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Admin
So the WTF is that two qualified candidates were offered jobs?
Admin
The WTF is that these companies don't realise that hiring isn't just about screening out the bad, it's about attracting the good.
Admin
...and that both candidates were wise enough to pass.
Admin
I'd have guessed that each pirate should get 20 gold coins. Can I get a job offer also?
Admin
1 pirate gets 100 coins and kills the others. They are pirates they don't share.
Admin
the games more complicated (the rules include rules about the oldest being allowed to decide who gets what and pirates being greedy and it happening them to be not only pirates but also perfect mathematicians and logicians...)
long story short: 98-0-1-0-1... google for more ;-)
</spoiler>Admin
Hint to interviewers: you're trying to find qualified candidates, not haze fraternity pledges. Enough with the pirate/gold puzzles already. Unless, of course, your company manufactures or sells pirates.
Admin
Admin
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Scumbag Mark - titles it tales from the interview, categorises it featured article.
Admin
I suppose I'm naive to have taken the offer from the second story. Well, unless there were other offers available.
One thing that job candidates may forget (but is repeated oft on this forum) the interview process is a two-way road. You are interviewing the company, so come prepared. And the company is interviewing you, they will (hopefully) be prepared.
Admin
The pirate with the red hat reaches into the box, unscrews the cold light bulb and breaks it. He threatens to stab the other pirates and absconds with the 100 coins.
He pays the man trying to cross the river 20 gold coins for the boat, goat, wolf, and cabbage.
The pirate sics the wolf on the 4 pursuing pirates and slashes the other man in the throat to retrieve his 20 gold coins (he is a pirate after all).
He then crosses the river in the boat with the goat and cabbage, whereupon he barbeques the goat and serves it up for lunch with a cabbage slaw.
Admin
Admin
If you got an offer here you would probably take it even if the company is strange. Because if you wouldn't, it might be a year or more for a new opportunity to arrive.
Admin
This is every recruiter everywhere, responding to any candidate who ever decided to decline an offer. At this point in the process the recruiter has started drooling and thinking about how to spend his commission fee, which he will receive if you only say "I accept the offer".
Candidates turn down offers less frequently than companies reject candidates, and recruiters are far less concerned about maintaining a cordial business relationship with individual candidates than they are with employers. So they will feel free to treat you like crap and attempt to bully you if you're the only thing left standing between them and their commission.
I once called an end to the interview process after a first interview. My long-term plans changed slightly and I didn't want to live in that particular part of the country any more. When I informed the recruiter that I would not be attending my second interview, I don't think I've ever experienced such a quick, polar shift in somebody's demeanour towards me. From one moment to the next this person went from friendly and encouraging to angry and rude. He seemed genuinely disgusted that I wouldn't reconsider my plans for my entire life for the sake of his chance at a couple of thousand pounds of commission.
Admin
So, the WTF is that as a college student this got a great job offer, presumably starting after graduation, and it obviously comes with the option to decline at any point down the road (at will employment and whatnot), and the idiot declined the offer just because a manager got mixed up and accidentally gave him the answers ahead of time? Did I get that right, because, yeah, WTF?
Admin
Admin
TRWTF is two qualified candidates were offered jobs that were traps. One was a manager so inept he could not distinguish between one applicant and another. The other are managers so inept the could not remember the questions they asked the applicant shortly before.
Thus, the inept managers are TRWTF.
Admin
TRWTF is the last line
Admin
No, he declined because the Manager repeatedly did not listen to him explaining things, and even after repeatedly being told that the candidate knew the answers because they were already asked before, still chose to believe that this person was the smartest student EVER.
I don't know if I would have declined, but it does say a lot about the company.
Admin
I thought inept managers were de rigueur.
Did you know that it's a murder of crows, a herd of cows, and a hindrance of managers?
Admin
Managers who confront applicants with brain teasers are often missing the point.
Those companies who started that trend, like Google for example, are not interested in stopping the time until the applicant gets the right answer. They try to encourage the applicants to think aloud, so that they can observe how they think and what methods they use to get to their conclusion. The final answer doesn't matter that much - it's how they get to it.
Admin
Home » Articles » Feature Articles » Tales from the Interview - You Wore a T-Shirt?!
with a blue background rather than purple.
With such an incompetent story poster I would never take a job working for TheDailyWTF as I could never work for anyone so incompetent as to get a couple of things mixed up. After all, if he confuses the headings, he might also confuse me with someone in a dirty t-shirt.
Admin
[...]just because the manager got mixed up and accidentally gave him the answers ahead of time, was either too stupid or too stubborn r too bossy to realize he made a misake, even after the interwievee told him 10 times and propably distributes the task and reviews results the same way. I mean, I'd really hate it to have to explain my supervisor why my shit is still not done, when actually it made it into production two months before the deadline.
FTFY
Admin
Perhaps the student declined the offer because he understands the concept of ethics.
Admin
Here's how it works:
By this process, over time, it becomes apparent who is the most valuable member of their small community, and who is basically napping most every day. (Let's call him Larry.) Larry finds increasing difficulty getting the others to do things he needs, since he is running out of gold coins. This provides an incentive for him to get off his ass and either fend for himself or start doing something useful to others.
One of the inhabitants (let's call him Karl) persuades the others that it is a pain lugging heavy coins around all day, and they could accomplish the same record-keeping function by scratching numbers on banana leaves. Two of the others, being basically idiots, don't realize that banana leaves are much easier to obtain than additional gold coins, so they vote for the plan and Karl has a majority.
After some time passes, Karl moves to the next phase of his diabolical master plan. He points out, tears flowing, that Larry is practically starving and has a leaky hut that is about to fall down. The solution, obviously, is to mark up some new banana leaves and give them to Larry. Then he can be as comfortable as everyone else.
After some more time passes, the islanders notice that Karl's scheme has not actually increased the total amount of work being done. Four people are still working and Larry is still napping. Actually things have got slightly worse because Larry now naps all day every day, having no incentive to perform even the minimal self-care he did before.
What has happened is that Karl's scheme has gradually reduced the value of the islanders' gold coins, because when one of them wants to buy a pile of coconuts for one gold coin, Larry can outbid him with a banana leaf that says "two" on it. Whenever Larry runs out of banana leaves, Karl just gives him some more. But the gold coins are still in limited supply.
Do you ever wonder why the do-gooder politicians don't just take their "solutions" seriously and have the government write a ten million dollar check to everybody? What could possibly be more fair? Then we'd all be wealthy. Wouldn't we?
Admin
Sorry, that should have read "explain my supervisor FOR HE 20th TIME".
Admin
The second manager could be smarter than he is being given credit for; especially if the story is modified from the original version.
Step 1 – Give a slew of hard brain teasers Step 2 – Candidate answers a good number, but can’t get all of them Step 3 – Give him the answers to the remaining questions Step 4 – In the follow up interview ask him all of the brain teasers again Step 5 – Hire the only candidate that actually listened and remembered the answers
I bet you in 20 candidates’ maybe one would be able to regurgitate what you told them. Its neigh impossible to find people that can follow the simplest instructions. The ‘we ask the different questions’ bit could easily be a cover.
I’d bet just as likely the person interviewing as a dick about it, and lost his chance.
Admin
Which he shares with the two guards? The one who only tells the truth and the other one who only tells lies?
Admin
You're graduating college and you don't take a perfectly good job? What a fool.
Admin
Somalian pirates, or Caribbean pirates?
Admin
I think it's stupid to judge the whole company based on one stupid person. There are stupid people in every company (except for maybe Google...)! Turning down the job is one thing, but to say "needless to say" I think is taking it too far. Besides, how many companies have managers that are intelligent and a joy to work for? Management attracts people persons, not intelligence.
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Been there, done that, got the T-shirt
Admin
A group of villagers with pitchforks and torches just got off of the elevators here on my floor.
I flipped the category bit on the article hoping that it would calm them, but it only made the situation worse.
I can hear banging on the cabinets in the kitchenette and the chants are growing ever louder.
Someone just screamed - something about how the multifunction printer is out of toner I think.
I fear my time is drawing short - I don't know how long it will be until the mob navigates the cubicle maze to my desk. Hours or days - I just don't know.
Please tell my wife and children that I love them and tell Alex that tomorrow's Error'd is already done.
Admin
None of those stories are so bad that I would refuse the job offer just because of that. So the managers in the second story are easy to outsmart? Seems like a recipe for lots of paid spare time!
Admin
Admin
Admin
Neither, Antartican pirates!!
Admin
Still, I like my dumb interview story. For complicated reasons, I had turned down an opportunity for further discussions with this company almost five years previously. It appeared that they didn't connect the Steve The Cynic of 1999 with the Steve The Cynic of 1995.
So in I go, for a whole-day interview. Part of the interview was a programming test, and they said not to worry if I didn't get through all of it (so of course I was a bit stressed by this). They made software for molecular-modelling, and the test question was to read a file containing a model description, and draw a coloured-sticks representation of the molecule, and to allow the arrow keys to pan around it.
The language was C++, and they provided a framework upon which I had to build my code. About half-way through the allotted time, I reached a point where there was obviously something critical missing from the framework, so I spoke up and said that I needed X in the framework and it wasn't there. "Um, er, you're right. Sorry about that, nobody's ever got that far before. Give us a few minutes and we'll have it in there for you."
So I had used about half the time to get 50-60% of the way through, and I was further along than any other candidate, and even they hadn't worked their way through it to make sure that it was feasible to solve with the given framework.
We eventually independently reached the conclusion that I was grossly over-qualified to work there - them because they thought it would be hard work making sure I had stuff to keep me occupied, and me for much the same reason. I do, however, wonder about the people who I never had as colleagues.
Admin
I had a recruiter like that in the first story. I suppose they're all like that, in a fashion. I was already in-place, working for the company, on a contract-to-hire basis. The contract was running out, and the company was arranging to hire me. It was in Europe, in the airline industry, literally days after 9/11.
the airline industry was collapsing, and I was in fear of being left without a job. Plus I had agreed to hire on. But he was pushing me to continue contracting, instead of hiring on. He refused to listen to my concerns or placate them, other than "don't worry". And he and I had no history, no rapport.
Push came to shove I told Mister nice guy that I just couldn't deal with the uncertainty. Mister Hyde turned up next and called me every name under the sun, how I was an idiot and didn't know anything. Seems I dodged a bullet.
About 6 months later, his boss called me and asked for feedback on his performance. After I disclosed our discussion: "Yeah we've been hearing that a lot about this person. Sorry about that."
Admin
If I were the last pirate, I would vote 'no' to getting one gold coin, so that head pirate gets what's coming to him for being a greedy bastard!
Totally worth 1 gold coin.
Admin
Only the guy that declines the job offer is eligible to submit it as a WTF.
And that makes the exception look as the rule.
Admin
Admin
And also my other religious belief that once a profiteer gets elected to government at any level they turn good and have the benevolence and skill to know what is best for everyone and distribute goods fairly.
Admin
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Yinz mean chip-chop ham instead of goat n'at, you know what I am saying?
Admin
The way the rules are set up, the next alternative after 98-0-1-0-1 is dead-99-dead-1-dead. If you hate the head pirate that badly, then take the 1 gold coin anyway and then poison his fish heads. :)
Admin
Yes, but you forgot to weight the boat (no scales are provided). It's also sitting on top of a circular manhole cover. And the boat has a light on the front and a light on the back, one of which is broken, but those guards will only let you switch it on if you're not looking.
Admin
Fucking TeaBagger NeoCons: how do they manage to post?