Hacker

I ran across some post on Hacker News where someone divulged some information about an informal experiment he did, recording several phone screens for hiring managers and recruiters. They were posted on a SoundCloud account. Legal issues aside on right-to-consent recording laws, people have been mainly giving him negative feedback on the quality of his recordings, saying how he may be a decent programmer but ultimately bombing the way he talks (or doesn't talk, in some cases) with deadpan answers or leaving moments of radio silence. Someone else who has been on interviews with hundreds of people has even said he'd put this person in his bottom 5 of people he's heard interview. And that got me to thinking how so much of our future on our jobs, and careers, disproportionately hinges on a little snippet of performance. And often this happens outside of an actual job, but while interviewing for a job. I'm now imagining how many more people are out there like him, awkwardly stumbling in his speaking, but could be a great person to work with otherwise. These fools could be sleeping on so many people. So much for "talk is cheap, show me results", and not judging a book by its cover.