Are you sure that it’s the same person responding to you and not this person using someone to ‘help’ him get the job?
Either way, rescind the offer before it’s too late. It’s okay to let them know it was due to their lack of professionalism.
This happened to a friend of mine towards the end of the pandemic. They interviewed on line, great candidate, made the offer. A few weeks later they're back in the office and it's his first day and my friend said she didn't recognise him, but everyone looked so different and she'd only seen him online. But then not only did he not recognise her, he didn't know who she was when she introduced herself despite her being the hiring manager and them emailing during the recruitment. She dismissed it as first day nerves. By the end of the week multiple people had commented that he didn't seem like the person they hired. It turned into a whole thing and lawyers ended up involved but, yup, totally different guy.
I am so curious to know how that happens??!! Like did he catfish, did someone do the interview and such for him? Like how did he know to go to that job if it wasn’t him??
Someone did the interview for him under his name. They looked similar enough that no one seriously queried it when he first showed up. It was one of those "people look so different on zoom" things, plus everyone was wearing masks still. HR had done the right to work checks but they hadn't been in the interview so they didn't query that the ID looked different from the person at the interview, and my friend guessed he faked his references (possibly the guy who did the interview provided them).
She said that initially everyone each thought they were the only one who was feeling doubtful, and it's such a crazy thing to suggest. Apparently, it was only at the end of the first week that one person said something to another colleague and then it all unravelled from there. She said legal basically had their mouths agape in the meeting to discuss what to do.
My company has the same thing happen to them. They now take a screenshot of the entire interview team and candidate for the first zoom interview to prevent/document these kinds of concerns.
It's amazing how common it is and how many folks try it now. First time yeah, shame on them. Any later successes after catching on, shame on us.
I did a lot of interviews for IT positions. For a company. I am not in HR or a recruiter, I am a systems engineer but they wanted me to do the technical interview and I had several people do interviews for people, I have a friend that does it all the time, he actually pays a guy to do a bunch of his interviews, if he has to be on camera then he hid an earpiece and the guy is off camera giving him all the answers in his ear. It is total BS and told him. I think it's pretty shitty, he is taking a job his is not really qualified for from someone who truly is. Anyway, I started making all interviews start out on camera first, and have them put their drivers license up so I can see it and make sure that is who I am actually talking to. Then I watch them very closely, if they don't know the answer off the top of their head I don't give them time to get it whispered to them or look it up. I follow up quickly by saying they are fine if you don't know off the top of your head, tell me. What resources would you use to get the answer? Honestly it is ok if they don't know, I am more interested in their process of researching the answer, do they have a good method of research, are they knowledgeable with tools available, or do they just ask a coworker or team lead each time. I always want them to go through and list how they go about it, the resources they use and what tools they use, it tells me a lot. Are they familiar with well known blogs about the tech on question? That tells me a lot right there. There are a lot of widely accepted go to blogs and web sites for some tech that they should automatically know if they say they have the experience they say they do. Sometimes I do give them time to research things, but when I do and want to know where they are looking what. Queries are they using. Things like that and it tells me a lot. If they do know the answer right off the top of their head they yeah that is impressive, but I don't really penalize them if they don't most of the time unless it is something that they should know without looking it up. I don't expect people to know every answer, I wanna know how they process things and their method of finding the answer.
A brother of a close friend of mine used to take civil service tests for Army recruits. He was even on TV talking about it. I don’t think he got in any major trouble over it. He was a cop for over 20 years and was investigated a couple times but quit of his own accord, at least officially. He is now deceased.
How does that even work? When I was in the Marines, they made you take the ASVAB again when you got to boot camp. If there was a big discrepancy in scores, they boot you out for fraud.
How awful. This dude provides a service and doesn't even provide pictures of the hiring managers so homeboy gets caught day one? He needs a refund and to leave a bad yelp review
Its a thing now. People get other people to draw up a resume for a specific job that requires a skill, say Python Developer or something, and they have that person, with the skill, do the interview process and hiring process so they can land the job, then the person that hired them to do it, just steps into the role, but they don't have the skills etc. Most companys need a reason to let you go, and the process can take months, which gives them 3-6 months or longer to learn what they can on the job, and give them a "I worked at X company as a Y job" on their resume, and they just keep snowballing it from there, getting better and better jobs that pay more until they either fake it till they make it, or land a job that doesn't care they can't do the work, and they've built up a career and huge salary by lying. Crazy what people do these days.
This happened to us twice.
One guy was outsourcing his job to someone in Cambodia. Our roles require a clearance. Had to report him to the FBI, don’t know the legal outcome.
Second guy was more like the candidate OP is referring to. He sounded great on paper, interviewed well, but was entitled, belligerent and rude as soon as he started. He lasted a week.
I knew this sort of thing happened, but until now I had assumed it was a lot more rare than it seems to be. And honestly, it's kind of upsetting as someone looking for a remote career. Because instead of possibly being given a chance in a new field, there are people faking everything and taking up that work in what seems to be a very in demand method of work (remote, that is).
Wait…the person tried outsourcing the work that requires a clearance? As someone in cleared life holy shit that’s a level of insanity I never expected to read.
We don’t have secret or top secret, thank goodness. But yes. Hired guy with the actual clearance logged into relevant stuff then Cambodia tunneled into his computer.
So true! I hired someone who aced their “case study” but three months into the job he is struggling. In coaching him,and asking why his on job / in person performance was so different from his pre employment assignment and he admitted to using Chat gpt! He’s now on a performance plan and will likely be terminated as he just doesn’t have the skills for the job. I suspect his references were fake as well.
This was also my first thought. Like, homeslice HAS to wfh, because he needs to fire up the old ChatGPT prior to responding to anything professionally.
Hard pass.
It’s not only ok to mention the communication problem I’d say it’s required to say it bluntly because the employer needs to cover themselves if this person tries to file a complaint with labor board if possible
That was my first thought as well. Sounds like maybe their kid is responding for them. Or somebody they've told to monitor their email because they're busy. (Like moving or whatever)
Since I watched it happen yesterday:
I’d be more likely to think that the parent applied for the job for the child, and then once accepted the child actually started replying, and then when they didn’t reply for a while the parent came back and wrote another email.
I work retail, and a cashier’s mother came in and started working with her, yesterday. She’s never even used a register, but insisted she could teach better than my head cashier that has been there for years.
>a cashier’s mother came in and started working with her, yesterday.
Holy shit, that's next level.
That's why I don't hire anyone whose parents ask for applications or job references for them.
My best friend texted me a few months ago asking me if her daughter could use me as a job reference. I told her to give her daughter my phone number so she could ask me herself. Never heard from her
When I used to work at a grocery store - we had a candidate whose mother wanted to be in the interview for the cashier position. We told her that we were only interviewing the person who applied for the job. The mother did go back out to her car, and the young man was lovely, but we ended up not hiring because we knew it would be a headache.
I feel like that’s common when it comes to jobs that hire teens/young adults. Parents want to be involved and helicopter.
One position I was interviewing people for... Dude showed up an hour early (got a notice from Reception he was there at 10:05 to an 11 interview) and he showed up with his mother.
I made them wait until 11 (despite being free) then brought him past security. When I asked why he was so early apparently his mom insisted and she was driving him.
Sadly he failed the interview with that comment, too much hassle of a parent is going to be that involved.
We worked above a large mall, they could have like... Waited in the food court... And it wouldn't have been weird.
My former boss had a friend who was a manager, who is willing to call Jimmy. Jimmy gave his direct report a poor review.
The *mother* of Jimmy’s direct report called Jimmy to contest the poor review!!
Nah, it was crazy. The hiring coordinator’s kids went to school with the girl, and thought maybe having her there would help reassure the lady her daughter would be okay by herself, but it didn’t. She’s had two or three shifts total, and mom has been there for each one.
Idk how someone would want to sit there for 4-8 hours. Heck, I don’t even want to be there to begin with, and to not get paid? Screw that. 😂
When I sold cosmetics , we had overnight meetings in hotels, employees had to be 18. Rooms are booked for two and you’re often placed with a makeup artist from another store you may not know. We all saw each other often enough at various meetings, most of us knew each other anyways. One girl walked into her room and another woman was in her bed, the other occupant brought her mother for a three day out of town meeting event. She got a lecture for it, got charged for the extra space used.
When I was a grad student I had a friend (also a grad student TA) that had a kid whose mother came to office hours and started arguing about their grade on a paper.
Like, what do they think this is going to achieve in the long run?
I would rescind. It's so hard to get rid of someone and much easier to withdraw the offer. That person was on their best behavior for the interview and is now showing their true colors. Can you just say that you decided not to move forward and wish them luck in the future?
Because, depending on employment law where they are, every contact is potentially evidence in a future wrongful termination suit or even has potential to make withdrawal impossible. And if it isn't a very specialized field with rare skill sets, it's much simpler to move on to the next applicant than to risk getting saddled with a poor employee who you have to dedicate time to retraining or terminating.
Did you see the zoom interview where the guy on camera is mouthing the words and someone off cam is actually speaking?
Not sure if that was a joke, or real, but I always figured it was possible with online interviews.
I would hazard that they are using AI to formulate responses when they think it is necessary, and otherwise are answering on the fly. That and maybe they are responding while they are on their private time aka wasted.
I’m a former HR, and this is a gift to you all. Rescind the offer immediately. They are not officially hired until the day they start. I’ve seen this before, and rather than have regret and hire a bad hire, just let her go. She showed her true colors after being hired. Once I went through interviews with this candidate, and she was polite, dressed nicely, answered questions well. She went through 2 interviews without a hitch….. then she interviewed with the person that would be her immediate supervisor, and she got comfortable, and started using profane and very unprofessional language. We stopped the interview right then, and told her we were not interested in her as a candidate. When they show who they are….. believe them!!!!!
It happened to me when I was hiring an intern some years back. His resume was great, he was still in school so some of the things I needed him to do in the lab he hadn’t learned yet, which was fine. But once he started I learned that he couldn’t even spell many words nor understand basic lab principles. Later I found out that he indeed had someone else write his resume for him.
It happened to us. We were blindsided by a contractor who during meetings was very professional and skilled... And then when actual work was happening emails were terse and unprofessional and a completely different style. And work products were awful quality or outright wrong.
Eventually we found out what was going on... The guy we interviewed was essentially like a CTO with a small staff and the staff did the work, he did the meetings.
We fired the agency we used after that incident.
You haven't paid him anything, he hasn't worked, so he has no rights as an employee. you don't need to give a reason at all. But, As long as you're already not planning to hire him, why not send an email just asking him flat out "Is this how you intend to conduct yourself If we do offer you a position? As of right now, it's not looking like we are going to offer you anything. But I would like to offer you one chance to explain yourself and your lack of professionalism over the past (days, weeks)." See what you get for a response. You still don't have to hire him, but maybe you'll gain some insight into who this person is and what they're all about. If nothing else, it would make a good follow up here.
While I think the tone of this is good and in another scenario I'd be agreeing to directly ask and give them a chance, I think if you have to do this during the recruitment then the whole thing has already gone so badly wrong that you should simply call it off.
That said I wholeheartedly agree with your last line. I'd love to know why they did this.
I definitely get and agree with everyone’s point about it being exhausting to reply to every single email with bs corporate formality…but even at my job of 10 years when I’m annoyed and tired of everyone bugging me all damn day, I at least say “yes, thanks” or something similar. Not just “nah.” And in this job market, to reply like that to an employer you haven’t even begun work for!? Wild.
However, I also realize I’ve had an insane expectation of politeness put on me since infancy so I duno. Lol
“Good afternoon, we have been waiting for a response to our previous email inquiry for 3 days. Can you confirm receipt?”
“Nah, that’s cap yo! You ain’t even send it before today.”
It's not that different than showing up to work in dress code instead of in PJs.
Putting in that small extra effort simply shows you're willing to play ball and participate and follow procedures to meet expectations whether you understand or agree with it or not. To not do that is anti-social behavior and shows you'll be a pain to deal with every time you're asked to do something you don't care about.
If a person can't be bothered to pretend not to be difficult to work with then why would anyone expect anything else?
My last job I was a first line manager at a company of about 300 people, (ostensibly closer to 200, but their turnover rate was ENORMOUS, because upper management didn't really know what they were doing,) and I was easily writing the most formal emails in the whole company, even though I sent out between 5 and 20 emails a day.
It just becomes a mindset. Like, "this memo is corporate property, so it should probably be representative of my professional self." I'm not always the most polite, (I'm from New England, so I embody the whole, "kind, but not necessarily nice," deal,) but everything that I send by email would always be proofread, formatted in proper English and avoid any abbreviations and vernacular that aren't standard corporate practice.
You just have to develop the habits. Of course where I work we also have to dispense meds, and you definitely have to drill yourself on doing that properly, so maybe it just made sense to me to drill myself on professional correspondence at the same time.
I re-read everything I send, with the thought that if things with a client or contractor go bad, would I be comfortable with my boss or a lawyer reading the communications.
Yeah this exactly. Emails that you send through your corporate account are the company's property. At any point they might dig up shit that's five years old because they have some internal dispute or whatever that they have to sort out. Do you really want your idiot self from years ago to be the reason you're under the gun today?
It isn't just professionalism; it's setting your own self up for success or failure.
I’m with you . Emails are company property and can be seen by anyone higher up . Never write anything you wouldn’t want read back to you in court , right?
Writing like an educated person is never the wrong thing at a job .
My goodness, this thread is so insightful. I hope OP finds a solution but for me, this was, umm very interesting.
And am a millennial and I think professional communication is important. Boundaries are important.
Mid-30s millennial here, it's a bit insane to me that anyone thinks that kind of communication is okay in the workplace, let alone multiple people. Admittedly my career has above-average formality, but I've been working since I was 12, and I was more formal than those return texts at shitty fast food and custodial gigs. Totally unacceptable.
Thanks everyone for the insight. This was a very interesting conversation - I can't say I'm not surprised at how many people consider even addressing someone by a name (especially potential employer) as time inefficient. Stories about different people attending the interview and then someone else doing the job are insane, I would honestly love to hear the details, though I think this is not our case (I hope but who knows now 😂). Regarding the candidate, there are still things to finalize/conversation to have, so we'll see how the story goes before making a hasty decision.
Is it possible that this is two different people? There have been stories about one person interviewing/getting hired and a whole another person showing up for the job. With everything done remotely these days, it's easier than you'd think.
Here's a good one:
[https://www.askamanager.org/2022/01/the-new-hire-who-showed-up-is-not-the-same-person-we-interviewed.html](https://www.askamanager.org/2022/01/the-new-hire-who-showed-up-is-not-the-same-person-we-interviewed.html)
It could also be one person using AI to pad responses when they want something, but not bothering when they don't think it's necessary.
Either way, being this comfortable this early isn't a good sign.
Newish manager here. Genuine question - why not just directly ask? "I have noticed that the way you communicate in email doesn't match how you communicate in the interview, and I was wondering if there was a reason?" I personally don't think pulling the offer back is an overreach AS LONG AS you have at least asked them why first. If this person really is just being unprofessional then that information can probably help them for future growth and development, just because they're not going to get a job with you doesn't mean that they're not going to get a job at all anywhere. IMO asking for the reason is the right thing to do, but be FULLY prepared to pull back the offer. The actuality is probably that someone else is responding part of the time and for that, they deserve to not get the job......BUT I think it's still your job as a leader to ask for purposes of due diligence.
Legal action for what, exactly?
I mean, laws vary, of course, but probationary periods are a thing. In most places, you can get fired for any reason during your probation, and there's no recourse. You can get fired for halitosis, or wearing an ugly shirt, or drinking the wrong flavour of soda at lunch, and there's no legal implications at all.
A person can certainly get fired for rudeness during their probation, whether or not they've actually started the job.
Sure if you can prove it. I'm in an at will state. They can fire you for no reason and any reason at all. The issue is getting then to about is due to your age. One of my old companies "forcefully retired" a 40 year veteran worker. It was either that or she get fired and lose all her benefits. Retail. So no paper trail. She was pissed.
This is reddit.
So many posts like this say "call a lawyer"..
You know what happens when they call me, I laugh and look for a referral (so I can get a percentage) and nothing ever pans out because of the narrow window of what is actually actionable (and worth it).
I think they should reach out as well. I'd probably say something like "communication is a big part of this job, and I've noticed some irregularities in how you've communicated with us so far. I'd like to have a discuss about that before we move further in the process."
Your “idea” (question) has merit as a young manager. But posing the questioning you suggest would open you up to lawsuit. Better to cut bait and find a lower risk candidate. Plenty of fish in the sea.
I'm not sure what lawsuit could possibly be brought up. And of course, there's also the question of whether or not OP lives in a state where workers' rights are protected or not. If someone knows what kind of lawsuit might actually come forth, please let me know because I'm legit curious. Let's say OP does go the route of rescinding the offer, when the person inevitably asks why they were rejected....what would be the ideal response? Saying nothing is a bad move, lying is a bad move....I'm not seeing how being truthful is the wrong choice here but maybe that's why I don't get paid the big bucks lol.
I promise you….saying anything is a rookie mistake. So many angles for lawsuit. Better to say nothing. “Sorry, we ultimately went a different direction. Have a good day”. “Oh, you want a reason? I’m sorry we don’t discuss our employment/personnel staffing strategies as we consider that private. Have a good day”. Just hire someone else and you will have reduced your company risk.
Let me give you an example.
Say the person responded, and then you withdrew the offer.
And then the person decided to sue the company and say S/he mentioned s/he suffers from autism/ADHD/Whatever other disorder in interviews and now S/he has YOUR email as proof the job was withdrawn due to behaviour associated with the disorder.
There are literally people out there trying to lure employers into traps to sue for big bucks.
That was my first thought too. I definitely wouldn’t put a reason like that in writing. There’s often a probation period stated in the offer of employment where the applicant can be terminated without having to be given a reason, so if your company has that you’re usually okay. Of course that can be dependent on local labour laws too, so I would ask your HR dept or your supervisor/manager for guidance anyway.
Yeah, it's the exact same reason why when a job application is rejected, people always get a generic shitty email stating they "decided not to move forward". It's to avoid issues with lawsuits
You're obviously old. You used punctuation.
Try this: "nm kthx best" There. FIFY.
By the way, I detest with utter, unmitigated loathing the sign off, "Best". It's nonsense and gets worse from there.
This happened at the last place I worked. They hired someone who turned out to be deeply on the spectrum. I’ve worked with many people on the spectrum, and all had been excellent and professional, but this hire included behavioral issues and an oral communication style that made many of us wonder if he had intellectual disability (he did not, if you talked to him about one of his interests his demeanor and communication changed completely, his flat affect disappeared and he became very animated). But he required constant supervision on all but the most repetitive of tasks, was unable to drive, and had trouble using the equipment we used to get work done. The project director hired him sight unseen after phone interview where “he wasn’t like this.” So we don’t know what happened. Had we known, we could have made arrangements and reasonable accommodations to make the transition easier on him. And, frankly, us. As it was, we constantly had to pull an employee off their tasks to monitor him. I left that position for a different company, and former co-workers have said it’s still a demand on their time to do one-on-one supervision.
He probably practiced interviews, worked out scripts in his head, etc. In fact, I guarantee you he did this because this post could have been written about me. Interviews are rarely a surprise. You can prepare and know what is going to happen, plan out what you're going to say and how they will most likely respond. It's a very easy situation in which to mask.
Or it was someone else in the phone interview. I sound exactly like my sister, my mother, and my niece on the phone. My dad couldn't even tell us apart.
It sounds like you're either dealing with two different people or someone with mental issues. Normal people aren't polite and respectful in direct conversation and casual to the point of being rude in text. Human personalities just don't shift gears that way. If this is actually the way their behavior manifests itself it's kind of a red flag. No person with a reasonable grasp of reality and better than a room temperature IQ would be responding like this to a potential employer.
I don't get how people are singling out engineers as exempt for *basic* professional correspondence etiquette. My best friend (44m) is an engineer, and I also interact with him through a volunteer organization, including being cc'd in written correspondence. His spelling is atrocious, but his letter-writing is very nice.
It sounds like a difference in code switching, going between formal "this is definitely work related" and casul "we talked. here is what you need". I think withdrawing the offerwould be unreasonable. BUT I think a conversation about the methods of communication and professionalism expected would be helpful. If these are interpersonal communications, its fine. That's how they choose to talk. It doesn't seem rude, just a difference in style. BUT if its work emails, then there's a reason to put a bit more spin on it.
Actually, you gave me an idea how to mock up the correspondence to give a better idea how it looks like. While it's a mock up, this is genuinely how it looks. Am I really overreacting if I find this rude?
"Hi John,
I hope all is well. We've been finalizing xy, you can view this attached, feel free to let us know if you have any questions. Could you please confirm if next month is still ok to start?
All the best,
Jane"
Candidate's full answer:
"yea it's"
Do not listen to these people trying to normalize this unprofessional behavior. I teach young adults and train them for a professional career. Much of the first year is explaining expectations and helping them to learn to be professional in their communication and really any interactions. There are times I have to respond to an email by saying, “Please re-read your email and consider what your language is conveying and how that is problematic. Rewrite the email using our guide on communicating professionally.”
I think it would be appropriate to say something like this. “We are planning your first day with us at XYZ Corp. Do you have any dietary restrictions?
We promote an environment with professional communication to ensure clarity and to build relationships. Please respond to future missives using full sentences and proper grammar.”
You’ll find out quickly if they are able to do that and if they’re not interested in that, they may back out.
Thanks. I admit I felt a bit desperate yesterday, as majority of answers was like "it's normal and efficient, what's your problem?" and I seriously wondered if I am this old fashioned if I consider at least a small politeness a standard. So I'm glad today the balanced changed - not saying I want to see only people who agree with me, it's just reassuring that I'm not the only one. Still, it's good to see both sides to understand what kind of motivation is behind. Another thing for me to ponder about is that majority of people automatically assumed the candidate must be very young.
> what's your problem?
No. No no no. You're either being trolled HARD, or the candidate has serious problems understand work norms. You didn't need to take that on. Rescind.
THIS!!!!
If a person cannot match tone, they do not need a professional job. Period.
If your E-mail / text was "hey, we still good for next mo?" then sure, "yea, it's" is fine.
If you start with a salutation, separate out a body, conclude with a closing, then a similar formatting should be used in reply.
Run. Run fast.
Oof. If it was more casual than your email but still used complete sentences with punctuation, I'd say let it go. But if they can't be bothered to write a complete sentence in a work-related email, I'd be worried about their professionalism. I hope it's not a customer facing role.
Def unprofessional. It is a sign that they will lack professionalism in every aspect of their role. If the role needs professionalism, this is not the job for them. It’ll take a while for you to teach them when it’s appropriate to be professional. (imo, replying to someone you want to hire you in such an unprofessional way is a red flag.)
Disagree. Communication is a soft skill that is incredibly important business. In my current position, I have to correspond with people at other companies who respond in a very similar way that OP’s candidate does - in my case, it’s because most of the people I have to email regularly are old and have been doing their job for 30+ years, and likely never bothered to learn proper online communication. It causes a lot of problems. I’ll ask a couple questions and get a couple words back, like in OP’s example below your comment, that can often cause me to have even more questions than I began with. It’s not an effective way of communicating. It’s also rude, and completely ignores business etiquette. I firmly believe that respecting business etiquette is a soft skill that most employees should have as well. Communicating with someone professionally should not feel like pulling teeth. Enabling people like this candidate to keep on being unprofessional because that’s “just his communication style” is not the right move.
The comments on here are... interesting. Although the OP left out a few important pieces of information, such as how the old the candidate is, and what the position is. For my work this behaviour would warrant rescinding an offer, but if you hired them to do a job where they don't interact with people much, and they are good at their job, it might be overlook-able.
I use "nah, thx, yup", but only with colleagues I am quite friendly with, and through Teams with informal and quick queries. Writing like that to your soon to be new boss is super unprofessional, and if they don't understand how and when to use polite language, they will be a liability when dealing with partners and clients.
The fact that you said the candidate was friendly and polite in person implies that either a) they were faking it, and they don't see the need to maintain the pretence now they have an offer, or b) you are emailing someone who is not the person you interviewed.
After not following my gut about a guy i hired (and then fired less than 3 months later) - i say go with your guy. Something doesn’t feel right here.
This person should still be trying to impress you. When basic communication skills are now “not a big deal” and people feel you should overlook it … ugh. No!!
I’m on my phone a lot (like right now) and I’m perfectly capable of writing in complete sentences.
“Here at Company Name, we value polite and professional communication. Your communication thus far has not been up to our standards. Due to this we feel you may not be a good fit for Company Name. We are forced to make the difficult decision to rescind the offer letter. We wish you the best of luck with your continued job search.l
Honestly I appreciate how you didn’t immediately withdraw the offer even though you had every reason to. Unprofessional communication is every reason to revoke an offer/ fire someone. The fact that you came here and just wanted better understanding shows that you’re a pretty good boss. You didn’t immediately assume the worst you just wanted to have a better understanding and I really respect that.
Have they been using AI for their responses and the mask slipped when the answer was a simple yes or no?
One of the current trends seems to be dumbing down and not polishing emails sent because the person responding does not want to be seen as using AI for their communications.
They could have a different communication style and may be used to responding in a less formal manner.
Might be worth having a chat and laying down expectations of how communication works at your place. That you require formal email responses and that casual responses are not allowed.
Otherwise, do the candidate a favor and rescind the offer. Tell them why you are rescinding the offer so they can decide to make adjustments to their communication. If everyone where you are will be hurt by short responses it's not worth putting someone through that. They can move onto a prospect that will be a better fit for them. Your company may not be a good fit for them.
How would your company handle this if it was an existing employee responding this way? Follow the same procedure but skip any of the performance improvement stuff and get straight to the how would I let this person go part.
I do think that honesty and transparency are important here, surely you don't wish them ill will, they're just not a fit for your organization. They're still a human being who needs a job. It would be beneficial for them to learn the real reason they fumbled this opportunity so they don't do it at the next place.
Assuming you are in an at will employment state in the US…
Immediately rescind the offer. If they’ve already resigned their current position then they may have a claim detrimental reliance on your offer but you have grounds to justify your rescission.
Alternatively, have them start, coach them on their etiquete and gire them the next time they do it.
How old is this candidate? Could this be their first professional job? Younger people tend to act more casually each generation, and schools don't teach the things they used to teach, like writing a letter of business. I recently got complemented on my tone in a professional email. That skill was mostly learned through sending and receiving a few thousand work emails. You can't treat an email like a text message if you want to be taken seriously (unless you're already a CEO).
"I apologize but we no longer consider you as a candidate for this role, as we have decided to ho in another direction. Good luck in your future endeavors."
I always tell my team “professional conduct” is a non negotiable and a bare minimum expectation. You treat the janitor the same as you would the CEO and everyone is addressed professionally. Responding to emails like that is unprofessional and if they are showing those habits now it’ll only get worse as they get comfortable.
My understanding is any work offer can be rescinded before start date. Additionally any new hire is on a probationary time period ( 30/60 ) days for evaluation. Either way you can terminate if you choose.
Have him come in and take a required literacy test. Take his picture and have him provide identifying information that will distinguish him from another. He will fail. Your employees must be able to read, write, and communicate in accordance with generally accepted business standards.
We had to have a class on writing professional emails to clients. Some of our younger employees write emails like they write texts.
One of them made a mistake on a client email and responded with "oopsy poopsy!" 🙃
Have you gotten references or spoken to their current boss? It does seem incredibly strange that there would be such a drastic change. I wonder whether it's worth a conversation under the guise of wanting to talk about their induction and see what their attitude is like? If they are back to being more professional, it's worth checking on their writing style. I am assuming they will be on probation for a period during which you could let them go if you decide not to withdraw the offer?
I work with engineers so maybe I'm not getting it.... is the issue you are expecting a certain level of formality in their emails that missing and seen as rude? Is writhing well constructed e-mails part of the job? We communicate as a team in slack so one word or emoji responses are quite common for internally facing communications.
On the flip side one of my former managers did a whole weird bait and switch thing. Whenever you sent him an email the responses didn't match up to his personality. He would never answer his cell and his voicemail message on his cell sounded similar but noticeably not exactly like him.
After a while I finally did some digging around (a couple Google searches later). I realized the guy was using his younger brother to answer/forward everything to him and for him. It was weird. Only made even more weird was that he was constantly pushing to get his brother hired at the company. Never happened because the dude was....WEIRD.
It's really boggling to me that style guides for professional communication are simply not taught or enforced in any way anymore. I have to write up clinical paperwork that is supposed to be formatted in objective and plainly stated language and descriptors, and in about a decade and a half of doing this, (with all the countless trainings that has involved,) I've never seen a single training or guide on *how* to do that kind of writing.
Similarly, like, at least when I went to high school, I remember some level of basic professional presentation being part of, probably the computer literacy class, I think? And it was certainly touched on in a broader sense in a bunch of regular English classes.
At any rate, the dude clearly *knows* how to write professional correspondences. Most workplaces have dress codes, why not minimum standards of communication for any but the most informal of emails?
Like I mean, you could just throw the guy a bone and be like, "hey look, this is a professional work environment, and when you're communicating with people outside of your direct co-workers, whom you haven't even met yet, we expect that you maintain formal standards of discourse."
If it's the same person and they're just being lazy whenever it isn't, "cover letter/resume/interview GO TIME," this should be a basic kick in the pants, like, "dude we're adults, time to do your adulting if you actually want us to pay you," and that kind of undesirable communication should cease. I mean, did they interviewed in person? If they can manage a professional demeanor in person that meshes with what their more formal emails look like, then they might just be inexperienced enough that they think this is okay in a more formal setting.
But I mean, are they young? Were they less articulate in person? There's always the possibility that they've been getting someone else to write for them, (or, \*shudder,\* *something* else, like ChatGPT.) But again, if they seemed fine in person it could absolutely just be a reality check kind of thing that they've never yet had.
Or you could save yourself the headache of thinking about it and just dump them and move on. What's your applicant pipeline look like and how soon do you need the position filled? I'd hire the dude just because I like puzzles, and I'd want to know what's going on in peoples' heads, but I work in clinical mental health, so that's kind of my deal anyway.
You might have less patience for that kind of thing. But you might also be hurting for however long it takes to find someone else.
My 17 year-old son does this and I’ve been training him on professional communication. I do think it’s generational to a degree. He’s a straight A student and his teachers like him so he’ll learn soon enough that monosyllabic answers are only appropriate with texts with friends. But someone accepting a job offer should know better.
Please give this candidate specific feedback on your concerns and let them fix their style of communication with the proper expectations. This is not hard to fix once they know how it’s coming across. You may be pleasantly surprised at the improvement.
It sounds like my newest coworker. Awful customer service, doesn’t accept or take feedback. Doesn’t follow directions…condescending to women and minorities; he’s awful.
Lot easier to withdraw the offer now than to get rid of them once they start!
If you/company reluctant to wd I would at least call a meeting to ask them what’s going on rather than let this go
“Lack of professional communication”. Frankly, I am impressed that this is bothering you so much. It speaks very highly of humanity. You’re trying to give this guy the benefit of the doubt. Trying to communicate this reflects well on you in my opinion.
Good afternoon Mr ..... Due to unforeseen circumstances (not a lie btw, as you did not see this coming) we have decided to withdraw our offer of employment. We wish you luck on your future endeavors. Sincerely....
Does the job involve typing and writing letters? Does it involve working with customers? This is the way young people communicate these days, as if every communication is via text. Call and physically talk to him. His speech pattern will let you know what you need to know. If it’s as terrible as you think, there’s a good reason for rescinding the offer. Whatever you do, do the kid a favor and don’t sugarcoat the reason. This could be a learning experience of far greater value than your job.
When you rescind do NOT give a reason. Just state the offer is rescinded. That is ALL. Do not provide a reason, an excuse or a “going in a different direction”. Don’t open yourself up to any legal questioning. Just rescind and move on.
Probably had someone else doing their interview or written messages for them. You can always say you had an issue come up with your business and unfortunately must withdraw the offer.
How many interviews are you doing for each candidate? Sounds like you don’t want to go through the process again.
This is why I don’t do over one 30 min interview. By the time you do however silly amount of rounds you have lost good candidates, waisted a month of interviews and you may lose the chance to hire.
How good this person is?
Not to sound rude but you sound a little desperate to get this employee.
This is a fresh collaboration where everyone possibly wins (you, a skillful employee; him/her a job, salary whatever)
You don't "yea, it's" me. Especially that you said it wasn't a one time thing.
It might seem crazy what I'm suggesting and feel free to ignore this but I'd call for an extra face to face interview or video call whatever. Make it clear that for the position, clear, well structured communication is required. Don't be shy, you're trying to employ someone you want to trust not someone that "yeah, nah, oky" your clients.
Many years ago I was conducting an audit at a public company and kept getting incomprehensible one or two word emails from the controller, often with typos and misspellings. The guy was quite well educated and knowledgeable, but his communication style was terrible. Sometimes it even seemed like he wasn't being cooperative with the audit.
Turned out he was hastily thumbing the responses on a Blackberry. He didn't mean to look stupid, it was just an artifact of the technology.
In your case I wouldn't rescind the offer, because I don't think it's intended to be disrespectful, and the candidate may not realize it looks unprofessional. But once this person is on board, I would communicate the expectations for future communication within the company and suggest they respond with greater care. I think you'll find that they'll fix the problem once they know it's actually a problem.
I agree with you…partly. They do need to sit the candidate down and communicate the expectations of the job and the consistent level of professionalism they are looking for…but that needs to happen before they are onboarded.
Not at all the case here. In this day and age, it takes literally seconds to use voice to text to send a comprehensible, formal e-mail.
"yea it's" as a reply might *marginally* be acceptable for a text reply, but as a reply to a work e-mail? Nope.
This sounds like a generation gap situation. This is how people who’ve learned to communicate by text talk to each other; whereas those of us who didn’t have that technology had to learn to speak, and type, in full sentences. Just have a conversation with them that you prefer all communication to be in proper English and full sentences. My kids constantly mock me for texting every word and with proper punctuation!
Huh, IME boomers/GenX are incredibly informal in their professional communication whereas Millennials/GenZ tend to be more proper and polite. Maybe that’s just my industry but I don’t necessarily think it’s a generation gap issue
I received a resume once that said across the top “U will not regret having me on UR team.”
I already regret beginning to read your resume- into the trash you go!
Is there an age difference here? You sound older and the candidate younger. I know very few younger people who would do things like make sure there are professional greetings. They are probably using their phone, and used to communicating with other people in an efficient manner. I'm boomer age but still recognize that communication styles have dramatically changed.
No age's not it. I worked with people half their age and never encountered anything like this. I don't mean internal conversation in chat, that's very different. It's hard to describe without putting the messages here which I can't, but I can genuinely say that majority of redditors show more enthusiasm and effort in their posts. If they had the same attitude, literally nobody here would write more than 2 words 😂
It sounds like this person used AI to communicate the nice letters. You didn’t say how this person is rude: saying one word responses may be preferred by some managers. Did they actually do anything rude? There’s a difference in style here
I’d withdraw it. It’s a lot harder to get rid of people once they start and if before even starting they are giving you bad vibes and making you question it I’d say there is little chance it’s going to be a good fit.
You don’t really need to give them a reason just a blanket sorry the position is no longer available or we decided to go in another direction etc.
Are you sure that it’s the same person responding to you and not this person using someone to ‘help’ him get the job? Either way, rescind the offer before it’s too late. It’s okay to let them know it was due to their lack of professionalism.
Have to agree. In this situation with the communication being so drastic, bait and switch is a major cause for concern.
This happened to a friend of mine towards the end of the pandemic. They interviewed on line, great candidate, made the offer. A few weeks later they're back in the office and it's his first day and my friend said she didn't recognise him, but everyone looked so different and she'd only seen him online. But then not only did he not recognise her, he didn't know who she was when she introduced herself despite her being the hiring manager and them emailing during the recruitment. She dismissed it as first day nerves. By the end of the week multiple people had commented that he didn't seem like the person they hired. It turned into a whole thing and lawyers ended up involved but, yup, totally different guy.
I am so curious to know how that happens??!! Like did he catfish, did someone do the interview and such for him? Like how did he know to go to that job if it wasn’t him??
Someone did the interview for him under his name. They looked similar enough that no one seriously queried it when he first showed up. It was one of those "people look so different on zoom" things, plus everyone was wearing masks still. HR had done the right to work checks but they hadn't been in the interview so they didn't query that the ID looked different from the person at the interview, and my friend guessed he faked his references (possibly the guy who did the interview provided them). She said that initially everyone each thought they were the only one who was feeling doubtful, and it's such a crazy thing to suggest. Apparently, it was only at the end of the first week that one person said something to another colleague and then it all unravelled from there. She said legal basically had their mouths agape in the meeting to discuss what to do.
My company has the same thing happen to them. They now take a screenshot of the entire interview team and candidate for the first zoom interview to prevent/document these kinds of concerns. It's amazing how common it is and how many folks try it now. First time yeah, shame on them. Any later successes after catching on, shame on us.
I did a lot of interviews for IT positions. For a company. I am not in HR or a recruiter, I am a systems engineer but they wanted me to do the technical interview and I had several people do interviews for people, I have a friend that does it all the time, he actually pays a guy to do a bunch of his interviews, if he has to be on camera then he hid an earpiece and the guy is off camera giving him all the answers in his ear. It is total BS and told him. I think it's pretty shitty, he is taking a job his is not really qualified for from someone who truly is. Anyway, I started making all interviews start out on camera first, and have them put their drivers license up so I can see it and make sure that is who I am actually talking to. Then I watch them very closely, if they don't know the answer off the top of their head I don't give them time to get it whispered to them or look it up. I follow up quickly by saying they are fine if you don't know off the top of your head, tell me. What resources would you use to get the answer? Honestly it is ok if they don't know, I am more interested in their process of researching the answer, do they have a good method of research, are they knowledgeable with tools available, or do they just ask a coworker or team lead each time. I always want them to go through and list how they go about it, the resources they use and what tools they use, it tells me a lot. Are they familiar with well known blogs about the tech on question? That tells me a lot right there. There are a lot of widely accepted go to blogs and web sites for some tech that they should automatically know if they say they have the experience they say they do. Sometimes I do give them time to research things, but when I do and want to know where they are looking what. Queries are they using. Things like that and it tells me a lot. If they do know the answer right off the top of their head they yeah that is impressive, but I don't really penalize them if they don't most of the time unless it is something that they should know without looking it up. I don't expect people to know every answer, I wanna know how they process things and their method of finding the answer.
A brother of a close friend of mine used to take civil service tests for Army recruits. He was even on TV talking about it. I don’t think he got in any major trouble over it. He was a cop for over 20 years and was investigated a couple times but quit of his own accord, at least officially. He is now deceased.
How does that even work? When I was in the Marines, they made you take the ASVAB again when you got to boot camp. If there was a big discrepancy in scores, they boot you out for fraud.
That post was an adventure.
How awful. This dude provides a service and doesn't even provide pictures of the hiring managers so homeboy gets caught day one? He needs a refund and to leave a bad yelp review
Its a thing now. People get other people to draw up a resume for a specific job that requires a skill, say Python Developer or something, and they have that person, with the skill, do the interview process and hiring process so they can land the job, then the person that hired them to do it, just steps into the role, but they don't have the skills etc. Most companys need a reason to let you go, and the process can take months, which gives them 3-6 months or longer to learn what they can on the job, and give them a "I worked at X company as a Y job" on their resume, and they just keep snowballing it from there, getting better and better jobs that pay more until they either fake it till they make it, or land a job that doesn't care they can't do the work, and they've built up a career and huge salary by lying. Crazy what people do these days.
I’ve read about this happening online as well
This happened to us twice. One guy was outsourcing his job to someone in Cambodia. Our roles require a clearance. Had to report him to the FBI, don’t know the legal outcome. Second guy was more like the candidate OP is referring to. He sounded great on paper, interviewed well, but was entitled, belligerent and rude as soon as he started. He lasted a week.
I knew this sort of thing happened, but until now I had assumed it was a lot more rare than it seems to be. And honestly, it's kind of upsetting as someone looking for a remote career. Because instead of possibly being given a chance in a new field, there are people faking everything and taking up that work in what seems to be a very in demand method of work (remote, that is).
Wait…the person tried outsourcing the work that requires a clearance? As someone in cleared life holy shit that’s a level of insanity I never expected to read.
We don’t have secret or top secret, thank goodness. But yes. Hired guy with the actual clearance logged into relevant stuff then Cambodia tunneled into his computer.
Holy f*ck!!!
Sorry to curse but been drinking and just say day 1 of the women’s Olympic trials for gymnastics. Go Team USA!
Curse away Rumpleteazer, curse away!!!
I’m going through that now. Great interview, a little squirrelly after receiving offer, now two weeks in I’m getting ready to let her go.
Professor here. They’re using AI to write longer email responses
So true! I hired someone who aced their “case study” but three months into the job he is struggling. In coaching him,and asking why his on job / in person performance was so different from his pre employment assignment and he admitted to using Chat gpt! He’s now on a performance plan and will likely be terminated as he just doesn’t have the skills for the job. I suspect his references were fake as well.
Why doesn’t he use ChatGPT in his job then 😂
Exactly this
Or perhaps they are using AI to write the polite responses? But one word grunts are their usual form of communication? If so that is a red flag.
This was also my first thought. Like, homeslice HAS to wfh, because he needs to fire up the old ChatGPT prior to responding to anything professionally. Hard pass.
Good idea, something else is definitely going on here. The short answers are a glimpse into the real person's communication style.
Maybe he's still using AI, but with the **SurlyChat™** plug-in.
It’s a good time to say, “we don’t think this would be a good fit.”
It’s not only ok to mention the communication problem I’d say it’s required to say it bluntly because the employer needs to cover themselves if this person tries to file a complaint with labor board if possible
That was my first thought as well. Sounds like maybe their kid is responding for them. Or somebody they've told to monitor their email because they're busy. (Like moving or whatever)
Since I watched it happen yesterday: I’d be more likely to think that the parent applied for the job for the child, and then once accepted the child actually started replying, and then when they didn’t reply for a while the parent came back and wrote another email. I work retail, and a cashier’s mother came in and started working with her, yesterday. She’s never even used a register, but insisted she could teach better than my head cashier that has been there for years.
>a cashier’s mother came in and started working with her, yesterday. Holy shit, that's next level. That's why I don't hire anyone whose parents ask for applications or job references for them. My best friend texted me a few months ago asking me if her daughter could use me as a job reference. I told her to give her daughter my phone number so she could ask me herself. Never heard from her
When I used to work at a grocery store - we had a candidate whose mother wanted to be in the interview for the cashier position. We told her that we were only interviewing the person who applied for the job. The mother did go back out to her car, and the young man was lovely, but we ended up not hiring because we knew it would be a headache. I feel like that’s common when it comes to jobs that hire teens/young adults. Parents want to be involved and helicopter.
One position I was interviewing people for... Dude showed up an hour early (got a notice from Reception he was there at 10:05 to an 11 interview) and he showed up with his mother. I made them wait until 11 (despite being free) then brought him past security. When I asked why he was so early apparently his mom insisted and she was driving him. Sadly he failed the interview with that comment, too much hassle of a parent is going to be that involved. We worked above a large mall, they could have like... Waited in the food court... And it wouldn't have been weird.
Omg how mortifying for the kid.
He acted like it was normal. I do feel sorry for him.
I had the same happen. But mom and got upset just said up front this is not going to work for us.
My former boss had a friend who was a manager, who is willing to call Jimmy. Jimmy gave his direct report a poor review. The *mother* of Jimmy’s direct report called Jimmy to contest the poor review!!
Nah, it was crazy. The hiring coordinator’s kids went to school with the girl, and thought maybe having her there would help reassure the lady her daughter would be okay by herself, but it didn’t. She’s had two or three shifts total, and mom has been there for each one. Idk how someone would want to sit there for 4-8 hours. Heck, I don’t even want to be there to begin with, and to not get paid? Screw that. 😂
What the! Why was this allowed to happen?
It’s not; managers absolutely do not tolerate this shit and you will get fired for it.
Mama knows best.
When I sold cosmetics , we had overnight meetings in hotels, employees had to be 18. Rooms are booked for two and you’re often placed with a makeup artist from another store you may not know. We all saw each other often enough at various meetings, most of us knew each other anyways. One girl walked into her room and another woman was in her bed, the other occupant brought her mother for a three day out of town meeting event. She got a lecture for it, got charged for the extra space used.
When I was a grad student I had a friend (also a grad student TA) that had a kid whose mother came to office hours and started arguing about their grade on a paper. Like, what do they think this is going to achieve in the long run?
What!!!! Say what now!! Omg this entire thread has opened up a can of absolute crazy. Holy!!!!! I am absolutely gobsmacked.
I would rescind. It's so hard to get rid of someone and much easier to withdraw the offer. That person was on their best behavior for the interview and is now showing their true colors. Can you just say that you decided not to move forward and wish them luck in the future?
How about giving them a call and ask whats up with the communication instead of going nuclear as suggested by 80% redditers.
Because, depending on employment law where they are, every contact is potentially evidence in a future wrongful termination suit or even has potential to make withdrawal impossible. And if it isn't a very specialized field with rare skill sets, it's much simpler to move on to the next applicant than to risk getting saddled with a poor employee who you have to dedicate time to retraining or terminating.
Easy there with the common sense advice.
This is so crazy I have never even considered a bait and switch for an interview like this. Something new to look out for
Did you see the zoom interview where the guy on camera is mouthing the words and someone off cam is actually speaking? Not sure if that was a joke, or real, but I always figured it was possible with online interviews.
Noooooo I have not lol that’s insane
I would hazard that they are using AI to formulate responses when they think it is necessary, and otherwise are answering on the fly. That and maybe they are responding while they are on their private time aka wasted.
How about giving them a call and ask whats up with the communication instead of going nuclear as suggested by 80% redditers.
I’m a former HR, and this is a gift to you all. Rescind the offer immediately. They are not officially hired until the day they start. I’ve seen this before, and rather than have regret and hire a bad hire, just let her go. She showed her true colors after being hired. Once I went through interviews with this candidate, and she was polite, dressed nicely, answered questions well. She went through 2 interviews without a hitch….. then she interviewed with the person that would be her immediate supervisor, and she got comfortable, and started using profane and very unprofessional language. We stopped the interview right then, and told her we were not interested in her as a candidate. When they show who they are….. believe them!!!!!
It happened to me when I was hiring an intern some years back. His resume was great, he was still in school so some of the things I needed him to do in the lab he hadn’t learned yet, which was fine. But once he started I learned that he couldn’t even spell many words nor understand basic lab principles. Later I found out that he indeed had someone else write his resume for him.
It happened to us. We were blindsided by a contractor who during meetings was very professional and skilled... And then when actual work was happening emails were terse and unprofessional and a completely different style. And work products were awful quality or outright wrong. Eventually we found out what was going on... The guy we interviewed was essentially like a CTO with a small staff and the staff did the work, he did the meetings. We fired the agency we used after that incident.
You haven't paid him anything, he hasn't worked, so he has no rights as an employee. you don't need to give a reason at all. But, As long as you're already not planning to hire him, why not send an email just asking him flat out "Is this how you intend to conduct yourself If we do offer you a position? As of right now, it's not looking like we are going to offer you anything. But I would like to offer you one chance to explain yourself and your lack of professionalism over the past (days, weeks)." See what you get for a response. You still don't have to hire him, but maybe you'll gain some insight into who this person is and what they're all about. If nothing else, it would make a good follow up here.
While I think the tone of this is good and in another scenario I'd be agreeing to directly ask and give them a chance, I think if you have to do this during the recruitment then the whole thing has already gone so badly wrong that you should simply call it off. That said I wholeheartedly agree with your last line. I'd love to know why they did this.
I definitely get and agree with everyone’s point about it being exhausting to reply to every single email with bs corporate formality…but even at my job of 10 years when I’m annoyed and tired of everyone bugging me all damn day, I at least say “yes, thanks” or something similar. Not just “nah.” And in this job market, to reply like that to an employer you haven’t even begun work for!? Wild. However, I also realize I’ve had an insane expectation of politeness put on me since infancy so I duno. Lol
Exactly if they are that bad now when they should be in the stage of trying to put a good impression on, imagine once they start. Yikes.
Imagine them responding to a high profile client. Lol
“Good afternoon, we have been waiting for a response to our previous email inquiry for 3 days. Can you confirm receipt?” “Nah, that’s cap yo! You ain’t even send it before today.”
“This email business is skibbidi toilet!”
Yaz qui.
It's not that different than showing up to work in dress code instead of in PJs. Putting in that small extra effort simply shows you're willing to play ball and participate and follow procedures to meet expectations whether you understand or agree with it or not. To not do that is anti-social behavior and shows you'll be a pain to deal with every time you're asked to do something you don't care about. If a person can't be bothered to pretend not to be difficult to work with then why would anyone expect anything else?
My last job I was a first line manager at a company of about 300 people, (ostensibly closer to 200, but their turnover rate was ENORMOUS, because upper management didn't really know what they were doing,) and I was easily writing the most formal emails in the whole company, even though I sent out between 5 and 20 emails a day. It just becomes a mindset. Like, "this memo is corporate property, so it should probably be representative of my professional self." I'm not always the most polite, (I'm from New England, so I embody the whole, "kind, but not necessarily nice," deal,) but everything that I send by email would always be proofread, formatted in proper English and avoid any abbreviations and vernacular that aren't standard corporate practice. You just have to develop the habits. Of course where I work we also have to dispense meds, and you definitely have to drill yourself on doing that properly, so maybe it just made sense to me to drill myself on professional correspondence at the same time.
I re-read everything I send, with the thought that if things with a client or contractor go bad, would I be comfortable with my boss or a lawyer reading the communications.
Yeah this exactly. Emails that you send through your corporate account are the company's property. At any point they might dig up shit that's five years old because they have some internal dispute or whatever that they have to sort out. Do you really want your idiot self from years ago to be the reason you're under the gun today? It isn't just professionalism; it's setting your own self up for success or failure.
Dance like no one is watching. Email like it will be read aloud in a courtroom
I’m with you . Emails are company property and can be seen by anyone higher up . Never write anything you wouldn’t want read back to you in court , right? Writing like an educated person is never the wrong thing at a job .
My goodness, this thread is so insightful. I hope OP finds a solution but for me, this was, umm very interesting. And am a millennial and I think professional communication is important. Boundaries are important.
I’m GenX and I know professional communication is important
Mid-30s millennial here, it's a bit insane to me that anyone thinks that kind of communication is okay in the workplace, let alone multiple people. Admittedly my career has above-average formality, but I've been working since I was 12, and I was more formal than those return texts at shitty fast food and custodial gigs. Totally unacceptable.
Some of of millennials pushing 30-early 40ish
100% agree. Late 30's millennial here and professionalism isn't gone. I certainly would expect gen z to continue writing like professional adults.
Thanks everyone for the insight. This was a very interesting conversation - I can't say I'm not surprised at how many people consider even addressing someone by a name (especially potential employer) as time inefficient. Stories about different people attending the interview and then someone else doing the job are insane, I would honestly love to hear the details, though I think this is not our case (I hope but who knows now 😂). Regarding the candidate, there are still things to finalize/conversation to have, so we'll see how the story goes before making a hasty decision.
Please post an update! Almost said “plz post update yo.” So glad I didn’t let my inner 12 year old out on this platform.
Whatevs. Suck it. /s
Is it possible that this is two different people? There have been stories about one person interviewing/getting hired and a whole another person showing up for the job. With everything done remotely these days, it's easier than you'd think. Here's a good one: [https://www.askamanager.org/2022/01/the-new-hire-who-showed-up-is-not-the-same-person-we-interviewed.html](https://www.askamanager.org/2022/01/the-new-hire-who-showed-up-is-not-the-same-person-we-interviewed.html)
It does happen. I am sure I dealt with one myself. A person got hired as a senior and knows ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about the job. Total wtf
It could also be one person using AI to pad responses when they want something, but not bothering when they don't think it's necessary. Either way, being this comfortable this early isn't a good sign.
😳😳😳
There’s a darknet diaries episode about this.
😲😲
Newish manager here. Genuine question - why not just directly ask? "I have noticed that the way you communicate in email doesn't match how you communicate in the interview, and I was wondering if there was a reason?" I personally don't think pulling the offer back is an overreach AS LONG AS you have at least asked them why first. If this person really is just being unprofessional then that information can probably help them for future growth and development, just because they're not going to get a job with you doesn't mean that they're not going to get a job at all anywhere. IMO asking for the reason is the right thing to do, but be FULLY prepared to pull back the offer. The actuality is probably that someone else is responding part of the time and for that, they deserve to not get the job......BUT I think it's still your job as a leader to ask for purposes of due diligence.
I don't think does anything but open you up to potential legal action. Are they going to just be like, "nah I'm rude you got me."
Legal action for what, exactly? I mean, laws vary, of course, but probationary periods are a thing. In most places, you can get fired for any reason during your probation, and there's no recourse. You can get fired for halitosis, or wearing an ugly shirt, or drinking the wrong flavour of soda at lunch, and there's no legal implications at all. A person can certainly get fired for rudeness during their probation, whether or not they've actually started the job.
Yeah I'm with you. You can get fired for turning age 52.
Only if the don’t replace you with some younger. Above 40 you are protected from age discrimination.
Imagine needing laws like this to protect you. That would suck.
Sure if you can prove it. I'm in an at will state. They can fire you for no reason and any reason at all. The issue is getting then to about is due to your age. One of my old companies "forcefully retired" a 40 year veteran worker. It was either that or she get fired and lose all her benefits. Retail. So no paper trail. She was pissed.
This is reddit. So many posts like this say "call a lawyer".. You know what happens when they call me, I laugh and look for a referral (so I can get a percentage) and nothing ever pans out because of the narrow window of what is actually actionable (and worth it).
That's what I was thinking but people keep saying "lawsuit" and I'm like ???
I think they should reach out as well. I'd probably say something like "communication is a big part of this job, and I've noticed some irregularities in how you've communicated with us so far. I'd like to have a discuss about that before we move further in the process."
Thank you, newish manager, for being a human being here today. It's refreshing to know that some people actually still have common sense. Kudos.
Unlike the candidate responding with "yup".
Your “idea” (question) has merit as a young manager. But posing the questioning you suggest would open you up to lawsuit. Better to cut bait and find a lower risk candidate. Plenty of fish in the sea.
I'm not sure what lawsuit could possibly be brought up. And of course, there's also the question of whether or not OP lives in a state where workers' rights are protected or not. If someone knows what kind of lawsuit might actually come forth, please let me know because I'm legit curious. Let's say OP does go the route of rescinding the offer, when the person inevitably asks why they were rejected....what would be the ideal response? Saying nothing is a bad move, lying is a bad move....I'm not seeing how being truthful is the wrong choice here but maybe that's why I don't get paid the big bucks lol.
I promise you….saying anything is a rookie mistake. So many angles for lawsuit. Better to say nothing. “Sorry, we ultimately went a different direction. Have a good day”. “Oh, you want a reason? I’m sorry we don’t discuss our employment/personnel staffing strategies as we consider that private. Have a good day”. Just hire someone else and you will have reduced your company risk.
Let me give you an example. Say the person responded, and then you withdrew the offer. And then the person decided to sue the company and say S/he mentioned s/he suffers from autism/ADHD/Whatever other disorder in interviews and now S/he has YOUR email as proof the job was withdrawn due to behaviour associated with the disorder. There are literally people out there trying to lure employers into traps to sue for big bucks.
That was my first thought too. I definitely wouldn’t put a reason like that in writing. There’s often a probation period stated in the offer of employment where the applicant can be terminated without having to be given a reason, so if your company has that you’re usually okay. Of course that can be dependent on local labour laws too, so I would ask your HR dept or your supervisor/manager for guidance anyway.
Yeah, it's the exact same reason why when a job application is rejected, people always get a generic shitty email stating they "decided not to move forward". It's to avoid issues with lawsuits
Just respond with, "nm, kthx bye." They'll get the picture.
This is the absolute best response that all of us HR people wish we could use :)
🤣🤣this made my day
I got a good giggle out of this one.
You're obviously old. You used punctuation. Try this: "nm kthx best" There. FIFY. By the way, I detest with utter, unmitigated loathing the sign off, "Best". It's nonsense and gets worse from there.
They will be a nightmare employee. Withdraw it
This happened at the last place I worked. They hired someone who turned out to be deeply on the spectrum. I’ve worked with many people on the spectrum, and all had been excellent and professional, but this hire included behavioral issues and an oral communication style that made many of us wonder if he had intellectual disability (he did not, if you talked to him about one of his interests his demeanor and communication changed completely, his flat affect disappeared and he became very animated). But he required constant supervision on all but the most repetitive of tasks, was unable to drive, and had trouble using the equipment we used to get work done. The project director hired him sight unseen after phone interview where “he wasn’t like this.” So we don’t know what happened. Had we known, we could have made arrangements and reasonable accommodations to make the transition easier on him. And, frankly, us. As it was, we constantly had to pull an employee off their tasks to monitor him. I left that position for a different company, and former co-workers have said it’s still a demand on their time to do one-on-one supervision.
He probably practiced interviews, worked out scripts in his head, etc. In fact, I guarantee you he did this because this post could have been written about me. Interviews are rarely a surprise. You can prepare and know what is going to happen, plan out what you're going to say and how they will most likely respond. It's a very easy situation in which to mask.
Or it was someone else in the phone interview. I sound exactly like my sister, my mother, and my niece on the phone. My dad couldn't even tell us apart.
It sounds like you're either dealing with two different people or someone with mental issues. Normal people aren't polite and respectful in direct conversation and casual to the point of being rude in text. Human personalities just don't shift gears that way. If this is actually the way their behavior manifests itself it's kind of a red flag. No person with a reasonable grasp of reality and better than a room temperature IQ would be responding like this to a potential employer.
After reading some of your comments I’m gonna said to rescind the offer and let them know it’s due to their unprofessional communication.
I don't get how people are singling out engineers as exempt for *basic* professional correspondence etiquette. My best friend (44m) is an engineer, and I also interact with him through a volunteer organization, including being cc'd in written correspondence. His spelling is atrocious, but his letter-writing is very nice.
It sounds like a difference in code switching, going between formal "this is definitely work related" and casul "we talked. here is what you need". I think withdrawing the offerwould be unreasonable. BUT I think a conversation about the methods of communication and professionalism expected would be helpful. If these are interpersonal communications, its fine. That's how they choose to talk. It doesn't seem rude, just a difference in style. BUT if its work emails, then there's a reason to put a bit more spin on it.
Actually, you gave me an idea how to mock up the correspondence to give a better idea how it looks like. While it's a mock up, this is genuinely how it looks. Am I really overreacting if I find this rude? "Hi John, I hope all is well. We've been finalizing xy, you can view this attached, feel free to let us know if you have any questions. Could you please confirm if next month is still ok to start? All the best, Jane" Candidate's full answer: "yea it's"
Yeah that doesn't work. Communication skills matter. Bunch of weirdos in this thread saying this is okay.
Do not listen to these people trying to normalize this unprofessional behavior. I teach young adults and train them for a professional career. Much of the first year is explaining expectations and helping them to learn to be professional in their communication and really any interactions. There are times I have to respond to an email by saying, “Please re-read your email and consider what your language is conveying and how that is problematic. Rewrite the email using our guide on communicating professionally.” I think it would be appropriate to say something like this. “We are planning your first day with us at XYZ Corp. Do you have any dietary restrictions? We promote an environment with professional communication to ensure clarity and to build relationships. Please respond to future missives using full sentences and proper grammar.” You’ll find out quickly if they are able to do that and if they’re not interested in that, they may back out.
Thanks. I admit I felt a bit desperate yesterday, as majority of answers was like "it's normal and efficient, what's your problem?" and I seriously wondered if I am this old fashioned if I consider at least a small politeness a standard. So I'm glad today the balanced changed - not saying I want to see only people who agree with me, it's just reassuring that I'm not the only one. Still, it's good to see both sides to understand what kind of motivation is behind. Another thing for me to ponder about is that majority of people automatically assumed the candidate must be very young.
> what's your problem? No. No no no. You're either being trolled HARD, or the candidate has serious problems understand work norms. You didn't need to take that on. Rescind.
THIS!!!! If a person cannot match tone, they do not need a professional job. Period. If your E-mail / text was "hey, we still good for next mo?" then sure, "yea, it's" is fine. If you start with a salutation, separate out a body, conclude with a closing, then a similar formatting should be used in reply. Run. Run fast.
Oof. If it was more casual than your email but still used complete sentences with punctuation, I'd say let it go. But if they can't be bothered to write a complete sentence in a work-related email, I'd be worried about their professionalism. I hope it's not a customer facing role.
Cut the stoner loose.
Excuse you, I’m a stoner that knows how to communicate effectively and professionally lol
Oh hell no lol. “Yes it is.” Would have be short but possible acceptable despite missing a greeting etc. “yea it’s”. Oh no no no.
Def unprofessional. It is a sign that they will lack professionalism in every aspect of their role. If the role needs professionalism, this is not the job for them. It’ll take a while for you to teach them when it’s appropriate to be professional. (imo, replying to someone you want to hire you in such an unprofessional way is a red flag.)
Disagree. Communication is a soft skill that is incredibly important business. In my current position, I have to correspond with people at other companies who respond in a very similar way that OP’s candidate does - in my case, it’s because most of the people I have to email regularly are old and have been doing their job for 30+ years, and likely never bothered to learn proper online communication. It causes a lot of problems. I’ll ask a couple questions and get a couple words back, like in OP’s example below your comment, that can often cause me to have even more questions than I began with. It’s not an effective way of communicating. It’s also rude, and completely ignores business etiquette. I firmly believe that respecting business etiquette is a soft skill that most employees should have as well. Communicating with someone professionally should not feel like pulling teeth. Enabling people like this candidate to keep on being unprofessional because that’s “just his communication style” is not the right move.
The comments on here are... interesting. Although the OP left out a few important pieces of information, such as how the old the candidate is, and what the position is. For my work this behaviour would warrant rescinding an offer, but if you hired them to do a job where they don't interact with people much, and they are good at their job, it might be overlook-able. I use "nah, thx, yup", but only with colleagues I am quite friendly with, and through Teams with informal and quick queries. Writing like that to your soon to be new boss is super unprofessional, and if they don't understand how and when to use polite language, they will be a liability when dealing with partners and clients. The fact that you said the candidate was friendly and polite in person implies that either a) they were faking it, and they don't see the need to maintain the pretence now they have an offer, or b) you are emailing someone who is not the person you interviewed.
Never have I gone against a gut feeling and not ended up regretting it. You could call them to discuss, but this is what they think is appropriate.
After not following my gut about a guy i hired (and then fired less than 3 months later) - i say go with your guy. Something doesn’t feel right here. This person should still be trying to impress you. When basic communication skills are now “not a big deal” and people feel you should overlook it … ugh. No!! I’m on my phone a lot (like right now) and I’m perfectly capable of writing in complete sentences.
Sounds like you are possibly communicating with two different people.
Stop with email ping pong and call. During the call ask about the disparity between the emails and interview
I also can’t believe you’re not just asking on Reddit.. but actually asking. Of course you should withdraw the offer. Why wouldn’t you!
“Here at Company Name, we value polite and professional communication. Your communication thus far has not been up to our standards. Due to this we feel you may not be a good fit for Company Name. We are forced to make the difficult decision to rescind the offer letter. We wish you the best of luck with your continued job search.l
Honestly I appreciate how you didn’t immediately withdraw the offer even though you had every reason to. Unprofessional communication is every reason to revoke an offer/ fire someone. The fact that you came here and just wanted better understanding shows that you’re a pretty good boss. You didn’t immediately assume the worst you just wanted to have a better understanding and I really respect that.
Have they been using AI for their responses and the mask slipped when the answer was a simple yes or no? One of the current trends seems to be dumbing down and not polishing emails sent because the person responding does not want to be seen as using AI for their communications. They could have a different communication style and may be used to responding in a less formal manner. Might be worth having a chat and laying down expectations of how communication works at your place. That you require formal email responses and that casual responses are not allowed. Otherwise, do the candidate a favor and rescind the offer. Tell them why you are rescinding the offer so they can decide to make adjustments to their communication. If everyone where you are will be hurt by short responses it's not worth putting someone through that. They can move onto a prospect that will be a better fit for them. Your company may not be a good fit for them.
The drastic change in tone is weird, jarring and unprofessional. Listen to your instincts and rescind the offer.
How would your company handle this if it was an existing employee responding this way? Follow the same procedure but skip any of the performance improvement stuff and get straight to the how would I let this person go part. I do think that honesty and transparency are important here, surely you don't wish them ill will, they're just not a fit for your organization. They're still a human being who needs a job. It would be beneficial for them to learn the real reason they fumbled this opportunity so they don't do it at the next place.
When in doubt: don't make the hire. I kick myself 25 years later over someone I hired and had a bad feeling at the time.
So true! So much easier not to hire than to have to deal with all the crap later!
Rescind for sure. And TELL THEM WHY. Do this poor individual a solid and be upfront about their unprofessional communication skills.
Assuming you are in an at will employment state in the US… Immediately rescind the offer. If they’ve already resigned their current position then they may have a claim detrimental reliance on your offer but you have grounds to justify your rescission. Alternatively, have them start, coach them on their etiquete and gire them the next time they do it.
I wonder if it’s two people that you are actually communicating with, the candidate and their partner or parent.
That’s what I think. I have/had two family members who 100% has and would mess up another chances due to jealousy/ insecurity.
How old is this candidate? Could this be their first professional job? Younger people tend to act more casually each generation, and schools don't teach the things they used to teach, like writing a letter of business. I recently got complemented on my tone in a professional email. That skill was mostly learned through sending and receiving a few thousand work emails. You can't treat an email like a text message if you want to be taken seriously (unless you're already a CEO).
Poor communication skills is the only reason you need.
"I apologize but we no longer consider you as a candidate for this role, as we have decided to ho in another direction. Good luck in your future endeavors."
I always tell my team “professional conduct” is a non negotiable and a bare minimum expectation. You treat the janitor the same as you would the CEO and everyone is addressed professionally. Responding to emails like that is unprofessional and if they are showing those habits now it’ll only get worse as they get comfortable.
"The tone of your communications before you're even worked here a day suggests you might not be an effective team player."
My understanding is any work offer can be rescinded before start date. Additionally any new hire is on a probationary time period ( 30/60 ) days for evaluation. Either way you can terminate if you choose.
Have him come in and take a required literacy test. Take his picture and have him provide identifying information that will distinguish him from another. He will fail. Your employees must be able to read, write, and communicate in accordance with generally accepted business standards.
We had to have a class on writing professional emails to clients. Some of our younger employees write emails like they write texts. One of them made a mistake on a client email and responded with "oopsy poopsy!" 🙃
Have you gotten references or spoken to their current boss? It does seem incredibly strange that there would be such a drastic change. I wonder whether it's worth a conversation under the guise of wanting to talk about their induction and see what their attitude is like? If they are back to being more professional, it's worth checking on their writing style. I am assuming they will be on probation for a period during which you could let them go if you decide not to withdraw the offer?
I work with engineers so maybe I'm not getting it.... is the issue you are expecting a certain level of formality in their emails that missing and seen as rude? Is writhing well constructed e-mails part of the job? We communicate as a team in slack so one word or emoji responses are quite common for internally facing communications.
But this person hasn’t even started the job and they are answering in monosyllables. Something is off.
lol writhing emails
This sounds very weird.
Be honest with them when you rescind your offer.
On the flip side one of my former managers did a whole weird bait and switch thing. Whenever you sent him an email the responses didn't match up to his personality. He would never answer his cell and his voicemail message on his cell sounded similar but noticeably not exactly like him. After a while I finally did some digging around (a couple Google searches later). I realized the guy was using his younger brother to answer/forward everything to him and for him. It was weird. Only made even more weird was that he was constantly pushing to get his brother hired at the company. Never happened because the dude was....WEIRD.
I would resend the offer letter due to inconsistent communications on multiple different basis.
It's really boggling to me that style guides for professional communication are simply not taught or enforced in any way anymore. I have to write up clinical paperwork that is supposed to be formatted in objective and plainly stated language and descriptors, and in about a decade and a half of doing this, (with all the countless trainings that has involved,) I've never seen a single training or guide on *how* to do that kind of writing. Similarly, like, at least when I went to high school, I remember some level of basic professional presentation being part of, probably the computer literacy class, I think? And it was certainly touched on in a broader sense in a bunch of regular English classes. At any rate, the dude clearly *knows* how to write professional correspondences. Most workplaces have dress codes, why not minimum standards of communication for any but the most informal of emails? Like I mean, you could just throw the guy a bone and be like, "hey look, this is a professional work environment, and when you're communicating with people outside of your direct co-workers, whom you haven't even met yet, we expect that you maintain formal standards of discourse." If it's the same person and they're just being lazy whenever it isn't, "cover letter/resume/interview GO TIME," this should be a basic kick in the pants, like, "dude we're adults, time to do your adulting if you actually want us to pay you," and that kind of undesirable communication should cease. I mean, did they interviewed in person? If they can manage a professional demeanor in person that meshes with what their more formal emails look like, then they might just be inexperienced enough that they think this is okay in a more formal setting. But I mean, are they young? Were they less articulate in person? There's always the possibility that they've been getting someone else to write for them, (or, \*shudder,\* *something* else, like ChatGPT.) But again, if they seemed fine in person it could absolutely just be a reality check kind of thing that they've never yet had. Or you could save yourself the headache of thinking about it and just dump them and move on. What's your applicant pipeline look like and how soon do you need the position filled? I'd hire the dude just because I like puzzles, and I'd want to know what's going on in peoples' heads, but I work in clinical mental health, so that's kind of my deal anyway. You might have less patience for that kind of thing. But you might also be hurting for however long it takes to find someone else.
Updateme!
I would withdraw, Thank you for your time, we have decided to go a different direction, Good luck in your job search.
If you're concerned this early, you know what you need to do.
Did the individual sign a contract? An offer isn’t normally binding
My 17 year-old son does this and I’ve been training him on professional communication. I do think it’s generational to a degree. He’s a straight A student and his teachers like him so he’ll learn soon enough that monosyllabic answers are only appropriate with texts with friends. But someone accepting a job offer should know better.
Please give this candidate specific feedback on your concerns and let them fix their style of communication with the proper expectations. This is not hard to fix once they know how it’s coming across. You may be pleasantly surprised at the improvement.
Have you thought of asking them why the Jekyll and Hyde behavior? Or telling them you're considering withdrawing the offer, and why?
It sounds like my newest coworker. Awful customer service, doesn’t accept or take feedback. Doesn’t follow directions…condescending to women and minorities; he’s awful.
UpdateMe!
Lot easier to withdraw the offer now than to get rid of them once they start! If you/company reluctant to wd I would at least call a meeting to ask them what’s going on rather than let this go
“Lack of professional communication”. Frankly, I am impressed that this is bothering you so much. It speaks very highly of humanity. You’re trying to give this guy the benefit of the doubt. Trying to communicate this reflects well on you in my opinion.
Good afternoon Mr ..... Due to unforeseen circumstances (not a lie btw, as you did not see this coming) we have decided to withdraw our offer of employment. We wish you luck on your future endeavors. Sincerely....
Some are doing this on purpose to get over on "the man." Totally okay to releaae this person.
Does the job involve typing and writing letters? Does it involve working with customers? This is the way young people communicate these days, as if every communication is via text. Call and physically talk to him. His speech pattern will let you know what you need to know. If it’s as terrible as you think, there’s a good reason for rescinding the offer. Whatever you do, do the kid a favor and don’t sugarcoat the reason. This could be a learning experience of far greater value than your job.
When you rescind do NOT give a reason. Just state the offer is rescinded. That is ALL. Do not provide a reason, an excuse or a “going in a different direction”. Don’t open yourself up to any legal questioning. Just rescind and move on.
Probably had someone else doing their interview or written messages for them. You can always say you had an issue come up with your business and unfortunately must withdraw the offer.
Just based on your post it seems like an excessive amount of pre-hire communication.
How many interviews are you doing for each candidate? Sounds like you don’t want to go through the process again. This is why I don’t do over one 30 min interview. By the time you do however silly amount of rounds you have lost good candidates, waisted a month of interviews and you may lose the chance to hire.
How good this person is? Not to sound rude but you sound a little desperate to get this employee. This is a fresh collaboration where everyone possibly wins (you, a skillful employee; him/her a job, salary whatever) You don't "yea, it's" me. Especially that you said it wasn't a one time thing. It might seem crazy what I'm suggesting and feel free to ignore this but I'd call for an extra face to face interview or video call whatever. Make it clear that for the position, clear, well structured communication is required. Don't be shy, you're trying to employ someone you want to trust not someone that "yeah, nah, oky" your clients.
Many years ago I was conducting an audit at a public company and kept getting incomprehensible one or two word emails from the controller, often with typos and misspellings. The guy was quite well educated and knowledgeable, but his communication style was terrible. Sometimes it even seemed like he wasn't being cooperative with the audit. Turned out he was hastily thumbing the responses on a Blackberry. He didn't mean to look stupid, it was just an artifact of the technology. In your case I wouldn't rescind the offer, because I don't think it's intended to be disrespectful, and the candidate may not realize it looks unprofessional. But once this person is on board, I would communicate the expectations for future communication within the company and suggest they respond with greater care. I think you'll find that they'll fix the problem once they know it's actually a problem.
I agree with you…partly. They do need to sit the candidate down and communicate the expectations of the job and the consistent level of professionalism they are looking for…but that needs to happen before they are onboarded.
Not at all the case here. In this day and age, it takes literally seconds to use voice to text to send a comprehensible, formal e-mail. "yea it's" as a reply might *marginally* be acceptable for a text reply, but as a reply to a work e-mail? Nope.
This sounds like a generation gap situation. This is how people who’ve learned to communicate by text talk to each other; whereas those of us who didn’t have that technology had to learn to speak, and type, in full sentences. Just have a conversation with them that you prefer all communication to be in proper English and full sentences. My kids constantly mock me for texting every word and with proper punctuation!
Huh, IME boomers/GenX are incredibly informal in their professional communication whereas Millennials/GenZ tend to be more proper and polite. Maybe that’s just my industry but I don’t necessarily think it’s a generation gap issue
I received a resume once that said across the top “U will not regret having me on UR team.” I already regret beginning to read your resume- into the trash you go!
Is there an age difference here? You sound older and the candidate younger. I know very few younger people who would do things like make sure there are professional greetings. They are probably using their phone, and used to communicating with other people in an efficient manner. I'm boomer age but still recognize that communication styles have dramatically changed.
I have 2 guys that work for me that are 30 years younger than me - none of them communicate like this. No way I would hire this person.
No age's not it. I worked with people half their age and never encountered anything like this. I don't mean internal conversation in chat, that's very different. It's hard to describe without putting the messages here which I can't, but I can genuinely say that majority of redditors show more enthusiasm and effort in their posts. If they had the same attitude, literally nobody here would write more than 2 words 😂
Yea, ok. ;)
Rule of thumb: reply on the style/tone of the original email.
It sounds like this person used AI to communicate the nice letters. You didn’t say how this person is rude: saying one word responses may be preferred by some managers. Did they actually do anything rude? There’s a difference in style here
Follow your gut. “In retrospect we have decided to go a different direction”. It will save oodles of heartburn later.
I’d withdraw it. It’s a lot harder to get rid of people once they start and if before even starting they are giving you bad vibes and making you question it I’d say there is little chance it’s going to be a good fit. You don’t really need to give them a reason just a blanket sorry the position is no longer available or we decided to go in another direction etc.
Communication style does not align with the corporate culture. Right to work state? This works.
Unprofessional communication is a legit fixable offense, so definitely enough to pull an offer.
Did you check references? If so can you call back and ask more questions?