Chinese student fails job interview because of iPhone An incensed university student in China’s Jilin province has taken to the web to vent his frustration at being rejected during a job interview after his interviewer spotted that he owned an iPhone. The unlucky fourth year student, surnamed Gao, attended the interview at the tail end of November in Changchun city, only to be …
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"In the UK, owning an iPhone doesn't mean your wealthy. Every chav pikey and their dog has one."
I believe that the Chav Choice is generally still the Rioter's favourite, the Blackberry, with free-with-a-packet-of-crisps 'Droids equally attractive. It's more the fashionistas and Essex crowd who'd head for the iPhone.
Nope, it's definitely an iPhone (possibly an older model just to have the brand, most probably just nicked). Those higher up in the chav hierarchy will be identifiable by their trademark behaviour of talking or texting on said iDevice while badly and obnoxiously driving around in a second hand Audi.
Same here in denmark, the bums have them. It seems only in the US that the nominally poverty stricken suffer from unfulfilled lust after iPhones and feel the need the vent their spleens on forums like these. The idea that there is any status/street credibility attached to iPhone ownership is so bizarre and detached from reality that it beggars belief. But I guess envy is envy and like the poor, will be with us forever.
Whipping out your iStuff for everyone to drool over is sooo 2010...
Whipping out your mobile during an interview is sooo... stupid.
Your mind must be completely involved in the interview, and your phone is either on silent - and silient<>vibrate - (GASP!) or turned-off (double-GASP!). Even if you sit for an hour in the waiting room, your phone is invisible.
HR dept list of interview questions
got a Facebook profile?
got a Windows 8/Android/iOS smartphone? (delete as applicable)
what's your twitter handle?
are you on LinkedIn?
etc
etc
etc
Answering No to any of the above will disqualify you from being offering a job.
I would only be able to answer Yes to one of the above so I guess I'm unemployable. Well I am getting my bus pass next week so it really does not matter to me but to some it does.
Postscript
At one recent interview I had the HR droid concentrated for 30 minutes on why I didn't stay on at school and get 'A' Levels when I left at 15, did an apprenticeship and then went to Uni. This was all 40+ years ago so it is hardly relevant to what I can and can't do today. I later found out that this was a standard tactic used to get rid of people they clearly didn't want to employ. Sad, very sad. Just reinforces my view that getting a job is a lottery.
Hmmm. Can I patent 'Getting a job via the Lottery?' $$$$$$$$$ Yay.
I feel your pain. An HR droid for my own employer (which is far and away big enough to know better) once confided that our active recruitment is almost exclusively via LinkedIn.
Like you, I don't do Facebook (other than via a locked down profile with as close as I can manage, zero data in it) and I certainly don'tdo LinkedIn.
They have also taken up with a corporate internal Social media type product to "improve internal communication" - which is actually at about as valuable as asking a bloke at the pub.
Droids do as droids do, it seems
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"But I am puzzled at to why the kid would pull out any electronic aids at an interview other than to make an impression. That gesture by itself is suspect in exactly the ways detailed by the interviewer."
Let me suggest a perfectly innocent reason: maybe it went off during the interview, and he wanted to silence it. Benefit of the doubt, yes?
In that case he still deserves not to get the job because he didn't have the presence of mind to mute his phone before going into the interview. If on the other hand they explicitly asked, 'what kind of phone do you have' and he answered honestly then it's probably their loss and not his.
Let's go back to the first paragraph...
"An incensed university student in China’s Jilin province has taken to the web to vent his frustration at being rejected during a job interview after his interviewer spotted that he owned an iPhone.
The unlucky fourth year student, surnamed Gao, attended the interview at the tail end of November in Changchun city, only to be told just a few minutes in that the unnamed firm was “not looking for students with iPhones”."
The interviewer "spotted" the iPhone. Most likely the interviewee had the phone in his trouser pocket and shape of the iPhone whatever kind was quite prolific showing through. Nowhere did it say that the interviewee left it off silent. Anyway, any doofus owning an iPhone who can't figure out the silent switch doesnt deserve a job. But, it is more than what you get on your fandroid equivalent where you need to press 5,000,000 option buttons to turn the damn thing to silent or turning it off that takes a lifetime.
In China, an iPhone is a multiple of the average monthly wage, not a (chunky) fraction of it.
Perhaps a better analogy (though still a hugely inadequate way of trying to understand this story) would be: would you in the UK hire a graduate driving a brand new BMW hatchback? It would raise an eyebrow... make you ask "what's the story here?"
" it is more than what you get on your fandroid equivalent where you need to press 5,000,000 option buttons to turn the damn thing to silent"
Really ? It's on the lock-screen on mine (o.k. I'm running Gingerbread I've no idea about later versions but I'd be surprised if they moved it particularly deep).
Me! If I am still on call at my current employer and am being paid to be on call, then my phone stays on. Next time, it might be THEM making an urgent support call where downtime ticks at €100 a second. But I admit, I generally scedule my interviews when my backup is on call, so the odds are low. It has happened once in 25 years.
Some interviewrs might use a ruse such as,"Please provide us two relatives' names and phone numbers, two who are not already supplied, now", in which case he would likely be pressed to expose the phone.
Moral: take two or 3 phones, cheapy, a mid level, and an upscale or non-pretentous type of phone and then only expose one according to the environment. Be sure to preload each with contacts so the deception is likely to succeed. Or,bring NO phones, and just whip out a pocket-sized note pad... A spiral, flip pad, that is. Be mindful to only expose a practical, not expensive pen...
"But I am puzzled at to why the kid would pull out any electronic aids at an interview other than to make an impression."
Maybe you keep notes and/or contact information (like a reference's phone number) on it, or use it to send a copy of a resume. Better, surely, than whipping out a bulky rolodex.
Most people I know keep their iPhone in their pocket. I keep mine on a holstered belt clip. When wearing a suit in an interview, the jacket covers the phone. I'd have it on silent so it wouldn't ring and wouldn't pull out a phone in an interview (whether it is an iPhone or not). So other than an idiot pulling his phone out during an interview, the other possibility is that they asked him what brand of cell phone he has and upon telling them, they made a value judgement on him based on his phone choice. Personally, I find this sort of tactic suspect, as personal questions that have nothing to do with the job, are questions I'm not going to answer in an interview with a stranger. "I'm going to decline answering any personal questions in this interview. We've only just met and that isn't long enough of me knowing you for us to discuss any personal business of mine. I'll gladly discuss my skills, experience, and anything related to this job". If they don't like it, don't hire me and I won't work for you. Also, any questions asked about social networking (including Linked In) will be answered with- "I have no interest in social networking whatsoever. Anyone I want or need to talk to, can e-mail or text me. That's as far as I will go". And that's that.
I'll be honest I can in some ways agree with the employer. There are people I went to uni with who had everything paid for by mummy and daddy, they did nothing during class, cheated on tests and coursework and now nobody will hrie them.
But at the same time making the jump to "he has an iPhone mummy and daddy must've bought it for him" is a bit harsh, who knows? He could have worked his fingers to the bone in a factory making iPhones and snuck one out, or saved up enough to buy one which would probably make him an even better employee.
"''Students who have iPhones don’t work. Everything you have was bought by your parents. You haven’t bought anything by working yourself. You are wealthy and can’t stand the stress. Working at our company is tough. It calls for someone who can take the pain and suffering.'"
Or possibly the iPhone owner should consider this job rejection a blessing in disguise.
that iPhone's are everywhere here; on the bus, on the street, in taxis. Maybe there is a stigma against the latest model. But there are many fakes indistinguishable from the original (on the outside).
Is it wrong to penalize a person for the phone he/she is carrying? No, of course not! Never...
...
...
...
...unless it's a Windows phone :P
Actually I kind of had it with the Apple vs Samsung cat fight. Guess Nokia is in the ring now too...
"Is it wrong to penalize a person for the phone he/she is carrying?"
well, that depends *how* they carry it: since the recruiter knew right from the beginning that the guy had an iPhone, the bloke probably put his phone very ostensibly (and proudly) on the table looking like : "ha, there, see how cool I am !" ... and that's probably the *real* reason - looking like a fanboï - rather than the phone itself. Had he done the same with an SIII, the sentence would have been the same.
Possibly.
Or possibly one interview question took the form "So, what have you been doing since your finals?", and the answer was "Writing this iPhone app, see here...". Or maybe it was "How do you manage your time?", and the answer was "I keep my to-do list right here". I can think of a dozen interview questions that might reasonably provoke me to whip out an iPhone, if I had one.
But if I were this guy, would I really want to work for a place that admits to working people like slaves, and appoints peons like this interviewer to positions of authority? I'm thinking he had a lucky escape.
@dx 'Only El Reg would fall for that in their quest to find shit to say about Apple'
Actually this sounds like the sort of thing that Apple 'sponsors' in the media to make their overpriced products seem desirable.
A free I-Pad for the journalist and Japanese readers get a story about how Apple products are so exclusive and desirable that their poor oppressed neighbours are 'kicked out of the communist club' for owning one.
"Kicked out of the communist club?" Do you know anything about about China that's more recent than the last 10 years?
Also if you're looking at companies sponsoring the media, maybe you should look at bigger players - like HP, Dell, Microsoft, or the undisputed king of tech advertising, Samsung:
http://www.asymco.com/2012/11/29/the-cost-of-selling-galaxies/
Of course I am aware that China isn't exactly a communist state any more (some would argue it never really was). That wasn't my point - It is all about perception outside of the country.
Apple charge a premium for their products because they are seen as desirable and far from 'Apple bashing' as you implied, this article actually reinforces that impression.. so I smell a rat. Do other large companies do the same? Of course! Apple just seem to be the best at manipulating the media in this way (in my opinion).
Meh!!! I don't know what the asymco site is saying, however the site does seem to be pro-crApple, so perhaps it is just promoting crApple counter-FUD. The graphs in particular are hard to interpret, there is only a breakdown of SG&A for Samsung. There is also no links to the original company accounts from which the data is exacted.
The article contains two telling paragraphs:-
I think a large part of the margin story is a relatively high level of spending on SG&A....
The author is unsure about the facts and what is expressed, if the author was sure of the facts they would have said something more positive such as "A large part of the margin story is a......."
So one of the more remarkable aspects of Samsung’s success has been their willingness to increase promotional spending. Considering that their other divisions don’t require as much “marketing expense” (semiconductors, LCD certainly, and TVs and Appliances to a lesser degree due to a smaller sales growth) we can imagine that the vast majority (subjective statement) of this promotional spending has been in support of their mobile brands, Galaxy in particular.(very subjective statement)
Earlier in the article the author states In the case of Samsung Electronics, as sales has grown these expenses have grown in proportion. As a percent of sales SG&A have held relatively steady at around 17%. So why is the author surprised that promotional spending has increased at the same rate as sales???
As one of my old lecturers used to say "if you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit"
Yes, but finding "shit to say about Apple" works on el Reg. Just look at all the commentards and voters falling over themselves to prove how superior they are just because of their choice of smartphone. This place claims to have a "vast IT Professional community". Heaven help the IT profession if the votes and comments here are in any way representative.
... a terrific place to work. As someone who is responsible for hiring, I've implemented the same policy (unspoken) for a few years and not regretted it. Always make sure to gave a glimpse of a candidates phone. Keeping out the iChav proletariat has kept the quality of staff high. We only had one worker who subsequently bought a 4s - I made sure to utilise some of my more militant colleagues in a sting - we simply took the piss daily until he resigned. Good riddance.
I'm work in a company >15k employees.
A division that I used to work in have the attitude you have towards technology. Guess which division isn't cutting it?
If you can't embrace technology where you need to embrace it, good riddance your soon being check mated from the competition. And that is exactly what is happening to our company right now, we used to be the best in the world in our market. But as we suck on information management, due to freaks that hate tech, we are today loosing big time.
Yes same people who can't manage with mail, yet even less on a phone. It's really crippling us, and we are loosing customers because of it.
We aren't even in the electronic business, we are in the industrial business. Those same types who says "hard work solves it", but no, hard work does not solve anything if you can't do it right, or even worse do the wrong work at wrong time. I have been in it, doing it their way. Stupid idiots is what they are, thankfully I got into a different division with proper view of technology, this division get things done, but we do suffer due to that other division who can't deliver. And we are partly dependant on them.
Irresponsible idiots, that's what they are, and nothing else.
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bollocks... Who said it was Apple gear?
Quite the difference here, I help out those PC guys to get their PC to do what they should do at their work place. You know function in the work environment. You know all from fixing faults in the registry (caused by incompetent IT staff) to show them how to work in MS office software.
Imagine you need to be an Apple freak to be able to that, that is just such a big fail for your self-esteem.
That's totally moronic as you have zero data on how and why this person uses that phone. It could be because they are developing code, in which case it's an investment rather than bling, it could be exactly BECAUSE they have worked hard so they earned it - there are so many reasons why being so judgemental is wrong.
I spend quite a bit of time ruthlessly weeding that sort of stupidity out of the people I train in security because it sets them up for very dangerous mistakes. If I find that attitude is too entrenched they can leave - there is no way I permit anyone with that sort of attitude to certify. I have also removed quite a lot HR morons with that attitude because they stop the people I need from getting in.
I found the CV of the best guy I have ever employed in a stack of discarded CVs discarded by HR, and I think he framed the copy I gave him with a big fat "NO" scribbled on it :)
If you want exceptional performance you need exceptional people - in my experience, these are exactly the people HR seems to be hell bent to get rid of.
Agree with you there. Most HR are only interested in finding drones who will fit in with their idea of what corporate culture should look like. Anyone who looks like they have an opinion that would be outside the corporate norm is instantly disgarded. They usually end up stagnating in a working day comprising totally of meetings where they connect with each other, affirming and sharing each others' out of the box, blue sky thinking...which generally turns out to be exactly the same as old style thinking with a few extra bells and whistles.
Could be that his phone is .... just a phone. You know, one that you pick up and use now and then, carry for emergencies, and - being an iPhone - one that you don't have to spend half your time tweaking and fiddling with to get it to work properly and keep updated and synced, leaving you free to actually - you know - do some work.
Mine's the one with the iPhone in the pocket.
"Working at our company is tough. It calls for someone who can take the pain and suffering"
At that point, any prospective employer would have failed my interview process. Perhaps I'm an over-privileged fop who has never done a day’s graft in my life. Or a valuable, skilled asset who won't put up with this sort of crap.
If if looks like a shit hole, then tell them you dont want the job. Done that a few times.
Seems to me he had a lucky escape - its a tought place to work with pain and suffering, you can take that and shove it, i don't want any stress related problems making some other asshat rich.
Go - because you need to before you get stuck.
Don't work for any company that has to deal with Chinese or S. Korea companies then - there's pain and suffering right there, although you may not realise it in the job interview.
I'm not sure if you have noticed, but a lot of people have to take any job they can get at the moment - it's hardly a market where many can pick and chose.
About 1986 it was the 'in fashion' to have ties done this way. At least for younger set.
In walks your Mister Smartypants, dressed at age 20 in a very expensive suit, with the air of "when do I start"? There was that equally fashionable and expensive tie staring me in the face bugging me throughout the interview.
I chose a female engineer, who had a permanent 'bad hair day', who had met Mr. Smartpants in the waiting room. Smartypants inquired of the results, even though letters had been sent, and I remarked the position had been filled by a woman who had a .Masters degree
His response was that, in his opinion, I had a made a 'mistake' as she had no sense of dress style and her hair was a mess! I replied I was hiring an engineer, not a fashion statement. She subsequently left and joined Nortel becoming a senior engineer.
What would you do with me.
I sometimes even cut my own hair. Around 6 mm, let it grow till the bad hair days become too obvious and cut it again down to 6 mm. So a constant bad hair day sit's here but I do have an iPhone...
I can't deal with Android, I get so mad, it's like surfing a web page in the 90s with all those blinking advertising gifs and nothing else. Lots of bling, but I just want my job done. I guess WinPhone will be the only real competitor to iphone on that part. Just not really there yet.
"Ah good I see you have your own phone. That means that we won't have to buy you one. We will of course take your personal number so that we can contact you at any time of the day or night, so you can instantly respond to the most trivial of issues which could happily have waited to the next day.
Obviously we won't pay you or even give you any thanks for having to deal with issues in you own time"
I've always wondered where that attitude came from. I remember being lambasted by a manager for not answering my mobile phone late one evening. (What was the point of me having a mobile phone if I could not be contacted on it?).
Cue obscene levels of rage when I pointed out that *my* mobile phone was there for *my* convenience, not theirs.
I remember being lambasted by a manager for not answering my mobile phone late one evening
You have just listed the sole redeeming feature of a Blackberry (which has now made it into the iPhone in the form of Do Not Disturb): you could tell it to switch off by itself in the evening..
What if you graduated from Shanghai Maritime University?
once you get on the job market, do you ditch the iPad for an Android slab?
Chinese Professor Is Criticized for iPad Requirement ...
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/quickwire-chinese-professor-is-criticized-for-ipad-requirement/32347
Shucks, can't win.
I actually know a plumbing lecturer in Higher Education who used part of the budget to buy all his students an iPod Touch for course notes. He himself was a plumber and looks like Phil Mitchell's harder brother- which is why he might have been given the job of supervising some of the wayward lads who come his way. He himself is dyslexic, but has embraced the tools IT has given him, and is genuinely committed to education, despite the bureaucracy around him- which reminds one of Tom Sharpe's Wilt novels.
Don't knock it until someone has explained their reasoning to you.
Well, given that your judgement of people seems to be entirely based on their phone I think it's probably safe to discard your opinion. I have in active use:
- an iPhone 4s
- a Sony Ericsson Pi1
- a Motorola RAZR v3i
- a Sony Ericsson Xperia X10
Which one I use in addition to the iPhone is pretty random - it's just that my work requires I always have a phones of 2 separate providers on me.
Well looking at our company's support of phones and basic features for the corporate world.
The list of which phone you should choose from the list is.
1. iPhone
2. Win Phone (Nokia Lumias) or Nokia Symbian Phones.
3. Android.
The reason is purely based on which one serves the company the best, feature wise. Comes down to administration, backup possibilities and security management etc.
e.g. iOS has 2 native ways for handling full backups, both encrypt-able. Android has 0.
WinPhone / Symbian has native backup options, but is a bit more of a hazzle to setup, and they are not full backups.
That's just one of the facts.
Meh, I have an iPhone, I got it a month or 2 ago after having various android handsets for the last 4 or 5 years. I also have a mac book air.
Because they are just far less hassle. They just work most of the time. Which in my experience is far more than an android.
Also my mac book air is way more powerful than most laptops, and I sometimes have to check to make sure its in my bag, not reposition the strap because its hurting my shoulder.
I also dislike fanbois. I don't buy apple products because they are hip and make me look cool (the hundreds of comments so far prove that is not the case right?) I bought these 2 because they do a better job than other things I've used.
I think its wrong to not give a job to someone because of their phone choice. I'd definitely have been happy to not work there anyway.
No? So you wouldn't employ any of the NASA engineers we saw celebrate Curiosity's safe touchdown on Mars? You wouldn't have a Mac user in the Art department? You wouldn't hire a Mac-using photographer for corporate photos? You wouldn't hire an older person, who know's their job, an knows enough about Office apps and email to get the job done but beyond that doesn't care for IT?
If yet you criticise some people as sheep at the same time as not showing any critical thought of your own.
...still, I can't, as this really does indicate crass bias and ignorance on the part of the interviewer. There are, I'm sure, far more people who put in an honest day's work and earn every penny -- such as my wife -- who also happen to own iPhones (The wife also doesn't take every opportunity to whip it out in front of people or brag about having one, but apparently she's the exception that proves the rule).
As irksome as they can be, though, I think it's really rotten that this guy was turned down for a job simply for being a trend-surfing hipster with more money than sense.
Of course, as others here have mentioned, the question this article doesn't answer is just how the interviewer knew the guy was packing an iPhone.
.
(Disclaimer: I've used MacOS and sworn by it since 1985, but still can't abide the goddamn' iPhone trendoids.)
"bias and ignorance on the part of the interviewer. "
But you don't know that. What if this interviewer is using actual past experiences with earlier hires? Since you don't know this, I guess your really the ignorant one.
My view is:
If the student really wanted the job, He could have stepped up and said I will prove you wrong. Tell me about a problem/task related to this position and let me tell you how I would approach it. Today's job market is competitive and these companies (even I) don't have time to deal adult children (and there are lots out there).
If all you do in an interview is answer the same questions that have been asked the last 10 interviewees, then you don't make yourself stand out above the rest. Having a degree is not a guarantee to getting the job, when everyone is required to have a degree to even apply for it. You have to show how you will make the company money and how you will be engaged at work.
My favorite site/blog for job interviewing tips is Ask The Headhunter. I feel it helps those who are serious about finding the right job and not just a job. It worked for me in my last interview for my current job.
"Blacks don't like work. Not hiring 'em"
"The Irish don't like work. Not hiring 'em"
"Woman will just get pregnant and expect a free holiday. Not hiring 'em"
"Old people are set in their way. Not hiring 'em"
"Young people just want to do drugs and laze around. Not hiring 'em"
"Oh....why do I have no employees?"
Prejudice comes in all forms and whilst an iPhone might indicate a privileged background, it could also have been a prize. Even if they were born with a silver-spoon in their mouths, not all toffs are wastes of space (those become MPs). What you have to look at is the person in front of you.
So if you have Herman Barington-Smythe Fauntilory III in the chair with his personal driver sat at reception, but they are the best <insert job> applicant you have ever had and they seem keen; they you would be a blithering idiot not to hire them.
It's official for fandroids in China.
Will put up with pain? Check!
Will put up with suffering? Check!
Will put up with slave wages? Check!
You're hired! Take off your clothes put on this uniform and you'll find your cell down on block 836 of facility building G7.
It's obvious this is not the first person they have interviewed or even hired that fit this profile. Over time everyone learns to recognize certain clues based on past experiences.
The guy could have tried to show they were wrong about him and earned the job. If you go to an interview and simply answer questions your asked....your not engaged in the process and thus will not be engaged in the job/work. Whiners are the worst workers and this guy was whining about getting called out. He did nothing to prove them wrong.
I've dealt with employees who think they are doing a great job when they show up for work. Problem is they don't do the work when they are here. It's four times more work to manage a bad/lazy employee than a good employee who has a strong work ethic and takes initiative.
People like this guy think companies exist to employ them.....but they don't. If you don't like it...start your own company and prove you have the right stuff for success.
Best wishes for the coming year,
His counter point is that he's never had a real job, he doesn't plan to work hard but he expects full benefits and a premium salary because: "he's entitled". If the company actually expects him to work he'll quit and Mummy and Daddy will support him for another 10 years. That's the mentality of a lot of yoof, especially those with iPhones.
"I was only 15 when I bought the phone and £440 represents many hours of paper round, birthday and Christmas money."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2011/may/28/faulty-iphone
My son received my old iPhone as a combined present for four events, his birthday, a religious holidays, completing the reading a large religious text, and a good school report (I let him off for the only score he had below the 80% target, 70% for French).
.. and if I tried pulled a stunt like that at my old employer when interviewing, I would been shown the door, and quite rightly so.
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