Interviewees from Hell

There used to be a time when people were just grateful when some one made them a job offer.

There used to be a time when finding a job was very challenging and one would put so much of effort in wanting to win a job.

Gone are those days.

Back in those days, 1990 to be precise, I persistently called up a local IT company (it is listed on the KLSE Main Board today) wanting to speak to the marketing manager about possible vacancy in that business unit. He was never around or perhaps has not the time to return my call. My persistence caught the attention of the systems engineering manager and I was call in for an interview and subsequently hired as systems engineer. I was there for 9 years. 9 years in an IT firm in the 1990s was like 900 years there, that’s because people were changing jobs like crazy. Ex-colleagues used to call me up and said, “Eh? You are still in XXXXX ah ? Just make sure that you don’t become part of the furniture.”. The facts is that the pay was reasonably good, I get promoted once in a while and there are lots of things to learn.

Fast forward to 2005 : One of my managers interviewed an experienced candidate (3 years) that day and I had a look at the resume and OK it. But on the first day of work, before signing his letter of appointment he told us that he expected his salary to be RM4,000 instead of RM3,500 as we agreed earlier. And I told him that making such changes requires the finance department approval etc. and I said that our best offer on the table was what we agreed at RM3,500 per month.

He walked out of the deal.

Unbelievable.

Ungrateful.

Utterly disgusted I was.

He’s lucky I don’t have a Walter PPK in my drawer.

Some how people have come to expect that having a job is a God given right. Having a degree seem to mean that one should “demand” to be offered a job, on their terms. THEIR terms!

Am I on the wrong planet ?

That’s not all.

There were so many other cases I have encountered personally. Most common one is not showing up for the agreed interview and didn’t even bother to call in and inform us.

There were some who turn up. But their language and communications skills are non-existent. Their tenses are wrong, their vocabulary limited – they have Malay words in between English ones, so much so I can’t quite figure out whether the conversation is now in English or Malay. And the list goes on … care to add some ?

Now I know how the judges of Malaysian Idol feel.