may seemed “stupid”. Those “stupid” questions are to verify if the resume contents are actually real and how candidates elaborate the points. Still, there are real really duh interviewers which made me glad that I didn’t have to work with them.

Once you (as a candidate) have to read your resume to answer the most recent job description, you are telling the interviewer that either:

• you lied about it and other real achievements are at stake – are they real?
• you forgot about it and this makes interviewer wonder, can you remember your training to function well at work if you are hired?
• someone did your resume and it wasn’t you, na ah.
• you have difficulty reading what you wrote – can you get confused easily or your 3rd multiple personality took over?

It’s still salvageable if you manage to answer the questions and make sense (to the interviewer). So how do you save your ass? Think and then reply the truth (as you see it).