Were The Flip-Flops That Big Of A Deal?

We’re not in any way suggesting that you should wear flip-flops to a job interview (unless maybe you’re interviewing to be a lifeguard), but what do you all think of today’s Ask The Recruiter?

The questioner, a hiring manager, asks:

I need to tell some folks they weren’t the pick. Two of them were for reasons that have nothing to do with them (internal political promotion), but the third person was different. I felt like asking the candidate: “Why did you show up for an interview for a $60,000 job in flip-flops? Why didn’t you have any questions about the job or the company except what hours you’d be expected to be there? Did you even bother to look at our Web site? You showed no initiative at all!”

Joe Grimm responds:

When I have had a post-rejection conversation with people, it is usually because they have asked me to, because I think they can be right for a later job, or because I am now in a position to help them with other searches — and want to.

There are plenty of reasons for not explaining. One of the biggest ones is that it can hurt candidates who already feel like a walking advertisement against your company. Chances are, they will feel attacked by your criticisms and will want to defend themselves. They usually do this by criticizing your decision.

The resulting conversation can get ugly as you re-assert your point. If you decide to take a chance on helping someone, focus on what he or she can do to have a better showing in the future, and don’t dissect the past.

I would forget about your flip-flop wearing candidate; it doesn’t sound as though the person was very interested in your job.

Obviously, wearing flip-flops to the interview is dumb. No question about it. But it sounds like this hiring manager really liked the candidate except for the footwear: why else would s/he be so concerned with telling the person that the shoes were such a problem? And if the flip flops were the only thing standing in the way of an otherwise stellar candidate, should the hiring manager have made an exception?

The other possibility is that the candidate really didn’t give a damn; or that the hiring manager really just wanted to be a busybody and tell this person everything he was doing wrong. Which he’ll figure out on his own soon enough if he doesn’t get any job offers after interviewing in flip flops.

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