Thursday, September 04, 2014

"I Want Superstars!" a.k.a How To Be An Asshat of a Boss

I try not to frequent Facebook as much anymore, because some subset of the people I am connected to tend to post things that infuriate me. At this time in my life when I am in crisis, the extra stress just isn't good for me. Still ... sometimes I do need to vent, and so I am going to unload on this article shared by a particularly obnoxious, anal-retentative, haughty, douchebag of a friend-of-friends with whom I've crossed swords with on Facebook in the past.

http://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/one-interview-question-that-reveals-a-superstar-job-candidate.html

To be fair to Mr. Kang, if what he needed from his new hire was to drive innovative new (and unknown) research directions in his company, then perhaps the qualities he was looking for in this "superstar" would apply - extroverted, self-confident, forward-looking, focused, and determined to get what he or she wants.

I question his methods however. There's self-confidence, and then there's plain rude. And he assumed his company is the one shining jewel on the hiring market. If I were truly confident that I were a good fit for the company, the most he'd have gotten from me is that I'd be asking just what that "extra something" is, since a matching skillset for the company isn't sufficient. I'd postulate that 90% of the candidates who "fold," do so because they are in the process of investigating if they would be a good fit for a company and had come to the interview to figure it out. If the interviewer thinks and says they are not a good fit, it is fairly rude to suggest otherwise when you yourself are uncertain. And then there are the other options on the candidates' lists. I think what Mr. Kang would have succeeded in doing is driving the other spectrum of talent away - the quiet introverted genius, no less passionate about and capable at what he loves to do.

And then there is this pattern that I recognize in some bosses - that of the asshat. Mr. Kang, given the way he presents his excuse for his want of "superstars" reminds me a lot about the mindset of many of the local Singapore bosses and hiring staff. These are the same people who will have no qualms working their "superstars" past breaking point, and then discarding them to pick up more "superstars." That is assuming of course these "superstars" do not successfully turn on their masters and dislodge them in this pseudo-Darwinian survival work environment. Even if he wanted me, I'd be rather wary of his intentions once the interview turns (as he puts it) "up the heat." I have been in situations where "the heat" got turned up arbitrarily and inexplicably, making no strategic sense where my group was concerned.

All I can say is these kinds of companies deserve the kind of people they will get - a mixture of loud hard-nosed individuals, and their victims. If they succeed, well good for them. Everyone will celebrate their success and pretend to claim it for their own, whilst a segment of their insiders will quietly curse those who would trample others underfoot to get at that success. Quite frankly, I want no part of that.

14 comments:

Kevin Jang said...

It sounds like a dog-eat-dog world out there. You cannot throw in your lot with such people for the most part. It is partially because of the 'negative energy is contagious' fact which we have known all along. I wish that I could say more, but right now, after having found a house to live in, I still have very important matters in terms of a job to find to help me settle in. I have no idea of how this will turn out, and the friend whom I am bunking over at for today and tomorrow before moving on Friday said to me that I have to learn to let the thoughts go through my mind without reacting to them for my own benefit. I am trusting that there is a reason why I am here in the meantime, and have sent out some resumes even despite not knowing how it will turn out.

Chee Wai Lee said...

Tell me about it. Anyway, best of luck! I thought I could emotionally handle rejection early on when I tried to go for the Blue Brain Project, but it hit me a lot harder than I had expected. I'm going to take my job hunt a lot more slowly, so I'm more comfortable with the process.

Kevin Jang said...

I wish that it was easier for both of us, but from what I had told a friend, who now works as an architect in Sydney and went through about 1 year and 6 months of unemployment in between graduation and finding his job now, we are all part of this 'lost generation'. We were given so many hopes by institutions and so on, but it turned out that we have to end up becoming someone other than what we thought we were meant to do. It is not encouraging and can turn out to be depressing.

Kevin Jang said...

I will write a little bit more about my emotions and how they have been evolving over the last few days as I land in Sydney, and do my best to settle in. It is not a bed of roses, or peaches and cream, and the stress of the first week has affected my throat and nose for a week or so, alongside the constant desire to sleep off the stress which I am not however getting rid of, because I wake up in the middle of every occasion when I sleep.

Chee Wai Lee said...

I kinda know this feeling. Most of my life I cruised along a path pretty much laid out for me - the "study hard and you will succeed" path. Imho, that seems to be the Singapore way where "success" is a job, with money, and a family, and very little time for anything else.

At some point, I began to get the "what the hell am I doing?" feeling. That was when I veered off the path. As it turned out, I was mentally and emotionally unprepared for such a journey. I still think it is a better choice however. I'm slowly clawing my way back up, and I'll do it on my own terms.

My best wishes to you in the coming weeks!

Kevin Jang said...

I will write a little bit more tonight, and well, I have been shortlisted for a writing test round for a 1 hour writing test (mainly for a position as a journalist) online next week. I am not sure how this will turn out but I am doing my best. A friend used to say that if a job is meant for me, as intended by God, then no one else can take it away from me. I just have to really believe it instead of being passive.

Kevin Jang said...

The coping strategies discussed at this website or link (http://www.postgraduateforum.com/thread-17887?pageNo=2) seem to be rather prescient. The person who posted the note initially at the very beginning turns out to be really depressed, which was the exact state in which I was back in Singapore when I just graduated from my PhD. I had so many hopes, so much of a desire to actually do something useful once I left university, and whether I do it in Singapore or abroad, it did not matter. The strongest blow that came was when I realized that nobody cares for whether you have a PhD or skills or not, and all that matters to them is the outright declaration of having a job, which equates success. For those who do not(or did not), that equates failure in Singapore as I realized. That was when it amounted to immense pain and psychological strain which caused multiple emotional meltdowns for me then.

Chee Wai Lee said...

I hope the poor guy who posted that first comment in that page of the forum manages to escape the shackles of being a post-doc. Very few post-docs these days really do the things traditionally associated with preparation for full-time academic careers. In my field, most of us were glorified research programmers. I happen to be overpaid, but I am aware of many others who are underpaid. Regardless, my environments were hardly conducive for nurturing independent research.

Kevin Jang said...

The post-docs in the humanities have a lot of free time of their own. I met one or two of them, and they tend to have publication deadlines due as a result of the post-doctoral funding given to them prior to any possible or potential employment. My understanding of this is, it really depends on the discipline and field, but for non-humanities post-docs, there is a lot of 'fleecing' and 'leeching' of energy from the post-docs and researchers. In other words, much like what you have said, they are just glamorized junior researchers without much of a stable job or income.

Chee Wai Lee said...

What you described for humanities post-docs sound a lot like what engineering post-docs are supposed to undergo - spend 1-2 years supervised by a mentor on a viable project going forward to a career of their own. I'm not sure when it happened for engineering post-docs, but that dream died some time ago ... which is probably why I was initially hired with a nebulous title of "computer scientist" rather than as a "post-doc." To be fair, I was disoriented enough not to ask "wait, exactly what is expected of me?"

Kevin Jang said...

The only sad catch about humanities post-docs is that as much as they are allegedly supposed to help you get a permanent tenure track job for SOME, especially in the big and prestigious universities in North America, the majority of them are closed off (such as the one in U of Toronto's Faculty of Arts which always has over 400-500 competing for just 2 positions!) and plus, even placement is no guarantee for employment in another college or institute unlike years before. So, just like what I have stated, the institutions which offered these PhDs to people have let down their entering students largely.

Kevin Jang said...

I remember how when I was asking my consultant about state nomination under the categories of university lecturer and teacher of English to non-native speakers, I was having doubts and did not know if what I had done in graduate school was even worth it. I talked with a friend--a Spanish girl in her mid-30's like us too who survived breast cancer, and got back to her PhD after only to leave it for reasons of a political tussle with her adviser--said this, "There is no time to do it like now." She was speaking from her position as someone who found a relevant allied job in a university center working with kids with disabilities, and could potentially apply for Canadian PR now but still wants to go back to finish her PhD, which she first left due to her bout of cancer then, and recently, because of departmental politics. It just dawned on me that a large part of the reason why people do PhDs is not always because of money or hopes of financial independence. After all, doctorates are basically like the modern-day equivalents of the medieval monks. Universities are and still will be a product of the Middle Ages in the west, shaped by the Scholastic movement among Catholic clergy, and hence closed off to most people, even royalty. The idea of it being part of an exclusive coterie circle(mainly religious) then has in a way shaped the exclusiveness of academia worldwide as that of the ivory tower, inaccessible except to a few, but never in itself promising anything per se. Sad but perhaps truer than anything....

Kevin Jang said...

I think that part of your ability to deal with all of these doubts will stem from summoning this "whatever" lackadaisical attitude and focusing on yourself and your own personal goals' fulfilment in time to come. Someone told me that I have a Sino-Asian accent which will not be accepted by Koreans for teaching English in South Korea, and that when matched with my Asian appearance, will exclude me from doing it. The worse thing happens especially when it is a case of me majoring in English for my PhD but still being seen as someone not 'native' to the language whatever I try to do to defend my point. You know, after considering what I had said once with a career counselor over the span of a year, is someone's assessment of my worth that important? I probably should refrain from this 'what the f-k' kind of response, since it is uncivil and makes me unattractive for a job when asked such questions, but I certainly should not take it personally since people have all their fair share of prejudices and uneducated ideas.

Chee Wai Lee said...

Yah, that's pretty much what I had resolved to do. All my life I've spent way too much time and effort pleasing other people, sacrificing myself in the process, and being the guy who gets thrown under the bus when shit hits the fan.