The guy is getting roasted in the comments too, especially about being unfair to NDs
Crisis averted to those who did not answer.
Someone of his age and in his position should already know and demonstrate proper decorum, even with “modern technology” like … voicemail? And acceptable procedure, like scheduling important calls. And having a bit of grace. Or a smidgen of empathy. Uh, how is he qualified to be President and CEO when he lacks anything necessary to be a leader?
Even in the best of interpretations, this is someone enormously out of touch. Even with the apology posted below, there’s no way I could or would have confidence in this person’s leadership. It’s one thing to make a mistake, it’s another to be so woefully out of touch with reality for so long that you literally didn’t know that leaving voicemail is a normal thing people do and giving folks a heads up so they expect your call and can make themselves available for it is just good manners at a minimum.
Ok, here’s a thing about “me” I don’t enjoy your completely disrespectful attitude and your entitled view of MY time to be garbage. I’m glad I could help you explore getting to know me more. Enjoy the answering machine.
He had a pretty reasonable response to the backlash, at least.
Less shocking than usual. The rest of his post was pretty on point tbh. If anyone could acknowledge their faults, it’s someone that hires the whole person.
Honestly more people in high positions need a vibe check every now and then. Rich and powerful people become so insulated and surrounded by yes-men they think their ideas are infallible. As negative as social media is, one of the nice things is it levels the playing field a bit and gets that brutal feedback straight to them.
(Granted the truly narcissistic and arrogant will just brush it off, but for some, it’ll cause them to reflect)
I’m largely convinced that lack of vibe checking is why the particularly powerful and particularly powerless seem to lose their minds in the same way. You’re about equally likely to convince the ceo and the homeless guy out front that what they’re saying is completely untethered from reality, and they’re similarly likely to make you regret trying.
Does this guy not understand that 99% of calls from unknown numbers are spam? If he picks the person who always answers, he’s gonna be disappointed when they’re spending more time answering spam calls than doing intern work.
It’s almost always a spoofed number with my same area code from an Indian call center trying to scam me with car or senior health insurance. I’m not even close to 40 yet these assholes all seem to have the idea I’m a senile old man willing to empty out my wallet for them. Hell no I’ll never answer my phone.
Since hiring Bob the amount of phishing has gone up. Bro clicks on everything
No he really doesn’t. He has little people to handle the phone for him.
How many spam calls are y’all getting? I get maybe 2-3 per year and that’s only if you count telemarketers from phone companies, who I deliberately answer because that’s the only way to get cheap phone service in this fucked up economic system.
I literally cannot remember the last time I got an actual spam call from some robot call center pushing a scam.
Bro, you’re in Finland? We have these things called “rights” and “regulations” in the EU. Spam calls in the US are nuts. I got calls about lowering my mortgage when I was still a minor.
I don’t know how you achieved this magic, but I’m envious. Just checked and I had seven spam calls yesterday and nine the day before. iOS finally adding call screening has legit changed my life
Might be a local difference since I’m in Finland. There was a period a few years ago where robot spam calls from foreign numbers were pretty common (as in, maybe one every couple of months), but the phone companies implemented some new system to block those and they haven’t really been a problem since.
Oh…. Yeah I’m in the US and we’re not about anything that would actually help people
They don’t show up as foreign numbers in the US, just random US numbers. I don’t answer any numbers I don’t recognize anymore.
One of the biggest fails in phone service was the ability to spoof caller ID. Spammers will use prefixes from known cell phone blocks or the same prefix you’re on to make it look more legitimate. The carriers should have also included source number checking too as they shouldn’t be getting an external call from a number that they own.
Back when I had a Pixel 2 Google would look up the numbers that would call and if the number was associated with a business in their database then they’d show the business name with the caller ID (because cellphones in the US for some reason don’t show the names that would appear if calling a landline). My wife owned a successful bakery at the time and one day I got a call that showed up as being from one of her competitors. Curious, I answered the call, but it was just another scammer. This was fairly early in the days of scammers, so I called the number back and connected to the bakery, so I told them they should call their phone company.
I’m pretty sure the scammers just make up numbers, not caring if they’re active or not. There’s a fundamental flaw with the design of the phone system that they don’t require authentication. It’s absurd to me that this has been widely abused for close to a decade now and they haven’t changed the system to prevent this. It seems like it should be fairly straightforward to have a system that authenticates that a call comes from someone authorized to use a number.
This is one of the ways I identify spam calls. My cell phone number is from a long way away from where I live now. As far as I know I have no remaining associations with any businesses in the area - certainly none that wouldn’t have cause to leave a voicemail - and I know the numbers of my friends and family in the area.
Therefore, if I get a call from an unknown number in that area code and they don’t leave a voicemail, they were nearly certainly spam callers. Often even if they do leave a voicemail.
A little while ago I got a call from a number in that area code and they did leave a voicemail, but I haven’t been able to figure out what the point was. For the purposes of this anecdote, let’s pretend my name is John Smith. The voicemail consisted of the following:
“[Long silence] John? [Another long pause] John … [One more long pause] Smmmmmiiiiiiiiiiiiiitthhhhh … [Final long pause, then disconnect]”They haven’t called back, so I have no idea what they wanted. For the two times saying my first name, I figured they were just a recruiter who thought I had picked up, rather than my voicemail; but the way they stretched out my last name (and said nothing further) was honestly creepy as hell.
We had three categories of spam calls here here: spoofed numbers that appeared local (usually originating from outside the EU), numbers from other EU countries and numbers from third countries.
I believe they fixed spam calls from the spoofed numbers by some kind of technical improvement, the out-of-the-EU calls with blacklists, and the calls from inside the EU (and adjacent countries) by doing a few high profile police raids at the illegal call centers that were doing it and clamping down on the companies that provided service to them. https://www.europol.europa.eu/media-press/newsroom/news/operation-pandora-shuts-down-12-phone-fraud-call-centres
Hello fellow European!
For me, it’s a weekly occurrence. I loathe it, but for practical and personal reasons I have to pick up all calls. Lately, there are calls where you hear, oddly loudly, a keyboard clicking away. Spam call 100%
Stay on the phone until you get a person, talk to them for a couple minutes, when they ask for some piece of information say “hang on I need to go grab it” and place the phone down. Waste their fucking time.
These people call hundreds of people every day. If each of these people waste 3-5 minutes of their time that’s going to waste their entire day.
I don’t think this is that bad.
A bit unorthodox, and old school, but unorthodox interviews aren’t bad and neither are phone interviews.
The problem is that he didn’t provide a number for people to add to their safe-callers list, so that they know it isn’t spam when he calls.
Also, depending on the position, he needs to make sure that the call is not going to be in the middle of important meetings. He presumably doesn’t want to hire people who take calls in the middle of client negotiations
Yeah, it’s old fashioned, I think, but still in the domain of expected practice. Job hunting, selling something, expecting a visitor, etc are all reasons to actively expect a phone call during reasonable hours.Edit: I misread this and thought he was leaving messages. Not leaving messages is unreasonable.
When it takes ten thousand applications and many months to be available 16/7 for a call then it isn’t really reasonable anymore.
It’s not like you gave out 4 handshakes and are expecting 3 offers in the next week.
The man in OP said he leaves and message and calls again to be sure. That’s reasonable. The 16/7 thing you added so you could be more angry about it.Edit: I misread this and thought he was leaving messages. Not leaving messages is unreasonable.
I think you need to read the post again. That is very much not what he said. It’s in a different time zone to what he said.
Ah you’re right, I misread it. I thought he was leaving messages. Not leaving messages is unreasonable.
I downvoted you because I think it is “that bad” but then you made some good points at the end so I removed my downvote.
That’s fair lol
What is NDs?
Neuro-Divergent
The man has a point about interviewing for an intern based on personality, instead of experience or company bootlicking.
But the rest comes straight out of the looney bin.
The most obvious issue with this is that most people aren’t (or at least shouldn’t be) always available for calls on their personal phones at random times during normal office hours. If you do it this way, you’re pretty much pre-selecting for people who don’t currently have a job and aren’t in school/college.
Kinda cool that he would call directly. That’s pretty human compared to the usual robot and virtual assistant driven cattle calls. But it’s a bit too old school. he really should just leave a message. Or respond to the email to setup a call.
Because gone are the days that people build their lives around random phone calls. Most of the time, it’s considered rude to even take a call without escaping to some isolated location, especially if others could hear your phone ringing first. And of course if the number is unknown it’s most likely spam.
He either needs a time machine or needs to learn how phone calls work in the 21st century.
I love posts like this because they’re almost always from out-of-touch dickheads that I would never want to work for anyway. I don’t want to get laid off when you run your company into the ground, asshole.
I won’t play phone tag with you
Plays phone tag with you
I appreciated this too! “I’ll play phone tag with you, but only a little bit”
Ok Grandpa, let’s get you into retirement.
Can you imagine working for this guy?
Dude will have a multiple volume encyclopedia of things in his brain which he assumes you will know, even when he hasn’t communicated them to you.
I’ve worked for someone like that. Their out-of-date expectations can work in your favor too, like if you need a random personal day or want a raise above inflation. Double edged sword.
Why isn’t that guy retired ?
How much more power and wealth does he think he is gonna need before he grabs some fucking pine on the bench and enjoys a lemonade ?
Old people have decided to ruin the world then die laughing leaving the rest of us the mess. What a weak generation of people they have been. Vainglory, greedy, and weak.
I don’t know many millennials or younger who answer their cell phone. Most just let it roll to voice mail. If you want to talk to these folks why not just text them.
I mean, when I was hunting for intern level work. I was in classes during normal work hours and worked for the school after. I didn’t have the time to take a random call. Don’t even have to be millennial to miss his call and without a voice mail I assume it was a wrong number or something. This CEO is just showing how useless CEOs are.
Do people even still set up voice mail these days? I had it turned off for years, I don’t want to listen to anyone’s voice mail.
I am a millennial and to be honest, I don’t really know how voice mail works or I deactivated it years ago. I don’t like calling very much, but if I get called I am sure it is something official and I usually answer it. Of course not if it is an international number. I very much prefer E-Mail, but I don’t think every millennial doesn’t phone. I don’t want to generalize for a whole group though, so it might be I am an exemption.
As a millennial I avoid calling whenever I can, but I don’t hesitate to pick up if someone calls me.
I don’t know many millennials or younger who answer their cell phone. Most just let it roll to voice mail.
Sounds like THEY are the problem.
yes of course let me deal with the spam problem someone else made my problem answering every fucking call that tries to scam me instead of letting the caller leave a voicemail if they’re legit.
Or just start picking up the phone when you are looking for a job?
Generally we schedule our interview calls here in the real world.
If it’s important leave a voicemail and I’ll return the call. If no voicemail is left I assume it’s spam.
