Comment by rwhitman | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rwhitman | Hacker News Reader

I once declined an offer over email and promptly got a conference call back from them where the CEO was incredibly hostile, the purpose of the call seemed like the CEO just wanted to publicly berate me and tell me that I was making a bad move.

Afterwards I realized that its entirely a subconscious alpha dominance thing. There's this unsaid very primal, tribal power trip that goes along with the interviewee vs employer relationship.

As the interviewer you want to be holding the power card - you sit in a position of power and have other people dance around and do what you say in order for you to be able to judge them and make them prove their worth to you in order to join your tribe.

Its really one of the few times we get to break down our democratic social structure and revert back to this primitive social order in adulthood, so its a pretty important ritual for alpha-types.

When someone comes in and disrupts that natural boundary it becomes offensive as they've unconsciously told you "I don't respect you as a leader" in front of your staff and team. The interviewer then needs to re-affirm their ego and dominance over the tribal unit in a public display.

If you look at all these articles floating around about judging candidates and "top grading" and you look at it from this tribal alpha-dominance perspective it really breaks down some of what we assume is necessary in hiring. I think the whole system is based around some silly ancient ritual that we haven't been able to shake from our culture.

This is a very interesing note. It is undubitably a real phenomenon. A counterfactual case, however, might exist. Consider a similar non-hierarchical situation. For example, the relationship between a host and guest (at a private party). Where you were the guest of honor. As the guest of honour, you are not at the dis-advantage of power. In fact, just the opposite. But, the same question can be asked..."If you were the guest of honor at a party and the party sucks, is it OK to leave early?" If so, how would you handle it?

That is very interesting, I definitely think you're right about it in the context of the article's scenario. By abruptly leaving the party early the guest of honor is essentially telling the host "I don't respect you".

It may be more a simple social etiquette thing than a hierarchy thing, but the fact that the host has leadership representing their group here probably infuses it with some level of asserting dominance in response to public disrespect.

Basically walking out on an interview is a great way to disrespect the interviewer, and you probably shouldn't do it if you don't want a fight ;)

More than half of the interviews that I have had involve having to impress someone with the ritual.

Unfortunately the interviews that require something of a skill test or the chance to have a chat about something that isn't complete BS are extremely rare. A lot of interviews are nothing more than listening to someone talk about how good they are and agreeing with them.

Quite a few times I have interviewed people I have cut it short and told them why, then thanked them for there time. Most people are appreciative of straight talk.

I have spents hours stuck in an interviews listening to three different people telling me about their degrees, experience, how great their skillset is, how great they are, how working there is the greatest thing ever and failing to talk about the job.... I have spent far too many hours in meetings like this. It is a great indicator company culture. Life is short enough as it is, I don't care how much you want to pay me.

Interesting note. I think it is subconsciously embedded in many interviewers' minds that they are doing the candidate an favor to provide an opportunity for a job. The attitude could be condescending. Although it is true in some scenarios, it is completely ridiculous in others. For example, if you are looking for a teammate to strengthen your team, please TALK to the candidate.

As a team lead, please be careful to decide who are good interviewers and who are not. A bad interviewer, which doesn't mean a bad person or anything else, could drive a good candidate away.

I was once contacted by a company which was in urgent need for a position. The interview went well with the first two interviewers. The third one was young and aggressive. He was almost mad when I disagree with him to a technical question. When I knew he was one of the 4 team members including the position, I already decided not to join them before the interview was ended. They gave me an offer. No surprise, I didn't accept it.

Hackers should realize that if they want to go into business for themselves, they will encounter this alpha dominance ritual All. The. Time. If you cannot cope with this ritual, then learn how or your startup life will be hell.

You will find this all the time from procurement department "buyers", aggressive technology managers, and virtually everyone who makes spending decisions. If you are prudent enough to structure your business model so you do not have to land every single sales opportunity to survive, then it is pretty easy to come through this ritual with respect on all sides.

Yea basically this frames how I see all business relationships and negotiations these days. Sometimes its overt, many times its very subtle and subdued. People want to feed their egos, they want to feel important, have some power. You try to tip that and they get upset

Having been on both sides of interviewing, one thing I see is that the interview process can be a very intense power play. The interviewers are usually on a power trip judging and deciding someone's fate. When the interviewees not playing along like walking out or even declined an offer, the interviewers are really surprised and upset. It's a direct attack on their power position.

Interesting analysis. A good employee/employer relationship should by about mutual respect rather than hierarchal dominance.

How bizarre. Who else was on the call?

The whole situation was really bizarre. All the sr mgmt was on the call and it was not a small company at all.

For context this wasn't a normal hiring, partly an acquisition of something I was involved with (but didn't own) and the reason I turned them down was because they were, er, unfriendly people and their business model was an unethical borderline scam (though my rejection email was as non-specific, gracious and cordial and Dale Carnegie as you can get).

But there was definitely more to fuel the alpha-dog fire that I started than a normal rejection...

Could it have been that they already turned down all the other candidates, thinking you were a slam-dunk to join once the offer was made?

I've seen situations like there where everyone is quick to reject all candidates except their top choice, then have to go back to the drawing board when that choice doesn't work out.

There were no other candidates... the role was being invented for me. It was weird.

That's not so hard to figure out. As the hiring manager you are told by upper management that there's no budget for a new hire. But we need this guy you plead. He's awesome, will be worth his weight in salary, etc.

The politicking gets done, and then the hire (you) fails to materialize. What happens to the hiring manager then?

If only it was that simple haha

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