Ask Lemmy

I once told a person why I'm not hiring them, unprompted.

I was looking for fundraisers to find donors for NGOs, and a young woman I was interviewing had actually been living abroad in an exchange program that kind of included tasks that ought to have brought her skills useful in the job. But, with no amount of prying and hinting was I able to get her to mention that. Or in any other manner do anything that sounds like they were able to convince anyone about anything. So, I told her that. Something like "Okay, I'll say this outright, even if that's unusual. I will not hire you, and I'd like to tell you why", and then explained that in their CV they mention this this and that, and those are actually cool things to have done and would need to be advertised. And continued: "You would not find enough donors to cover a reasonable part of your salary costs, and you'd be more of a burden for the organization than an asset. There are laws about how much of an NGOs costs can go for its own organization, and for your part the percentage would be far too high. You would feel guilty for wasting a good organization's funds and endangering their permission to gather donations, and your life would be worse because of that guilt. Maybe in some years you'll develop the skills you need for this job and should apply again, but now is not the time for that. I seriously wish you good luck finding a summer job! You've got a good attitude for a worker and there are companies that would really need the likes of you, but you're not cut out for stuff related to sales yet."