Re: [tlug] Ghosted?

["Curt J. Sampson" <cjs@example.com>]

On 2025-07-29 10:02 +0000 (Tue), James Tobin wrote:

> An employer refused to provide feedback or progress with a candidate; but
> instead immediately, abruptly and suspiciously cancelled their contract
> with the recruitment firm.

Was there anything in the contract that said they couldn't do this? If not,
they're perfectly within their rights to do exactly this. If it bothers
you, you could try to get future clients to sign a contract forbidding this
sort of behaviour, but in my experience when you have a client that really
doesn't want to work with you, you're better off getting separated as soon
as reasonably possible, rather than trying to force them to work with you.

On 2025-07-30 00:04 +0900 (Wed), Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:

> I think it's more fun and more profitable to be honorable and
> cooperative, but I guess that's just me, and (probably fortunately) I
> don't rule the world.

I doubt it's more profitable to be honourable and co-operative, but it's
definitely easier on the mind and conscience (at least for some of us).

And it's rather unfortunate you don't rule the world, bad as you are,
Trump is worse. :-)

On 2025-07-29 16:39 +0100 (Tue), Raymond Wan wrote:

> Earlier today, a friend here in the UK just said that a job offer that
> was promised was suddenly taken away.

Was it just "promised" or did he receive an actual offer letter? An oral
promise is, in practice, worth nothing; assume you don't have an offer
until you get an actual signed offer letter. (That will have legal force
and it's easy to prove exactly what it said.)

> You submit an application and hope it gets looked at.  There are just too
> many applicants.

Exactly. Employers at this point are often _flooded_ with applications for
each position, most of which are auto-generated crap. (There are on-line
services where you can stick in your resume and suchlike and direct it to
spam applications to hundreds of job openings per day, these days with an
LLM-written custom cover letter, and the poor HR folks simply can't handle
it. Of course they can use "AI" to try to sort through this, but we all
know how well AI works at figuring out things.

On 2025-07-30 09:43 +0900 (Wed), Edward Middleton wrote:

> The other approach would be to just bring them in for an in person
> interview.

That gets expensive for remote positions, where you have to fly in people
from all over the world. And it's a PITA for the candidate, too, if they
e.g. live in Japan and are applying to a U.S.-based company. Expense aside,
it's also three days of your life devoted to this.

On 2025-07-30 17:02 +0900 (Wed), Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:

> The only problem with this is that there are very smart people who
> can't explain worth a damn, while the code speaks for itself.
> Although I imagine if "you listen very hard" you as interviewer can
> often work around that.

Really? If the code speaks for itself that would seem to indicate that they
_can_ explain worth (more than) a damn. Writing good code and talking with
other developers in English are really about the same thing: being able to
communicate effectively. As Dijkstra said, "Besides a mathematical
inclination, an exceptionally good mastery of one's native tongue is the
most vital asset of a competent programmer." (From the famous EWD498.[1])

[1]: http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD04xx/EWD498.html

On 2025-07-30 18:22 +0900 (Wed), Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:

> "Is you taking notes on a criminal f---ing conspiracy?"  No, of course
> not! :-)

Well, now that you bring that up, it points to the obvious solution here:
send Omar to your interview. :-)

cjs
-- 
Curt J. Sampson      <cjs@example.com>      +81 90 7737 2974

To iterate is human, to recurse divine.
    - L Peter Deutsch