> The better job candidate finds a way to get to the interview on time - regardless of unexpected difficulties.
I know someone who was late to an interview because a terrorist attack led to a city-wide transit shutdown. They could have made it, but they would have had to leave ~24 hours early based on zero information. Is it really useful to equate that with someone who was late because they forgot to get gas the day before?
More broadly, this entire list comes down to throwing out useful data and calling it a better prediction. The entire concept of a "good excuse" is to recognize "wow, that's way outside normal parameters, not planning for that is reasonable". I agree that people often appeal to flukes and bad luck when it's unreasonable, but this list just reinforces the face that chance really is a part of life.
"I know someone who was late to an interview because a terrorist attack led to a city-wide transit shutdown."
On the one hand, I must object to the obvious reductio ad absurdum. Even I would be interested in, and sympathetic to, that narrative.
On the other hand, imagine the information contained in the event of the prospective employee that actually made it into the interview that day. There's a lot of information there that should not be ignored.
I know someone who was late to an interview because a terrorist attack led to a city-wide transit shutdown. They could have made it, but they would have had to leave ~24 hours early based on zero information. Is it really useful to equate that with someone who was late because they forgot to get gas the day before?
More broadly, this entire list comes down to throwing out useful data and calling it a better prediction. The entire concept of a "good excuse" is to recognize "wow, that's way outside normal parameters, not planning for that is reasonable". I agree that people often appeal to flukes and bad luck when it's unreasonable, but this list just reinforces the face that chance really is a part of life.