Is It a Red Flag If a Candidate Was Fired Twice Previously?

Inc.com columnist Alison Green answers questions about workplace and management issues—everything from how to deal with a micromanaging boss to how to talk to someone on your team about body odor.

Here’s a roundup of answers to three questions from readers.

1. How much of a red flag is it if a job candidate was fired twice previously?

I am hiring for a position that is fairly entry-level office work. A candidate, who is fairly young, lists two positions in the past decade which they were fired from. They were post-college full-time positions, not high school summer jobs where turnover would be expected to be high and where the job may not be a huge priority for the employee. This seems like a lot. I would follow up with a reference check to get more details if I move this candidate forward, but I’m not sure if I should just disqualify them. If it matters, there are other candidates I’m leaning toward, but this candidate is currently in my top tier in terms of skills and experience.

Green responds:

If they’re in your top tier of candidates aside from this, why not talk to them and ask about it? What you hear might turn out to be concerning or disqualifying, but it also might not. Examples of things that might not be worrisome: they took a job that wasn’t right for their skills, and those aren’t skills they’d be using in this job … the job changed after they were hired, and their skills were no longer right for it … they were fired after reporting harassment or discrimination … they messed up but have learned from it, as demonstrated by their strong work since … and on and on.

You’ve got to talk to them and get more info before you can know. You should also verify whatever they tell you with references, particularly since these are two incidents rather than one, but since they’re a strong candidate it doesn’t make sense to reject them without learning more.

2. People keep booking “getting to know you” meetings with me

I’ve been with my rapidly-growing company for quite a while now. We have lots of new folks joining constantly. Somehow I seem to have made it on to other managers’ lists of “people to book coffee with” when new employees onboard, I’m guessing because I have so much historical context. Random people from all over the company will just … put time in my calendar to “get to know you,” even if their teams or projects have absolutely nothing to do with mine and we’ll never work together.

I want to say no to these requests, I really do. They do me absolutely no good, and I feel pretty confident these new hires just forget our conversation in the deluge of onboarding context anyway! Am I being selfish? Should I just suck it up and donate the time? If not, how can I say no in a way that doesn’t make me sound like a jerk? (It’s about 1-2 requests every two weeks, and each meeting takes 30 minutes.)

Green responds:

This is not selfish! If it were one request every few months, that would be one thing — but 1-2 a week is a huge amount of time.

When people try to schedule these meetings, it should be fine to say, “I’m sorry, I’ve had a lot of these requests lately and I’m having to say no to them because my plate is really full. I know Jane probably suggested it, so I’ll let her know the situation. That said, welcome to the company and I hope we get a chance to talk at some point!”

Then, talk to the managers who you think are behind all this and explain the situation — “In theory I’d love to do it, but I’m getting multiple requests a week for it and realistically I can’t do this many. Since I’m having to turn them down, could you direct new hires to someone else? Thank you!” (I bet each manager thinks they’re the only one who’s thought of this and has no idea you’re being deluged by others too.)

3. Job candidate’s profile picture is heavily Photoshopped

I’m working on hiring for an open position on our team and have identified the candidates I’d like to move forward in the hiring process. Out of curiosity, I decided to see if I could find their LinkedIn profiles to see if there was any other relevant info. I was a bit shocked to find that the profile picture of one of the candidates appears to be heavily edited — think an Instagram filter but times 10. Her eyes don’t match the lighting of the photo, her teeth are too white, and her skin has been smoothed so much it looks like plastic — the effect overall is quite jarring.

I don’t know what to make of this. I am sympathetic to the fact that social media has made the desire to look “perfect” even harder to avoid for women, but this is hard to pass off as “natural.” Moreover, it’s on LinkedIn, which I have always figured has slightly different norms than other more “casual” social media platforms. Is this a red flag about her judgment?

Green responds:

Without seeing the photo, it’s hard to know exactly where on the spectrum this falls. If this is just someone who got a little carried away with photo editing and now looks like an airbrushed magazine ad — well, it’s not great and I’d advise her against it, but it’s not something that needs to be a factor in hiring (assuming that she’s not applying for a job where it’s directly relevant, like … photo editor). On the other hand, if it’s altered to the point of being cartoonish and it’s something you’d be afraid for clients to see and this is a job where that matters, it’s fair game to consider it relevant. But unless it’s really extreme, I wouldn’t worry about it.

Want to submit a question of your own? Send it to alison@askamanager.org.