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How can you tell if the company youre interviewing with is rotten on the inside?

charity.wtf

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Re: How can you tell if the company youre interviewing with is rotten on the inside?

#31

Post by gorgoiler »

I am currently in my perfect job (scaleup, market leading tech product with two big moats, about to close series B.)

I know this lot are keepers because, this time around, I had the chance to come onsite (!) for the final round of negotiation and I got to meet two VPs, the chief architect, the managers of three other teams adjacent to the ones I was joining, another candidate (different role :), my upcoming manager (who had interviewed me, but this was much less formal) the lead partner engineer and the CTO.

Some of these were formal meetings but a lot of them were ad hoc 5 minute 1:1s I had while being shown around the building, being introduced to people. Everyone was open to talking about the company and I went armed with a laundry list of questions about the product to drive the conversations, mostly just letting them talk about engineering stuff.

This was all in addition to a phone screen with the longest serving engineer (an initial “sell” really, more than a screen) two rounds of interviews (pre- and post- take home test) where I also met two other managers and a future team mate. In total that’s something like a dozen meaningful interactions with employees from all parts of the tech org.

My top tips: make a point of finding out the roles of everyone you meet and insist your final on-site be scheduled around lunchtime with a tour of the office included.

The meta point being you can make the highest signal decision only once you’ve met as many potential colleagues as possible. It’s the people that make up a company culture.

Re: How can you tell if the company youre interviewing with is rotten on the inside?

#32

Post by bigbillheck »

peakaboo wrote: post #26
bawolff wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience it can be a bit of a canary. People who are assholes tend to be extra-assholey to out-groups (which often is minorities). If members of minority groups don't want to work somewhere it usually means that the people who work there are assholes.

I know this is the classic thinking about these things. But working in a company where they keep bringing in new employees that are rude (the "strong woman" template), it has given me something to think about. It's just not a given that reducing out-groups makes a company culture better. It can make it worse to include those groups sometimes. It's just hard to know before. But it's morally right to not exclude people…

> keep bringing in new employees that are rude (the "strong woman" template),

I've been working professionally for decades and I don't think I've seen this 'template' at all.

And to be honest I'm wondering if this is a case of the 'same behavior is perceived as ruder in women than in men' effect.

Re: How can you tell if the company youre interviewing with is rotten on the inside?

#33

Post by WJW »

rgoulter wrote: post #22
awakeasleep wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a shibboleth virtue signal. Neither side takes it at face value

Many may be cynical.. but, say, Chloe Valdary's Theory of Enchantment looks wonderful. https://theoryofenchantment.com/ At least, I found its principles striking: 1. Treat people like human beings, not political abstractions. 2. Criticize to uplift and empower, never to tear down or destroy. 3. Root everything you do in love and compassion.

It does look wonderful, but I wonder how it holds up in big organisations where your counterpart does not in fact have your best interest in mind. This can happen because either they're guarding their little fiefdom and/or because they are competing for limited promotion spots. I've seen many a team go under because some of their people behaved basically according to the Theory of Enchantment principles, and were manipulated into doing all the work by a few people spending all their time on taking the credit.

Re: How can you tell if the company youre interviewing with is rotten on the inside?

#34

Post by samatman »

bawolff wrote: post #21
peakaboo wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Diversity has nothing to do with company culture being good or bad in most cases. Example: Let's say the company has 100 employees and 90 of them are white and 10 of them are black. As a white engineer, it won't help you if they invite more black people to work there. It's much harder to know if 90% of them are assholes and diversity will never help with that.

In my experience it can be a bit of a canary. People who are assholes tend to be extra-assholey to out-groups (which often is minorities). If members of minority groups don't want to work somewhere it usually means that the people who work there are assholes.

You haven't had enough jobs to make a statement like that, no one has.

Your effortless translation of "90% white" to "assholes" is a bit of a tell. For instance, you're white, and used to thinking this kind of trashing a group of people is ok because of your socially dominant position. Because these whites resemble you physically right? But of course you mean the bad whites; you're one of the good whites!

It isn't ok, and let me remind you, you have no basis whatsoever to believe that teams which are 90% white are made up of assholes. It's something you made up and it's racially obnoxious behavior which you should stop immediately.

Re: How can you tell if the company youre interviewing with is rotten on the inside?

#35

Post by isoprophlex »

ospzfmbbzr wrote: post #23

If you get any sniff of non-meritocracy - run!

Meritocracy is a lie, a device to help rationalize the advancement of in-groups over other less privileged groups.

An analogy: as a parent you should probably not reward purely on naked results; you should stimulate and reward effort instead. The first option just reinforces existing traits; the second empowers actual self-improvement.

Not saying this is always easy or clear-cut. I understand the wish for getting rewarded for actual merit instead of politics, but meritocratic company or government policy is too short sighted and eventually harmful.

Maybe I'm a cynic but I believe the first order approach to "best performers win" is flawed, a cognitive error: The just-world fallacy is the cognitive bias that assumes that "people get what they deserve" – that actions will have morally fair and fitting consequences for the actor. [wikipedia]

Re: How can you tell if the company youre interviewing with is rotten on the inside?

#36

Post by throwmeaway666 »

DonHopkins wrote: post #10
loudtieblahblah wrote: post #5

Quoted post unavailable.

What exactly do you mean by "pronouns person"? Do you enjoy misgendering people on purpose? Because that's one way the company interviewing you can tell that you're rotten on the inside. https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Popehat%27s%... Popehat's Law of Goats He who fucks goats, either as part of a performance or to troll those he deems has overly delicate sensibilities is simply, a goatfucker. He claim…

>He claimed he was just pretending to be racist to trigger the social justice warriors, but even if he is telling the truth, Popehat's Law of Goats still applies.

OP was talking about "pronouns" people and you immediately assumed he was racist.

We might want to be more careful when using labels unless we want those labels to lose their meaning.

Re: How can you tell if the company youre interviewing with is rotten on the inside?

#37

Post by MattPalmer1086 »

anticristi wrote: post #24
MattPalmer1086 wrote: post #2

My two favourite questions to ask at interview are: 1. Tell me about a time things didn't go to plan and what you did about it afterwards? 2. Do you enjoy working here? Of the two, the second one gives me the most useful signal. Every business has difficult times, so the first usually isn't too hard to answer, and they can gloss over stuff. The second one is more personal. Nobody can say no to that one. It's the way…

> Do you enjoy working here? I wouldn't ask non-factual questions. Of course the default answer is "yes". I wouldn't be able to answer such a question honestly in front of a stranger.

Well, I am looking for a bit more than just "yes". Some context has to be given.

In my last interview, there was a lovely, slightly panicked pause as the interviewers all looked at one another. Then the main interviewer said something like "Well, there are times it can be frustrating, it's not always a smooth ride. But I like the people I work with, the company is supportive and I get a kick out of it.".

I appreciated the honesty, and he seemed genuine. I took the job, and I can confirm everything he said was true :)

Re: How can you tell if the company youre interviewing with is rotten on the inside?

#38

Post by throwaway058527 »

bawolff wrote: post #3

> This is a GREAT one: “As a white man, I’d ask what they’ve done to find qualified women and minorities for the role I’m interviewing for.” I can't help but feel that asking questions during an interview that encourage the interviewer to hire someone who is not you, is a bad strategy for actually getting the job.

No post body was provided.

Re: How can you tell if the company youre interviewing with is rotten on the inside?

#39

Post by beebeepka »

grammarnazzzi wrote: post #19
Juliate wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting _the_ job, not necessarily. Getting a job in a decent and self-aware team, on the other hand, yes, that's a good strategy. The question is both a direct and an indirect one.

A decent and self-aware work team is one who treats each other as equals and respect and keeps their political beliefs outside the work environment. An iterviewee who brings race into the discussion clearly doesn't understand work/personal boundries and is going to be a liability.

That makes sense to me. Discussing non work related politics with coworkers seems like a bad idea. No idea why that was downvoted.

I had a weird interview last year. After about 30 minutes talk, the guy started shifting to politics and expressing his ideas about Europe, the UK, refugees, etc. I didn't want the job anyway so I told him that I don't agree with his (barely contained) right wing opinions. He immediately told me that things are not going to work, and I agreed.

Having early 20 somethings doing interviews alone is asking for trouble. Talking about politics during an interview strikes me as a recipe for disaster by creating a highly homogeneous environment. I like variety

Re: How can you tell if the company youre interviewing with is rotten on the inside?

#40

Post by Juliate »

grammarnazzzi wrote: post #19
Juliate wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting _the_ job, not necessarily. Getting a job in a decent and self-aware team, on the other hand, yes, that's a good strategy. The question is both a direct and an indirect one.

A decent and self-aware work team is one who treats each other as equals and respect and keeps their political beliefs outside the work environment. An iterviewee who brings race into the discussion clearly doesn't understand work/personal boundries and is going to be a liability.

1. Being self aware does not mean that you’re good but that you know where you can improve.

2. That’s precisely the (indirect) point. An interviewee that brings this question WANTS to be seen as a liability by a team/manager that understand the question as a “outside-of-work-boundaries-political-belief, and WANTS to understand how a diverse team articulates the answer.

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