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need just one like.. plz?
Thanks for setting this up!
Hi vis? All the time? Only at night? Not at all?
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Coach
It sounds like you did what you had to do. One option going forward is a structured onboarding week with checkpoints — a mini 30/60/90 plan, even for contractors. That way, expectations are crystal clear from day one, and red flags surface early. Also, ask for a live working session in the interview process if you didn’t already — it reveals a lot.
Mentor
It doesn’t work everywhere, though. I’ve worked at companies with a formal, structured onboarding process and even a formal letter confirming the successful completion of the probationary period. In practice, however, no one ever failed onboarding. The only time I’ve seen people forced to leave was through layoffs. To be honest, I think it would be better if failing the probationary period were actually possible. I’m still not sure what was being evaluated, since no one ever really had to prove themselves during that time.
I don’t think you can prevent that. Maybe you can drill down on candidates experience with delivering and learning fast in high pressure situations. While it is the holidays, you did it before Christmas and did the right thing for both you and him by firing quickly.
There is always a risk to it... I remember this contractor guy that was supposed to make a migrate from Java to C# and started looking for software that makes it for you instead of learning the codebase and rewrite it as everyone else was doing with their piece of the software suite. After 2 weeks of going nowhere my lead at the time decided to let him go, he didn't delivery anything at all, and he was picked as a very experienced candidate in the first place. Sometimes you just risk it, but the sooner you understand that it isn't working the better.