The Email Unsent: Please Don’t Hire [Candidate]

Some time ago, I had a bizarre interview over Zoom. The candidate arrived late and said they had to work for a few minutes. I waited patiently until the candidate was ready.

During the remainder of the interview, the candidate was distracted and occasionally paused so that they could work and respond to work messages. I can’t confirm they were working because we were not screen sharing, but that is beside the point. I couldn’t get through the whole interview because the candidate was constantly elsewhere, looking at a different screen, typing on a different computer. They did ok in the questions I was able to ask, but I gave the candidate a Strong No for being inconsiderate and unprofessional. If the candidate was too busy to interview, then they should have rescheduled. That would have been the simple, professional solution to an extremely busy day or work emergency.

When the interview panel convened, I described my experience. Others had similar experiences, but not as bad as mine. The candidate had been distracted and late, but was especially distracted in my interview. Much to my surprise, my boss, HR manager, and peer started defending the candidate.

The candidate is extremely busy with work - we all know what that is like.

They are really stressed out with work. It was difficult for us to schedule the interview with them.

We really need this position and the candidate has the ideal qualifications.

Not those exact words, but the meaning was the same. My team was desperate to hire this person. They were willing to overlook their behavior in my interview.

I was shocked and disoriented. Did my boss hear me? Did they hear how unprofessionally this person had acted? Did they hear my “Strong No”? Surely they must have misheard me. I wanted to follow up immediately, but I waited until the end of the meeting to make my plea.

I strongly recommend not hiring this person. The candidate should respect our time just like we respect theirs. They should have rescheduled instead of working during my interview.

We spent a few more minutes discussing my concerns, but nothing changed. My boss chose to extend an offer.

After the meeting, I was exasperated. I felt disrespected by the candidate. I felt my evaluation was dismissed by my team. I imagined that anyone who had my experience would have felt similarly to me.

I wondered if I didn’t communicate well enough during the interview panel. Did I do a poor job of describing my interview? Did I fail to support my evaluation? I decided I would write an email to clarify the candidate’s behavior and support my evaluation.

For about an hour, I ignored my coding tasks and started writing out why we should pass. I tried to balance my tone while writing. I wanted to be sincere, but not dramatic. I tried to argue objectively. If my boss would not listen to me, then surely they would listen to reason! I rewrote each sentence multiple times, hunting for the precise wording.

Soon I had writer’s block. I could not write this email without sounding angry. I had reasons to pass on the candidate, but my strong emotions were detracting from my argument. I pulled myself away from the screen. Maybe I should try again tomorrow? I stopped searching for reasons on the screen. I leaned back, looked upwards, and took a breath. Maybe if I relaxed, I could make my point without sounding inflamed.

I started sifting through my thoughts, trying to understand why I was so upset. I made an odd connection between my situation and the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. If I was grieving, then I was in the anger phase transitioning to the bargaining phase. But I had nothing to bargain with! I felt like I was trying to argue my way out of accepting the decision.

I felt silly for being so sensitive. My team was making a mistake, but people must make mistakes to learn from them. I would suffer, but they would suffer more and learn from it. They were hiring someone they would work closely with, not me. They would struggle to collaborate with a person who was always elsewhere. Who knows? Perhaps the candidate would find some work-life balance at MediaAlpha and collaborate wonderfully.

No! That was passive-aggressive rationalization. My team will make mistakes, but I decided I must not stay quiet. Defeatist silence would also be a mistake. I’ve made that mistake a few times. Hiring well is the most important thing in the universe. I believed we should prefer to pass on candidates instead of assuming they will act better at MediaAlpha. That was how we judged every other candidate. I thought that was how we must judge this candidate.

I was aware I was moving backwards through the stages of grief, from bargaining towards anger. I reasoned with myself. This wasn’t personal. I shouldn’t take the candidate’s behavior personally. I shouldn’t take my boss’s decision personally. Though I was angry, I wanted my opinion to be strictly professional and unemotional.

Then lightning.

This was personal, and I shouldn’t deny it. That was the point. I am a person, and their actions offended me. I shouldn’t stifle my emotions. I should understand why I felt this way. Why was I offended?

The answer was clear. Understanding flooded in. I was offended because I had been in the candidate’s situation and acted differently. Maybe an even harder position! At the end of my first software job, I was tasked with extreme overtime, but I managed to interview and behave professionally. That was why I was angry. I felt slighted because the standards applied to me were higher than the standards applied to the candidate. If I had acted that way in my interviews, I wouldn’t have been hired.

With insight and renewed energy, I spent another hour redrafting the email. The new version used my personal anecdote to justify rejecting the candidate. I was inspired by a passage from the novel DeathWing: “A gathering of warriors was not an argument in the formal sense, where words were used as weapons to count coup on the enemy. It was a pooling of experience, a telling of stories.”

The purpose of sharing your experience is that it stands on its own, away from you. You leave it up for interpretation by the listener.

I would let my story do most of the arguing. I drafted the email, reviewed it, took a lunch break, then reviewed it again. Staring at the email, I started to think my story was overkill. My story was too dramatic. It read like fiction. But it was real! It really happened to me! I really did work 16 hours a day! And weekends! And I was denied PTO to visit my grandmother when her cancer came back! AHHHHHH!

At the peak of my anger, I reached another moment of clarity. I archived the email onto my laptop and deleted the draft. I never sent it.

I respected my hardworking boss, who had already made their decision. Perhaps I was still raw from the SpeedTax experience, even after a decade. The email was personal, I was certain, but was it also professional? In time, I might get clarity. I would be patient and remember this moment. I couldn’t be sure if I was overreacting, so I decided not to send the email.

Sometimes there is no clear right answer, and you have to make peace with the choice you made. The letter was a strong argument for a no-hire - sharing my experience as reasoning, not criticism. Writing it gave me insight into what I was feeling and why. Choosing not to send it was how I found peace.

Below is a draft of the email. Had I written it today, I would have made some improvements and fixes. Instead, I have left the email largely unedited.

You can’t help feeling what you feel. You are human. But sometimes you don’t send the email.

The Email

Dear [Boss] and [HR Manager],

Some number of years ago, I was tasked with rewriting the entire SpeedTax webapp front end within a month. SpeedTax was being sold to Wolters Kluwer so that investors could exit an unprofitable venture. The SpeedTax webapp had originally been coded by a consulting company which had not been fully paid. The consulting company was going to sue unless the webapp no longer used their code upon sale. Pretty sensational. Even more sensational once we found out it was a SpeedTax employee who notified the consulting company of the sale!

That month remains the hardest month of work in my life. I worked every day, often 16 hours a day, but always more than 12 hours. Lunch was always quick. I don’t remember eating breakfast or dinner. I don’t remember much of anything… except my interview with GaiKai.

At the beginning of that month, I decided that Wolters Kluwer would not be a good fit for me. I didn’t have time to search for a job. I figured I would leave some time after the sale and take a break while I searched. A friend at GaiKai serendipitously reached out to me and connected me with their recruiter.

We scheduled an interview for some weekday. I told my boss that I was going to interview at GaiKai sometime in the afternoon, then return for work. I then drove to GaiKai and arrived early so that I could find parking, locate the GaiKai office, and meet with the recruiter. I met with three technical interviewers, the last of which was the CIO. Afterwards, I returned to SpeedTax, worked late in the evening, printed and signed the offer letter from GaiKai, and resumed working. I worked extra late that night to make up for missed work. Four weeks later, the SpeedTax front end was rewritten and the sale was finalized. As per my letter of resignation, I left the following day.

During the hardest month of work in my life, I was able to schedule time for an interview, physically arrive for the interview ahead of time, and negotiate the limited PTO with my panicked employer. Finding a new job was very important to me, so I made time for the interview despite tremendous work pressure. Even though I was very stressed from work, I never once mentioned the situation at SpeedTax during the GaiKai interview. Why should GaiKai care? The GaiKai engineers and CIO were in the middle of a stressful product launch, under severe pressure and time constraints. We were in similar situations.

I think we should pass on [Candidate] because [Candidate] has already failed some minimum requirements. It is probable that [Candidate] is overworked and stressed out. I feel for [Candidate], but they will probably have to work hard at MediaAlpha too. I want to work with Senior Engineers who can professionally deal with scheduling constraints and their own stress levels. [Candidate] does not seem able to do either. [Candidate] did not have to physically arrive anywhere. [Candidate] is working from home and doesn’t actually have to ask their employer for PTO if they feel their employer would reject the request. If [Candidate] is overworked, wants a new job, and is interested in MediaAlpha, then they should rationally prioritize our interview. Moreover, we are busy people and [Candidate] should respect our time as they respect their own.

- Randy