Timeline for How do I deal with a candidate mentioning God twelve times in their application?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
17 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jul 25, 2020 at 14:05 | comment | added | Rohit Chatterjee | While Muslims are probably the least pro-gay cultural group today, I have never actually met any anti-gay Muslims personally. I read about them so I know they exist, and if I chatted with working-class Muslims I’d probably encounter it. But among highly educated professionals- never, not from the Middle East, not from South Asia, and not from Malaysia | |
| Jul 24, 2020 at 14:52 | comment | added | gnasher729 | If someone refuses to work with gay people, that’s the problem solved. It’s not a legitimate reason to refuse working with someone. | |
| Jul 24, 2020 at 14:42 | comment | added | Eric Duminil | @gormadoc: I'm not in a position to choose. If I were, I honestly wouldn't even bother to check anything else after reading this application. I met a few intolerant religious people over the years, and lack of respect towards women was a clear indicator of intolerance towards other groups. No need to specifically ask about gays/atheists or other religions, simply observe how the applicant interacts with women during the interview. | |
| Jul 24, 2020 at 14:02 | comment | added | gormadoc | @EricDuminil How would you "check" that? Ask every applicant from the ME if they are "okay with gays"? Ask only obviously religious people, in an effort to disguise overt discrimination with a different flavor of overt discrimination? Ask everybody? Even if you did, how would you know you got the correct answer? | |
| Jul 24, 2020 at 13:01 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| Jul 24, 2020 at 13:15 | |||||
| Jul 24, 2020 at 10:39 | comment | added | user96809 | @electrique It might well be the case that your other applicants had help with their applications, either from someone more knowledgable or from a professional service. This doesn't preclude it from being the case that the candidate might just be transferring the conventions of an application from their own academic culture to the new one. In such a case, you really can't draw very much from the applicant's use of this language. For all you know, they are secretly a rabid aetheist. Have you tactfully asked any of your students from that university what the norms are there? | |
| Jul 24, 2020 at 10:16 | comment | added | gerrit | @electrique Yes, that's what I meant with point to relevant information, and indeed anything that does not point to relevant information is noise. Writing a poor cover letter is a pity for both the candidate and the university/employer, because it increases the risk of overlooking good candidates. I don't know how effective "how to make up for it" phrases in cover letters are, I suppose it depends on how rigid the ranking system is. | |
| Jul 24, 2020 at 10:12 | comment | added | gerrit | @EricDuminil Even if anti-gay attitudes are statistically more common in some religions than in others, to check it only for some candidates and not for others would be discrimination based on religion, which would be wrong, illegal, (and even ineffective, considering there are atheists who hate gays). Candidate should be judged based on their own relevant characteristics, not on views that happen to be common in a group they belong to. | |
| Jul 24, 2020 at 9:42 | comment | added | apetros85 | @gerrit I disagree. The cover letter is used to point the recruiter to the right direction and convince why you fit the profile they are looking. In the call, I ask for good experience in skill A and B. I expect the cover letter to tell me if you have that experience or not. If not, how do you make up for it. If I have to dig out of a 10-page CV to estimate/guess if you have skill A because you wasted the cover letter on something else, it's certainly not helping. | |
| Jul 24, 2020 at 9:40 | comment | added | Eric Duminil | "Perhaps some people think that if a candidate mentions God twelve times they might refuse to work with gays, but we don't know that". Well, let's be honest, there aren't many religions which could be mentioned 12 times in a cover letter. And a particular one doesn't seem to be too tolerant towards homosexuality or apostasy (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_for_homosexuality en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrimination_against_atheists). But you're right, we cannot know even if there's a higher probability of it being the case. It just would be a good idea to check. | |
| Jul 24, 2020 at 9:36 | comment | added | apetros85 | @Araucaria-Nothereanymore. Middle East. I prefer not to point the exact country. I've had 5 candidates from the same country, even same university 1, the candidate was the only one volunteering the religious info. | |
| Jul 24, 2020 at 9:32 | comment | added | gerrit | Of course, including irrelevant information (I've gazed at the stars since I was a child or not unrelated to a space science & engineering application but still irrelevant for the ranking of candidates) increases the likelihood of relevant information being overlooked. Maybe you could determine strength of motivation from a cover letter but I suspect that works better at interview stage (I was apparently downranked on motivation at my last interview, fair enough as I'd received a preferable offer from same employer 3 days prior). | |
| Jul 24, 2020 at 9:31 | comment | added | user96809 | @electrique You have resolutely avoided enlightening readers here as to where your candidate was from. Can you provide this info? | |
| Jul 24, 2020 at 9:27 | comment | added | gerrit | @electrique I'm not sure, but I think cover letters are not very important. I haven't been on the hiring side of PhD student candidates or employees, but I have assisted in ranking Master students applications for a competitive scholarship. There was a list of criteria, we scanned the provided documents to see what criteria were met, and all information not related to the criteria had no impact on the application. The only positive impact of the cover letter may have been to point us to relevant information elsewhere to reduce the risk of us overlooking something. | |
| Jul 24, 2020 at 9:27 | comment | added | apetros85 | Concerning the politics rule, my group have been respecting it until now and I haven't had need to enforce it. I had to mediate once but both parties agreed to drop it while in the Lab. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. | |
| Jul 24, 2020 at 9:21 | comment | added | apetros85 | "You should ignore this information". If a candidate says in their cover letter (which is important for me) that X will guide them to complete the PhD, should I ignore the whole phrase? Should I remove the 10+ phrases that refer to that and reread what is left? Or, do you suggest I try to fill in the gaps by myself? Is that fair to others that have written a stunning cover letter that describes their passion for research and their drive, their own achievements? | |
| Jul 24, 2020 at 7:34 | history | answered | gerrit | CC BY-SA 4.0 |