Rejections of Smart People: Insane Hiring Practices

Yesterday I lost the best guy I have come acrossed so far this year. I would have hired him for my client with a casual conversation about his past work and challenges. His work covers about 40% of the project what my client (company) is trying to do. It could have saved us both time and research. I lost this guy because he failed in Reasoning Test took by HR department. "We can't make an exception, it is a company policy" I was told that when I pressed for the second chance.

My ex-colleague Mukesh Jagga (we worked together for ~2.5 years) failed in the company's interview about two months back, which was hiring him for YII Framework based project. Even being a star coder of YII, he couldn't make it because he didn't know how to initiate session in PHP or difference between some mysql related php functions. In the age of AR and frameworks these areirrelevant & stupid questions. This guy can write a complicated query in AR while his eyes are closed. We have played this game a lot.

On contrary one of my old friend Hitesh Goyal  rejected the company because the person (his could have been team-lead) who was taking his interview was asking very stupid questions and he was asked to write algos on white board. Bye the way it was a very famous MNC and CTC increment offered was 60%. He didn't join it and started his own work. PS: Requires a lot of guts. 

You don't ask for teethes if you are hiring a brain surgeon. - Dr. Sahil Mittal

Sidharth P Hariharan, with whom I have been working remotely since 2008 is a passionate coder. Later he was struggling to crack a interview. Despite the fact that he was having a great experience, he was told to give a Written Test which was full of basic questions (not used anymore). Other asked him to come for Face to Face round in a short notice. "The same companies that get the project from the client only on the basis of past work/portfolio hire their developers with face to face interviews and giving a written test. That is a double standard." he said.

Important Observation

No wonder we don't see a lot of passionate coders in MNCs because they do a very good job in filtering out smart people through various non-interesting and unrelated tests. Most of the passionate coders are fortunately placed in startups without any reasoning tests but only with a casual conversation. Irony is when startup grows they struggle to keep the pace. Because then they implement conventional way to hire a guy through long process of Written Tests, Personality Test, Reasoning Tests, Group Discussion, Technical Round (sometimes two), HR, Managerial round. (Let me know if I have missed any round). I can't generalized the term, however with companies I have served, usually guy who was hired with a casual conversation was proved to be a better performer. He is least involved in politics but could be a victim of one.

I can give you a lot of examples of "Failure" in my friend circle, most humble guy, Madan Mantri, I have ever met failed in two consecutive Personality Tests. Yet you see a lot of politics in a company, so I wonder if they are good enough? Guy who wrote a share market algorithm with 67% accuracy statistically (Which is a lot) failed in Maths aptitude test in on-campus placement four times in row.Gagandeep Singh, my college friend and my mentor, had to travel South and West India to secure his first job.

Many companies lose a guy just because he would not come for face to face interview. Company says that they need to know if guy is serious about the job, asif it is a hobby to give interviews and waste the time of both company and himself. I take around 60 technical interviews every year and unfortunately only 50% of them are on Skype or Telephonic.

There are exactly 39 CVs of smart people from past three years I have right now. They just couldn't go through because of short notice F2F, reasoning, aptitude or in worst case Personality Tests. A serious company's loss.

I write about startups, career challenges and project management. All Posts are Here.