An eye-watering missed opportunity
Once, we had to interview this guy who had a suspiciously good CV. He'd got a First at Oxbridge, fluent in Greek, Japanese and Russian, black belt in karate, in charge of various programming projects, worked for the government, last two projects classified.

Convenient, that. No references.

Even before he came in, we called him "James Bond" (we can't remember his real name). Anyway, he misses the first couple of interview slots - his car is a wreck, apparently - but soft-hearted nicies that we are we invite him back for a third attempt.

The informal, chatty part of the interview goes well, then we inform him that we're going to do a technical test. At this point, he goes very pale and sweaty, and with good reason.

Nothing. He can't declare a variable, can't write a loop in C++ (need I say that this was a programming job) so we let him use any computer language he likes. Absolute blank. In the end, he manages to write a total of 1 line of code, misspelled, illegible.

Now here comes the missed opportunity thing. Had we (innocent twits that we were) twigged at this point that his CV was a complete pile of sun-ripened donkey tripe, we could have grilled him till he squeaked. He'd obviously chosen unlikely languages, but we actually had people in the building fluent in Greek, Russian and Japanese. And the Japanese guy was into karate as well.

But no. Muggins here decides he's having a panic attack and let him off with a "thanks, but no". (*BANG* *BANG* *BANG*s head against table in utter shame.)

The agency rang up the next day to apologize - the next interview he had was even worse, as the interviewer was the one bloke who HAD got a first from Oxbridge in his subject in the year on his CV. THEY grilled him till he squeaked, then shopped him to the agency.

I'm sure he's working in the city now. Probably on a government IT initiative. Maybe air traffic control.

Frightening, isn't it?
( Amish Information Systems hates misplaced, commas, Mon 24 Jan 2005, 22:01, Reply)