Then, just before we started Skype interviews, one big wheel in our department demanded we also find someone who is an expert on balloon racing at the turn of the century, especially someone who can opine when necessary on the winds in central Iowa, near Simpson College, naturally, one-time home to a major balloon festival.
Well, N-scale railroading and balloon racing are ostensibly under the overall umbrella of something, but we on the committee thought it harsh to add this "preference" after the fact.
Yet, the Dean said, "Go," and none of us was strong enough to say "Stop."
So, we muddled through Skype performances that all ran the same way - pleasant until the inevitable: "So, while it's not in our ad, could you tell us what you know about balloon racing?"
Silence sometimes. Sometimes an eyebrow-arch. Nobody had a good answer, but several tried.
It soured every interview. We even had 4-5 interviewees email us that they were dropping out of consideration.
"What's the big deal," Big Wheel said when informed. "Just go on to the next person. It's good to know some people aren't flexible!"
There was one interviewee who followed up with an email about his unrequited love of ballooning. In fact he felt foolish for not speaking up during the interview, so great is his interest in studying the field and coming to our college and taking on the challenge from the ground up.
That this candidate is lacking in any recent or useful N-scale railroading background has almost been lost in this shuffle.
He's the only one willing to lie to us baldly about the balloon racing, and as I feared, he's now at the top of our campus list.
He will come here, I know. And as sure as my name is Hiram, I think he will be hired.
And we'll be fucked.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI've become obsessed with this "removed by author" notes. I notice every once in a while the first comment gets pulled back the commenter.
ReplyDeleteWhat could it have said? Was it racy? Was it rude? Was it too long for the space?
What have I missed? Do I need to check the page more often, more quickly?
Maybe I'll never know...
@Darla: There's some way you can see them in Google Reader. I sometimes go look at the deleted posts that way, but haven't yet figured out how to see the comments.
ReplyDeleteAs for Hiram's post, all I can say is yep, you're pretty much fucked. Although you still are the committee, and you could still recommend one of the non-balooning candidates. Let Big-Wheel pitch a fit in a meeting if that's what he really wants.
I would recommend organizing a revolt. Big Wheel wants to go ballooning, but he's the only one who does; if enough of you point out that the ad SAID train tracks, and that if you really wanted someone to do ballooning you should have said so in the ad and so got some credible ballooning candidates too, you have a decent hope of two outcomes: a) you'll hire someone who knows something about train tracks; b) you will throw out the search and start again with a new ad that also mentions ballooning, and at least you'll get some decent ballooning candidates too.
ReplyDeleteI've seen this in person and it's bullshit. It's unfair, certainly, not only to the candidates but to the department as well.
ReplyDeleteOf course we all have a wish list of what the "new" person can do, but that can't ever come in front of what has been officially agreed upon and advertised. REVOLT!
What can Big Wheel do? Can he stop the hire if you pick someone he doesn't like it?
ReplyDeleteIf so, you are fucked.
If not, hire someone for the job as posted.
Big Wheel is a spaz. Somebody needs to either tell him that, or just cut his brake lines.
ReplyDeleteHuh. Like in Kimmie's place, on our searches we have to go strictly and anal-retentively per the text in the initial job posting, with a grid that is filled out with minimum qualifications per that ad and everything else is completely secondary.
ReplyDeleteNot sure if your school is public or private, but one year we had a hiring kerfluffle at my public CC because we specifically advertised for hamster wheel spinning expertise, but the committee ended up interviewing and wanting to recommend a candidate who didn't have it but instead had something else that would have been great for our department dealing with gerbils. Legal told us in no uncertain terms that if the job description and ad specified that we wanted hamster wheel spinning expertise, we had to hire someone who had it or else we opened the school and the whole system up to any number of suits from candidates who did meet our specifications. So Gerbil Gal was not selected as a finalist and we did indeed end up with Hamster Wheel Spinner.
ReplyDeleteNot sure if your school is public or private, but one year we had a hiring kerfluffle at my public CC because we specifically advertised for hamster wheel spinning expertise, but the committee ended up interviewing and wanting to recommend a candidate who didn't have it but instead had something else that would have been great for our department dealing with gerbils. Legal told us in no uncertain terms that if the job description and ad specified that we wanted hamster wheel spinning expertise, we had to hire someone who had it or else we opened the school and the whole system up to any number of suits from candidates who did meet our specifications. So Gerbil Gal was not selected as a finalist and we did indeed end up with Hamster Wheel Spinner.
ReplyDeleteYep, us too: we can't change directions once the ad is out. Hiram, I'd intimate to someone higher up that this makes the university a sitting duck for lawsuit.
ReplyDeleteSay, if you advertised through a professional society job register, you can get in trouble for hiring for ballooning. Many professional societies require that all jobs they advertise be bona fide open positions, and not one that have already been promised to specific people. Doing this can be a huge waste of applicants' and recommenders' time and effort. Hiring a balloon person for a position advertised for N-scale railroads comes perilously close to this, particularly since a way to try to beat this requirement is to specify a list of specializations so particular, it could only possibly be one person.
ReplyDelete"Yet, the Dean said, "Go," and none of us was strong enough to say "Stop.""
ReplyDeleteMy advice is that your committee needs to find the strength to say "Stop."
The legal considerations mentioned by others can buttress and support that strength
Let me release some spleen about my graduate alma mater department's now NATIONAL notoriety for fucking with job candidates. It goes like this. They run an ad saying they want someone who studies Geographical Area X. They get some nice candidates. BUT THEN, someone's student from The University Where 2/3 of Our Tenured Faculty Came From shows up. That candidate doesn't know dick about Area X. They do know about Area 51. We hire them.
ReplyDeleteSince I studied Area X, I am particularly bitter about this. It got especially awkward when I was in interviews and people would say "ooh, you're from Snot-Nosed Ivy? The one that keeps saying they're going to hire someone for Area X but never does?"
I should mention...Area X is a whole goddamn continent.
Isn't your HR department involved in issuing the ads and running the interviews? At our college every interview committee has an HR representative just to vouch for (and remind us about) everything being legal.
ReplyDeleteThe place I used to teach at was notorious for pulling stunts like this.
ReplyDeleteOne time, I saw a position advertised in a different department. I knew of someone who would have been interested as he not only had the educational background required for the job but he also had some teaching experience. A few days later, he told me that the ad was bogus as the position had already been filled but internal regulations required that the opening be advertised anyway.
I knew of department administrative positions for which the ads were worded that only one specific individual would qualify. The ads, then, were there just to give some formality to what had already been decided.
I also went through something like that. A while before I quit, I applied for positions in some other departments for which I thought I was qualified. I went through the required process, submitted my CV and all that, and was later called in for interviews.
It quickly became apparent that something was fishy both times. Either someone didn't read my CV properly to determine whether or not I would have been suitable, or they already knew who was going to get those jobs and I was brought in, despite not being what those departments were looking for, in order to make sure that I wouldn't qualify and to validate the original choices.
I left those interviews feeling that I'd wasted my time. A year later, I'd had enough of that place, and I quit. After that, I applied for some other teaching positions, had the interviews, and left with the feeling that I was there only as a formality.