I would not take excuses like this for rejecting a candidate, especially a highly qualified/skilled candidate, at face value. Despite the pervasive rhetoric about wanting the "best" or hiring only the "best," both individual interviewers and companies as a whole are often afraid of hiring candidates who know more or are more skilled than themselves. The unstated fears include that the candidate will, if hired, outshine colleagues, his or her boss, or even, in some cases, the founder or CEO of the company -- especially in the case of startups where venture capitalists or other investors could be impressed by the new hire.
Since it is usually not acceptable to reject an applicant for this reason, some pretext will be generated. One way is to focus in on some area where the candidate is weak or different such as using a different software tool. Another way is to use trick questions or problems.
This is an article on how this was allegedly done in academia in the Soviet Union:
Actually, I had drafted "Horror story 4: Candidate was rejected because he was better than the interviewer" but I thought it is too complex to be included. I might write a whole blog post about it. Thanks so much for linking to the paper.
He didn’t even understand the question “what would you have to see to convince you that you’re wrong?” meaning he wouldn’t even be able to recover from the error!
For older engineers this is one of the reason why they are not hired. There are always various excuses, but basically no one wants to hire his next boss.
>>both individual interviewers and companies as a whole are often afraid of hiring candidates who know more or are more skilled than themselves.
Reminds of me of an experience a few years back, where I aced one round, in the next there is this guy who comes along, asks questions. He got very angry everytime I gave a correct answer to his questions.
Its almost like he was looking for an excuse to fail me, and wasn't getting one.
afraid of hiring candidates who know more or are more skilled than themselves. The unstated fears include that the candidate will, if hired, outshine colleagues, his or her boss
At one company the joke was you should never hire someone taller than yourself, because you would end up reporting to them. It was funny because it was true...
Isn't that your job as a founder to find and surround yourself with people that are much smarter then you in their given field of expertise?
You as the founder should then coordinate the efforts of your different experts and handle all that other startup stuff (talking to investors, aquiring customers, etc)...
Venture capitalists for example are notorious for investing in startups and replacing the founder and/or CEO with "more experienced management" as the company grows.
A well known prominent example is the ouster of Steve Jobs at Apple in the 1980s by John Sculley whom Jobs had supposedly hired -- with the support of the lead investors such as "Mike" Markkula and Arthur Rock.
Steve Jobs is not an unusual case. The founders of Cisco Sandy Lerner and Len Bosack were ousted by Don Valentine/Sequoia:
Since it is usually not acceptable to reject an applicant for this reason, some pretext will be generated. One way is to focus in on some area where the candidate is weak or different such as using a different software tool. Another way is to use trick questions or problems.
This is an article on how this was allegedly done in academia in the Soviet Union:
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1110.1556.pdf