Managers. What small things immediately make you not hire a person, and why?

I just look for honesty and some self-respect. The roles I hire for are fairly entry-level,

so you don't need to be amazingly qualified or anything. I get a lot of young people for interviews,

and what annoys me the most is when they arrive dressed in casual clothes. I don't disregard

their application over clothes, but I do

sit and wonder why their friends or parents or partners let them come to an interview in such

sloppy clothing. That said, I did have a weird one. I hired a guy from a group-like session,

as he was probably the best and most confident person on the day. After hiring, a few weeks in,

he starts to become unreliable with his late finishes.

When I ask him what's up with that, he comes in one day, on his day off, and says he needs to

speak to me. He then tells me that he'll be resigning because he can't make the later working

hours, and that he's sorry for letting me down and appreciates us giving him a chance. He then

lifts his gene leg and shows me an electronic tag on his ankle. Turns out he was

released from prison two days before my interview and said he never bought it up because in a room

full of people, why would anyone employ the ex-con? When I thought about it, he's probably right.

Me and my colleague who were interviewing probably would have influenced our decision on him

if we knew, and he said he just wanted a fair chance. So the tag prevented him from being outside his home after 7pm, as he was charged for supply

when younger. I ended up calling the parole officer and the HMRC, and eventually altering his

curfew on the basis that I said he would have to be jobless if they didn't, and if you don't

allow him to have a legitimate job, what are the chances of him re-offending going to be?

He ended up being one of the best employees for a while.

We were looking for engineers, and we had this guy apply.

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