Is bullying behavior from 15 years ago an automatic dis-qualifier for an interview?

April 18, 2011 6:42 PM

Hiring a new employee. Well qualified applicant bullied a current employee in high school (15 years ago). Immediate disqualification?

Background information:

I work as a veterinary specialist, and am hiring a tech to assist me while I'm on site at a local veterinary hospital. The tech will also work about 15 hours a week beyond the hours I am there. Before going to vet school, and sometimes during, I worked as a tech in this hospital. This employee was my peer and I learned a lot from her and respect her a great deal.

While preparing interviews, I asked a couple well respected techs to do a group interview with me, and supplied resumes so they could review and help narrow the field. We got 41 well qualified applicants for the position. The applicant in question is among the six I chose to interview, she has 5+ years experience and has her Bachelors. One of the techs chuckled and said she new the applicant, remembered her because of some bullying incidents in high school (they graduated in 1996). When asked, the employee said the applicant was a 'mean girl' in high school. The employee said she wouldn't be thrilled to work with the applicant, but it wouldn't be the end of the world.

On one hand, there are so many well qualified applicants that there is no reason to buy trouble, so to speak. Like most people, I find bullying to be completely unacceptable and a huge character flaw.

On the other hand, I would not want to be judged on who i was 15 years ago. (Oh, the lyrics I wrote on notebooks and the drivel in my diary makes me cringe... so I get that people really do change a lot in those formative years.)

Should I go ahead and include the applicant in the interview pool, or should I shred the resume and move on?

posted by Nickel Pickle to work & money (59 answers total)

Include her, and see how the interviews go. 15 years ago was a long time ago.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 6:48 PM on April 18, 2011 [14 favorites]

Enough bullies have written to me over the years expressing regret for things they did to me in high school that I would probably never exclude someone on this basis alone.

If she is nice and respectful to you and to everyone else on the job, that's really all that matters. Most of us bullied someone, at some point or another. (I did, and I'm not proud of it.)

Anyhow, if you do go forward with the applicant, you might want to remind your tech of both those points.
posted by hermitosis at 6:48 PM on April 18, 2011 [4 favorites]

I would leave this person in the pool and wait to see if anything else rules her in or out. You'll make a much better informed decision about this person if you let her go through the process - you'll have more to go on if you hire her or don't, and you won't wonder "what if".
posted by ersatzkat at 6:51 PM on April 18, 2011 [1 favorite]

Going against the tide thus far - if you have enough applicants to be choosy, go ahead and be choosy. There's no need to have potential friction over this issue if there are other people who are equally qualified for the position.
posted by sonika at 6:53 PM on April 18, 2011 [20 favorites]

This employee was my peer and I learned a lot from her and respect her a great deal.

Does this refer to the applicant in question or to the tech who was bullied? Do you know the nature of the alleged bullying (I think this might be pertinent.)? Who is making the final decision? If the answer to the latter question is you, go ahead and include the applicant in the interviews; you can judge for yourself. She may very well be not your first choice at the end of the process but then you can rest assured that you gave her a chance.
posted by Morrigan at 6:55 PM on April 18, 2011

Nickel Pickle, as one who hires and sometimes fires people I can say that you have nothing to lose by interviewing her. What you'll gain is knowing that you didn't do anything in a biased manner. Something that could possibly haunt you later.

Good luck!
posted by snsranch at 7:09 PM on April 18, 2011 [3 favorites]

If this person bullied a friend of yours I'd give them a chance. In this case if make it the coworkers call (privately)
posted by bitdamaged at 7:11 PM on April 18, 2011 [1 favorite]

Interview her. If she's the best candidate -- which includes NOT giving off red personality flags -- go ahead and hire her. And if she's not the best candidate, this is all irrelevant.
posted by J. Wilson at 7:16 PM on April 18, 2011 [2 favorites]

Everyone has embarrassing stuff in their distant past. The real question is if the current employee can really get beyond their history and accept this new person as a part of the team. Trust is a huge part of a successful Vet Tech team, as you no doubt know, and if your current employee is not going to be able to trust the new hire it could greatly damage team morale.

I would probably interview her and find a way to mention that your colleague remembers her from High School. See how she feels about their past relationship. If she is embarrassed and apologetic, you know she is a conscientious person who can take responsibility for her actions. If she thinks they were best buds, and everything is cool, she maybe does not have a great sense of how her actions and attitudes affect others.
posted by Rock Steady at 7:17 PM on April 18, 2011 [2 favorites]

I'd give the person an interview. This person may have totally changed and the bullying may have been very mild in nature anyway. I think it's significant that your employee's first response was to laugh at the mention of this applicant's name. Conversely, if this person really was and still is an asshole, well, abusive people give themselves away really, really quickly and you are likely to see that in the interview. Look for such warning signs as blaming everything on others or put downs of others, lack of respect for or patience with the differing views of others, or self-aggrandizement.
posted by orange swan at 7:22 PM on April 18, 2011 [2 favorites]

Everyone is being so mature. Speaking as someone who was bullied, if I was the one who was bullied in this situation I would definitely not want to work with a person who bullied me.
posted by Kimberly at 7:24 PM on April 18, 2011 [24 favorites]

The health and welfare of your current employees comes first. I know working with a former bully would make me uncomfortable no matter how apologetic they were. Don't waste your time or the bully's time doing any interviews if you have other candidates.
posted by chairface at 7:28 PM on April 18, 2011 [16 favorites]

depends on the interview. people change over 15 years and if you reject them based on something in childhood are you being just as bad as that bully was? Everyone is bullied. I am a fairly well adjusted adult and wouldn't have a problem hiring someone I had issues with. if they're a jerk in the interview they'll be a jerk at work.
posted by mkelley at 7:28 PM on April 18, 2011

While a former history of bullying behavior probably shouldn't be an automatic disqualification in general, why would you want to knowingly bring in an applicant who has an uncomfortable history with a current employee?

No matter how many years have passed, there's still a high probability that there would be a weird dynamic between the two of them, which would affect others in the workplace, so why take any chances?
posted by amyms at 7:28 PM on April 18, 2011 [12 favorites]

I had a few bad experiences with bullies. It would be tough for me, even 15 years later, to start over with one as a professional adult. But "tough" doesn't mean impossible. People change, even people who were crappy in high school. It's possible that this "mean girl" is mortified by her past behavior now, and it might be scarier for her to work with your employee than vice-versa. I've seem some radical transformations, anyway. I'm with the conventional wisdom here and evaluate her on the merits of her qualifications.
posted by Buffaload at 7:29 PM on April 18, 2011 [3 favorites]

Is bullied current employee going to be an positional superior or equal with the new used-to-bully applicant? If current employee will be positionally superior or even a supervisor, I'd be shy on hiring the applicant. If they're going to be equals, how emotionally confidant is the current employee now?

Having the bullied employee sit in on the next round of group interviews (and having current employees help interview all the new applicants) could very well be instructive.

Sure, people can change, but old habits die hard. Hell, the ex-bully-er might not want to work for you if they know that someone they used to bully is a respected, liked, and a senior team member.
posted by porpoise at 7:34 PM on April 18, 2011 [3 favorites]

Things you did 15 years ago can haunt you. Sorry. I wouldn't bother with this person. I'd take a total pass. Workplace dynamics are difficult enough.

Maybe that's just me liking to think that "You'll get yours someday" actually happens.

There are repercussions for actions. If getting caught out by a person you used to bully isn't the very definition of a repercussion I don't know what it.

It's not what you know, but who you know works both ways.

I'd go so far as to say that if there were no other qualified candidates I still wouldn't hire this person. I'd do a second round of search before I'd ever introduce this person into a workplace. And the idea of making it the bullied person's call is not a good one in my opinion. She gets to be a wilting flower and an ass if she says no, she gets the joy of knowing she greenlit the person that bullied her if she says yes, so everything that happens after that point is her fault. Ugh!
posted by cjorgensen at 7:38 PM on April 18, 2011 [41 favorites]

Things you did 15 years ago can haunt you. Sorry. I wouldn't bother with this person. I'd take a total pass. Workplace dynamics are difficult enough.

Agree with cjorgensen. Let the woman find a job working with someone she didn't knock around. Definitely not worth jeopardizing a good current working relationship to consider this person.

Also, yikes, I hope that "most of us bullied someone, at some point or another," isn't true. As a parent of kids in middle and high school, I kinda consider this the one unforgivable sin. Well, maybe not unforgivable, but pretty awful. High schoolers are old enough to have compassion, and that seems like a trait you want if you're hiring in a medical field.
posted by torticat at 7:56 PM on April 18, 2011 [18 favorites]

I think you need more information. Did the applicant bully your employee? I can't tell from the question, and "mean girl" (as per the movie) usually refers to the most popular girls (and not necessarily girls who are mean). Not wanting to work with someone she has traumatic memories about or who was violent is one thing... but we're talking about a couple of 32 year old women here, so if it's more distaste based on high school social hierarchies, that's another matter. It might help to have group interviews, too, and ask for input after they've met again - she's definitely not going to be the girl this woman knew when they were teenagers.
posted by moxiedoll at 7:57 PM on April 18, 2011 [3 favorites]

Do you live in a small town or does the applicant in question have a super unique name? I mean, is it the same person she thinks it is?

A couple of years ago, I moved back to my home state for a few years.
I was surprised to find out my old pals had become friends with THREE of the people (2 guys, 1 girl) that used to bully us. Im talking throwing rocks at us, punching me in the face, throwing food at us, making fun of us on a daily basis. This was in middle and half of high school. Which at the time was 12 years prior.

And since im a forgiving person, dont carry grudges for 12 years and trust my friends, I figured they obviously changed from being they were when they were kids.

Anyway, they ended up being pretty cool people and apologized to me for being immature assholes.
One of them was very very apologetic and said he had a lot going on at home when he was a kid and didn't know how to handle his anger.
Anyway, I still keep in touch with two of them.

But your current employee may hold grudges so... it might not have a happy ending.
Interview her and see what YOU think... and if she really stands out, ask you current employee again how she would feel. If you're on friend terms with her, maybe you could through around the idea to her that she's talking about incidents from over a decade ago when they were kids and its possible she has grown up.
posted by KogeLiz at 7:59 PM on April 18, 2011 [1 favorite]

Throw not through.
Ugh
posted by KogeLiz at 8:01 PM on April 18, 2011

There are a lot of great people out there who are highly qualified. This was big enough that an employee brought it to your attention. This was big enough that you actually consider it to be an important judge of character. So yeah, if you know this person was a bully and it made you question whether using it as a measure of disqualification so that you posted to metafilter - this person is not going to be a good fit. Like RelationshipFilter, there are other fish in the sea... Next candidate!
posted by Nanukthedog at 8:07 PM on April 18, 2011

What are the positives for you to consider this person for hire?
1) She's well qualified for the position (along with 5 to 40 other candidates).
2) You get to assuage some minor guilt you have over pre-judging someone.

The negatives are:
1) Your current employee is not 100% enthusiastic or even neutral about the candidate should she be hired.
2) Current coworker may feel somewhat slighted that her concerns (however mildly stated—she has concerns or she wouldn't have said anything at all) were ignored.
3) The candidate may not have grown past the aspects of her personality that was into power plays, cliquishness and well, being mean.

To me, the negatives outweigh the positives in a small team-oriented work group. If this was a situation where Current Tech did one type of job and Candidate had an entirely different area of expertise I'd consider it but not in a work group comprised of peers who share similar duties.

If the candidate is as well qualified as she presents, she'll have little difficulty finding another place to work for, which should assuage your guilt.
posted by jamaro at 8:10 PM on April 18, 2011 [2 favorites]

If current employee will be positionally superior or even a supervisor, I'd be shy on hiring the applicant. If they're going to be equals, how emotionally confidant is the current employee now?

Alternatively, the employee might take the opportunity to bully their old nemesis.
posted by rhizome at 8:12 PM on April 18, 2011

My experience of humans is that they're NOT fully formed versions of themselves (ie: mature) until at least age 25. Thus, something that someone did as a teenager should not be held against them as an adult.

Hire the best person for the job.

Also worth considering: the possibility that your current employee (the formerly bullied) is not being 100% honest in what they've told you.
posted by philip-random at 8:17 PM on April 18, 2011 [3 favorites]

I would keep her in the pool for the time being, but with a few points knocked off. On the one hand, people can and do change a lot; on the other, you don't forget your bullies. It might help you to forget the "bully" label and focus on the fact that one of your current and respected employees has reservations about working with her. Even if the applicant's matured into a kindhearted person and the tech has completely forgiven her, they might still feel awkward or uncomfortable around each other.

I'd be tempted to ask questions in a future interview that might reveal a little bit more about her without being too personal or too "gotcha." I have no idea what a sample question would be. Maybe "if you could go back in time and give your high-school self advice, what would you tell her?"
posted by Metroid Baby at 8:27 PM on April 18, 2011 [3 favorites]

As the weird kid growing up...

Nope, fuck her.
posted by Netzapper at 8:30 PM on April 18, 2011 [8 favorites]

As the weird kid growing up...

No one should be judged for who they were when they were in high school.
posted by incessant at 8:46 PM on April 18, 2011 [13 favorites]

See what she is like now. (And give your employee the chance to do so as well.)

I once worked with a guy who had been unpleasant to me in high school. He ended up being one of my best friends at work.
posted by zompist at 8:56 PM on April 18, 2011 [1 favorite]

rhizome - Alternatively, the employee might take the opportunity to bully their old nemesis.

Precisely.

Prior, potentially antagonizing, history is a complication. All other things being equal, any complication/negative backstory = negative.

The presence of ex-bullied current employee potentially tips this natural negative back story into neutral or, much less likely, a positive. This is more fair to the applicant, who is already shortlisted, from being dropped from the shortlist. They're already on the out; this is an opportunity to be back in.

As the boss, you should be able to see if the "nemesis" thing might crop up or not prior to the hire. Group interviews go both ways; interviewee is also interviewing for the job - seeing if they they want to work there.

Having current employees who are going to work with a new hire interview or even just meet potential hires is a very useful protocol in general, especially when current employee's opinions are solicited after the interview/meeting.
posted by porpoise at 9:27 PM on April 18, 2011 [1 favorite]

On one hand: As someone who was bullied, ain't no way in hell I'd want to work with someone who used to do that. Possibly/probably even if they got over it and atoned for their actions. I would never be comfortable around them or trust them, and I would be quite secretly unhappy if my work chose to hire someone they knew did that to me after I told them that. (And what cjorgenson said is a good point: it's really awkward for your employee to say anything, and she may look bad no matter what she said, and she does probably feel obligated to be all "oh, it's okay now" too, whether it is or not.)

On the other hand: fifteen years later, maybe she has gotten over that shit by now and (even though I hate those words) maybe you should give her a chance.

Overall, I think I agree with "interview her, but take a few mental points off" there. Give her a chance in the interview sessions, but maybe pick seven candidates to interview rather that six. See if she's either a spectacular actress/over the bullying shit, or if she still has obvious traits of being an asshole. If your employee is willing to suck it up/can stand to do so, have her there during the interview process to see how the bully reacts. And please, please, let your employee have some pretty big say as to whether or not she genuinely wants to deal with this chick in her space all the time for the future. And if she isn't anything other than enthusiastic about hiring the woman, don't hire her.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:35 PM on April 18, 2011 [3 favorites]

How do you know your employee is telling the truth? Alleged behavior from 15 years ago wouldn't deter me from interviewing a strong candidate, nor would remarks from another person in the office.
posted by Ideefixe at 9:42 PM on April 18, 2011 [2 favorites]

If she's above and beyond the best candidate for the job, hire her.

If you have a number of similar candidates with similar qualifications to her, then the tiebreaker is against her. That's how life works, 15 years on or not.
posted by inturnaround at 9:49 PM on April 18, 2011 [1 favorite]

Was your current employee clear if she was the person bullied or not? Because that makes a big difference, in my opinion.

As someone who was bullied, the idea of working with any of my specific bulliers makes me want to be sick. I graduated high school thirteen years ago, but if one of them got hired at my workplace tomorrow, regardless of how apologetic and nice they seemed now, I would start looking for a new job. Full stop.

On the other hand, there were bullies in my school who bullied people who were not me. I wouldn't have a problem working with one of those people, even though their behaviour in high school was appalling.

If someone on your staff has been bullied by the applicant, I'd immediately rule out the applicant. If someone on the staff is aware that the applicant has bullied but hasn't been a target of the applicant, do the interview and see what happens.
posted by MeghanC at 10:01 PM on April 18, 2011 [2 favorites]

Fifteen years is a very long time. Go ahead and interview her, but hire the candidate who fits best overall.
posted by desuetude at 10:41 PM on April 18, 2011

If I had information from a trusted employee that an applicant was in any way less than completely desirable, I would bin the application immediately unless the resume/application gave pretty solid evidence of a turnaround.

I know I'm not the Perry Mason of interviews. I wouldn't trust the interview process to tease this kind of info out of an applicant. You lucked out.

Even an asshole can lie and ace an interview, after all.
posted by The Potate at 10:44 PM on April 18, 2011 [2 favorites]

If the current employee is going to be "not thrilled" to work with this individual, then don't employ that individual. My gut says that you have more of a duty of concern about your current employee and their working environment than an unknown quantity. Your current employee might not feel able to say that s/he doesn't want to work with this individual at all, but doesn't want to rock the boat.
posted by Solomon at 10:49 PM on April 18, 2011 [3 favorites]

It's not clear if you spoke with the current employee in private or only in front of the group you had gathered.

I'd speak with the person in private and ask them something like "It sounds like you used to know applicant, can you tell me a bit more about what they were like?"
posted by yohko at 10:51 PM on April 18, 2011 [2 favorites]

One of your potential problems right now is that your staff person may also have shared her amusing experience of reading the resume of a person who she believed bullied her with the rest of your staff. That would poison this person's credibility before they even integrate into part of the team.

Secondly, if you do hire this person, consider checking in with your employee again, sit her down, and tell her you are seriously consider hiring this person, and ask her what once again about her concerns and how you can help make this as transaction as smooth as possible. See what she says.

Third, if you do hire them, check in with both of them regularly for the first month or so, and make sure everything is going smoothly.

Finally, all sorts of candidates look good on paper in terms of skills and experience. But it's when you meet them that you get a better sense of who is interpersonally a good fit for your team. Many of your good candidates may fizzle in person, including this one. But if your in an HR situation, where you have to explain to someone why you chose the other candidates but not her based on her CV, bring her in. If you can do a cut, say that the other 5 were equally strong, and you need to limit the number of interviews - 6-7 is particularly time consuming.

Just to be clear - you aren't judging the candidate for her possible behavior 15 years ago. You're dinging her because you have a datapoint that she might not fit with your team, today, and cause you extra conflict management work. It's the potential weakness of your current staff member - not the candidate - and one you're going to have to manage if you hire this candidate.

It's one of the reasons why I wouldn't hire someone on to my team if a candidate was an ex of a team member who don't have a good break up/relationship now, or an estranged family member. "I can work with her" is damning faint comfort if it's the best a current staff member can say, because the moment stress hits the team, it could be the first relationship to fray.

You kind of need people who trust each other and can work together in your absense, and regardless of what may or may not have happened, you have a team person who might not be enthusiastic about engaging this candidate - and regardless of how professional people try to be, dislike is dislike. Distrust is distrust. That just makes things just a little bit harder.

If you don't bring the candidate in, do not tell the current staff person that their comment was the reason why. If you do, I think the candidate deserves a chance to meet your team, including the staff member who identified her as a bully. The candidate then deserves the chance to present who she is today, and impress/or fail to impress, whatever the case may be.
posted by anitanita at 11:37 PM on April 18, 2011 [3 favorites]

Yeah, people can change. I have a great relationship with someone who bullied me in school.

But you know what, you already have a fine employee who will be less than thrilled to work with this individual. Why make a current employee potentially unhappy with your choice when there are five other choices?
posted by munchingzombie at 11:43 PM on April 18, 2011 [3 favorites]

HR director here. Yes, you get to be coosy if you want.

BUT...you do realize that the applicant can ask for notes and details of the application process in some jurisdictions, right?

Woukd you be willing to bet your job on the fact that the bullying occurred and is significant enough to disqualify the applicant?

You could be opening yourself to action.


This is why people should be trained before being involved in the hiring process.
posted by hal_c_on at 12:28 AM on April 19, 2011 [2 favorites]

Going against the tide thus far - if you have enough applicants to be choosy, go ahead and be choosy.

This and...

While a former history of bullying behavior probably shouldn't be an automatic disqualification in general, why would you want to knowingly bring in an applicant who has an uncomfortable history with a current employee?

...this. If your current staff member cares enough to mention it, and you ignore them, that's quite the message you send them about how valued they are.

Teams are hard to build and easy to wreck. I've cheerfully knocked back people who have the technical chops but would obviously be a disaster interpersonally with an existing team
posted by rodgerd at 12:44 AM on April 19, 2011 [3 favorites]

As an employer:

If your employees have an even slightly questionable history with an applicant, that applicant is done. Period. You have other qualified applicants. Move on.
posted by rhombus at 1:01 AM on April 19, 2011 [6 favorites]

Who says the current staff member is not "misremembering"? Who knows what her definition of "bullying" is? She chuckled when she saw the name, her eyes didn't widen in terror. And, the reference to "mean girl" is pretty thin, 15 years on. Interview the candidate, but keep your mind open. Really really commit to choosing the best person for the job and for the team. Attrition is your friend.
posted by thinkpiece at 4:06 AM on April 19, 2011

Don't make yourself have to go look for two new employees.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 5:28 AM on April 19, 2011 [1 favorite]

You have a current, well-respected employee who wouldn’t be thrilled to work with the applicant.

You have 41 well-qualified applicants, 40 of whom are going to be disappointed not to get the position.

Why not go ahead and disappoint the one applicant who has a clear negative character reference from someone you respect?

Sure, she may not be the same person she was 15 years ago, but sometimes chickens come home to roost. That’s the way it goes sometimes. Let the “mean girl” live with the consequences of her former actions, respect the opinion of your current tech who will no doubt appreciate your consideration, and sidestep the known potential for some interoffice friction down the road.

The “mean girl” will be ok. They always are.
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 5:55 AM on April 19, 2011 [8 favorites]

Having just been at a 25 year high school reunion, and having been a pathologically nerdy kid who was bullied mercilessly from 5th grade to 11th grade, I was very pleased to see that many of the people who I remember as being unkind or outright mean, were no longer like that (at least in the artificial environment of a reunion)

As a pediatrician, and now a parent, I've come to realize and appreciate how much of a child's behavior is driven by their parents behavior. A bully is the product of his/her environment. That's not meant as a excuse, but rather to allow for the fact that some people, who change their environments (moving away for school, life, job, etc.) and experience the broader world, may change.

To pre-judge at the interview stage, based on your tech's judgment, is, in my opinion, unfair in that it assigns that person the near permanent stain of a transgression from their childhood that they might never commit as an adult. Interview them and judge them on who they are today, not who they might have been 15 years ago.
posted by scblackman at 5:58 AM on April 19, 2011 [1 favorite]

I was bullied! Fairly badly and persistently, as I've mentioned here once or twice.

I would not object to working with one of the generic "mean girls", assuming that we'd all grown up. I still kind of hate them, but I am pretty sure that would melt away if I met one who had definitely changed. I would not want to work with the scary bullies.

I honestly don't know what to tell you, though--do you feel like your employee is saying "she was a mean girl" but really means "this girl made my life absolute scary life-altering hell, but it's not professional to say that"?

I wouldn't want someone excluded from a job search on the basis of having casually bullied me in high school. Bullying is structural, and although there are some terrible, terrible people who bully, most bullies do it because that's how school is set up.

I mean, my life was altered immeasurably for the worse by bullying and I'm still angry about it. I have no particular desire to seek out my bullies or validate their little feelings by "absolving" them, but if one of them turns up and she's a normal person now, I don't want to see her punished--especially in this economy.
posted by Frowner at 6:33 AM on April 19, 2011

Why not go ahead and disappoint the one applicant who has a clear negative character reference from someone you respect?

I wouldn't call recognizing someone's name from 15 years ago a "clear negative character reference." If I were your team member and you omitted her from the interview pool on that basis, I'd be a little insulted by what this seems to say about my professionalism.

However, if your team member has a negative impression of this person AFTER the interview, sure, pass her over in favor of another qualified applicant.
posted by desuetude at 7:00 AM on April 19, 2011 [2 favorites]

It's hard to tell from your post whether the so-called bully was just a "mean girl," which I interpret to be popular with bitchy overtones, or actually specifically bullied the current employee.

I was picked on a lot as a kid. There are a few individuals who I never want to be in the same room with again. If my boss hired one of them, I would quit (probably after punching the new guy in the face).
posted by radioamy at 7:07 AM on April 19, 2011 [1 favorite]

Well, they had to use (and will have to use) some criteria to narrow the pool of candidates from 41 to six and finally, to one. I'm willing to bet that some candidates have already been rejected on less significant criteria. Or equally insignificant criteria, depending on how you look at it.

There is just no way to judge every single one of 41 well-qualified people absolutely fairly on the basis of qualifications alone. People were surely cut from the list due to factors like "didn't smile enough". Should that guy have had his whole professional worth judged because he was maybe a little nervous or not feeling well that day?

Why not cut this woman if someone who knows her has stated that she was, at one time in her life, an asshole? It's not like she's being blackballed from the industry. If she's that well-qualified she can go find a job at another office.
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 7:16 AM on April 19, 2011

The issue is not about the bully or any potential reformation. This issue is whether or not the existing tech can handle it. You have a high risk of the existing tech poisoning the well if you bring this person on board.

You can eliminate that risk by simply choosing another well qualified candidate.
posted by Jason Wilmot at 7:42 AM on April 19, 2011

Oh, you know, I'd be really, really angry if my boss assumed without question that I could not work with someone who bullied me years ago. That's insulting to me--it suggests that I have no professional standards, that I will definitely gossip and slander and complain, that I am not a team player.

Wow, that would be hugely unfair--I get bullied, then my professional rep suffers because my boss assumes without even asking me that I can't rise above.
posted by Frowner at 8:32 AM on April 19, 2011

A few years ago I ran into a "mean girl" from middle school in Brooklyn (which was strange since we went to middle school in a far-away, unhip city). I had that old surge of fear and was about to turn around before she noticed me but she recognized me and caught up just the same. As it turned out, the girl who ruined my middle school life by calling me a lesbian was... a lesbian, naturally. She apologized very sincerely and told me about her girlfriend. She had decided to become a social worker and was getting her masters at NYU. She literally seemed like a different person- and a pretty good one at that. I realized that when she was a bully, she was miserable with who she was the whole time and I felt a lot of empathy for her.

Just based on that experience, I'd say let her do the interview. People change and when you're 13 and being picked on, it's hard to see the whole picture. Lots of people deserve a second chance.
posted by Thin Lizzy at 8:40 AM on April 19, 2011 [1 favorite]

Realize that your coworker may not accurately be able to predict her response to working with Mean Girl. What if it dredges up some old trauma and makes it difficult to go to work? What if she's distracted at work? You're working with living beings, not computers or something. I'd like to say I'd be OK working with my middle school bully. I'd like to say I'd be the bigger person. I probably wouldn't kick him in the nuts, but it might affect me in ways I'm not able to foresee. I'd certainly tell my boss I'd be okay with it even if I wasn't sure.
posted by desjardins at 8:57 AM on April 19, 2011 [3 favorites]

You'd be doing a disservice to your employer - and not really doing your job - if you did not even interview the person applying. Interpersonal issues are important, but hiring the best possible people trumps that in my book. Changes can be made internally if your current employee and the interviewee can not, in fact, find a way to work together but it says more to me about your current employee than it does the interviewee if that comes to pass. Meanwhile, by not interviewing this person, your firm is absolutely deprived of a potentially useful addition to its staff. At least take that first step...
posted by OneMonkeysUncle at 9:20 AM on April 19, 2011

... And problem solved. When I called to do a quick phone interview her grammar was *atrocious*- "I didn't give them no reason..." and then she complained about her boss and her old co-workers. Great resume, but the person didn't seem to match.

So, it looks like she isn't a good fit for lots of reasons. Going forward with three other applicants who seem like they might work well.

Thanks everyone for the advice. It was interesting to see how diverse the responses were, very much mirrored the arguments I was having with myself. You guys are the best!
posted by Nickel Pickle at 9:57 AM on April 19, 2011 [8 favorites]

When I called to do a quick phone interview her grammar was *atrocious*- "I didn't give them no reason..." and then she complained about her boss and her old co-workers. Great resume, but the person didn't seem to match.

Nickel,

Seriously, get trained. Its not right that you're publicizing details about someone's application process. HR is full of people who don't know the difference between right and wrong or more importantly legal and illegal.

I know you're kinda anonymous, but it would pretty much take a savvy person 1 day to track down who you are and where you work based on previous commenting on metafilter. That's assuming you have never used this username off of metafilter. If there is ANYTHING that you wrote in this thread that you wouldn't say to the applicant, you should think about your future actions.

Put yourself in an applicant's position. Would you really want details of your application process being put out like this in an open forum?

I'm glad it worked out for you, but you should really know what to do and NOT do during the hiring process. The next time you set about hiring, it may be beneficial to not get people who are not trained in HR involved.

Also, if you plan on sticking around in this field, you may think about getting certified through SHRM. Not only would it benefit your office through your work, but it would also open up new professional opportunities for you.

Good luck.
posted by hal_c_on at 6:59 PM on April 19, 2011 [2 favorites]

[folks - side conversations need to go to email, please direct answers towards the OP. thanks.]
posted by jessamyn at 9:27 AM on April 21, 2011