Ask HN: When did corporate America become so flaky? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: When did corporate America become so flaky?

#11

Post by watwut » Thu, Aug 11, 2022, 5:43 PM UTC

giantg2 wrote: post #3

I have noticed that communication has gone substantially downhill since the pandemic. Even communicating with people like some doctors, paralegals, and nurses has been tough. There's some incorrect information in my kid's medical file. It's basically impossible to get it corrected. The courts will also take the word of some nurse who entered the note over the parent. Why? Simply because they're a nurse. Yet they're s…

> The narrative is out there that people don't want to work, etc

Employment is pretty high, that is all there is to people don't want to work. A lot of them have job options, so they are not desperate.

Re: Ask HN: When did corporate America become so flaky?

#12

Post by goosedragons » Thu, Aug 11, 2022, 5:45 PM UTC

slt2021 wrote: post #8

People dont have time to respond to each and every applicant, given that there are 100s of them for each job. And teams have multiple job opening. Also they have current job responsibilities/deliverables which are of higher priority. Basically you can only expect good communication if you are top tier candidate for a critical job function, and company really really needs you. If job is not business critical - it will…

What frustrates me is many many companies will force you to rehash your resume into individual fields so they can search it up in some database better but they can't have the courtesy to have a "reject" button somewhere in whatever client they are using that tosses out a template email. It's ridiculous. Loads of effort to make their life easier, zero concern for the people applying.

Re: Ask HN: When did corporate America become so flaky?

#13

Post by dirtybird04 » Thu, Aug 11, 2022, 5:47 PM UTC

I recently read there that someone waited 9 months to go through Google's hiring process. That's a LOOOONG time to be waiting around for one job offer, it's ridiculous!

Tech hiring in America has been broken for about a decade now. Shitty leetcode style coding questions, unprepared interviewers, lack of any decency or communication etiquette, merry-go-rounds of design interview, it's really insane when you think about it. But everyone puts up with it because there's so much money involved. And that money is not going away anytime soon, and unfortunately, neither are these practices.

Re: Ask HN: When did corporate America become so flaky?

#14

Post by happymellon » Thu, Aug 11, 2022, 5:52 PM UTC

chitowneats wrote: post #7

badpun wrote: post #2

> How does your company handle communication etiquette? There's no etiquette in hiring today. Anything goes is the current de facto standard, and anything above it is extending courtesy to the candidate.

I'm inclined to agree. How long do you feel this has been the case?

Longer than COVID.

Before COVID I had a couple of applications with some large consulting corps. One is still open, like the status of the job position implies that they might still reach out however unlikely it is at this point.

Another closed the position, then emailed me telling me that HR had closed the position because of funding, they hadn't hired but they had just opened up an identical role with the same team and would like me to apply for it.

Any they wonder why people don't care about the companies that hire them. They dick us about to see how much we will put up with.

Re: Ask HN: When did corporate America become so flaky?

#15

Post by 5350-uiop-1130 » Thu, Aug 11, 2022, 5:55 PM UTC

I remember only 12 or so years ago, there wasn't really such a thing as a hiring manager, or recruiter.

Now there seems to be several layers of gatekeeping, an industry built up around hiring, with it a stream of "shit" jobs like "talent managers" and so this kind of shitty bureaucracy you described.

Re: Ask HN: When did corporate America become so flaky?

#16

Post by giantg2 » Thu, Aug 11, 2022, 5:55 PM UTC

wswope wrote: post #10

giantg2 wrote: post #3

I have noticed that communication has gone substantially downhill since the pandemic. Even communicating with people like some doctors, paralegals, and nurses has been tough. There's some incorrect information in my kid's medical file. It's basically impossible to get it corrected. The courts will also take the word of some nurse who entered the note over the parent. Why? Simply because they're a nurse. Yet they're s…

> There's some incorrect information in my kid's medical file. It's basically impossible to get it corrected. Not the case, chief - that's covered by HIPAA. If you submit a formal correction request, they're obligated to respond or land in very hot water with HHS. If they disagree with your correction request, you have the right to get a statement of disagreement added to your records. https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-i…

I believe that only applies to the general record, not the notes which are generally not included with the patient-available record, right?

Re: Ask HN: When did corporate America become so flaky?

#17

Post by mrguyorama » Thu, Aug 11, 2022, 5:59 PM UTC

It saves them like 3 cents worth of effort and they'll never hurt for applicants, and if they do they'll just go on empathetic news networks and bitch to boomers about how "nobody wants to work anymore"

Employees have no power in the relationship, so there's no reason not to treat them as expendable trash

Re: Ask HN: When did corporate America become so flaky?

#18

Post by grldd » Thu, Aug 11, 2022, 6:04 PM UTC

chitowneats wrote: post #7

badpun wrote: post #2

> How does your company handle communication etiquette? There's no etiquette in hiring today. Anything goes is the current de facto standard, and anything above it is extending courtesy to the candidate.

I'm inclined to agree. How long do you feel this has been the case?

It changed around 2015-2016.

Re: Ask HN: When did corporate America become so flaky?

#19

Post by wbsss4412 » Thu, Aug 11, 2022, 6:16 PM UTC

I’m not sure when, but as someone who is in their early 30s, what you’ve described is all I’ve ever experienced.

It seems that it likely started to change post 2008 due to the persistently high unemployment and the shift to online applications leading to much larger volumes of applicants for every open position. Now, despite the much tighter labor market, a generation hr employees have entrenched that same culture and people seem confused as to why it’s so “difficult” to hire.

Re: Ask HN: When did corporate America become so flaky?

#20

Post by humanistbot » Thu, Aug 11, 2022, 6:41 PM UTC

> more often than not I would need to write follow-up emails after an email communication would go unresponded to for over a week

I know this is a "kids these days" anecdote, but I'm seeing a big generational gap in this kind of activity. I was in a frustrating conversation with an undergrad intern who hadn't responded to an e-mail. I was trying to make it a learning experience: at least in this workplace, if I send an e-mail with a question or task, I expect a reply in a reasonable time. He said that I should have sent him a reminder or ping, in a tone implying that it wasn't really his fault. I said that if you have trouble remembering to do your job, that is your problem and something you need to work on.

He did not respond well to that.