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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?

#71

Post by wreath »

isoprophlex wrote: post #35
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 rew…

How do I justify my career advancement as a non-privileged (according to woke standards) person w/o luck and the effort I put it to capitalize on that luck?

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

#73

Post by chongli »

isoprophlex wrote: post #35
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 rew…

That’s only if you see positions in society as rewards. Then it’s easy to get upset about wealthy and privileged people lining their pockets and filling their board seats with friends and family.

If, on the other hand, you see positions as responsibilities then it’s much more straightforward to evaluate a meritocracy. On the one hand, we could be outraged that the king put his favourite nephew in charge of the army. On the other hand, we ask: is the nephew actually a capable commander? During peace time we can quibble over wealth and privilege but during a war I want the best commander to lead and protect us.

This characterization naturally extends to plenty of less urgent, but no less important positions. Do you care about how wealthy and privileged your heart surgeon is? Or only how skilled they are?

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

#74

Post by nathanaldensr »

WithinReason wrote: post #16
awakeasleep wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I wonder if we're headed to a point where this kind of self-selection basically creates companies consisting of either people who are all about DEI, or people who only care about skills/qualification, then the market will decide which one is the winning strategy.

Or corrupted governments will decide. Is there a difference nowadays?

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

#75

Post by anon7725 »

danaris wrote: post #47
tomp wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People forget that (1) women are not a minority, and (2) that tech is one of the kost diverse industries (full of Asians, Indians, immigrants, …)

That's why I prefer the term "marginalized groups".

That’s why I prefer the term “moving the goalposts”

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

#76

Post by nathanaldensr »

samatman wrote: post #43
totalZero wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point was that diversity is often lacking in situations with bad people, because those bad people behave in ways that undermine heterogeneity...especially by mistreating the people who are different. Since racial heterogeneity is a more easily observable situation than, say, diversity of opinion, it's a healthy sign of a tolerant culture. That doesn't mean that a workplace lacking racial heterogeneity is…

> diversity is often lacking in situations with bad people Do you mean, like, ethnic crime gangs? Those come in white flavors too. You, and GP, are just making stuff up that confirms your prejudices. You have no evidence of what you're saying whatsoever! All you're doing is stringing sentences together. What if I find one team of ten whites who are great to work with (say you're, I dunno Tongan?) and a team with ever…

I completely agree with you. Where is the proof?

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

#77

Post by remram »

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.

If you're already interviewing, they are unlikely to restart the whole process based on that question, they will answer it and keep going.

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

#78

Post by bequanna »

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.

Maybe you didn’t intend it this way, but your statement is pretty much the default liberal argument of the past several years: “everyone who does or says something I don’t like is racist.”

As a result, calling someone “racist” has pretty much lost all meaning.

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

#79

Post by chris_st »

I interviewed with a company once who taught me to give the people interviewing you as much rope as possible, by which I mean ask them to tell you about the company, and then ask them to expand on what they said, and then ask them to expand again.

Two managers interviewed me first, proudly boasting that they don't do "Clone and Own" development. Wha...? Turns out they had one code-base, and everyone had to develop from that. Okay, fine, but... integration? "OH YEAH, that's another great thing!" I was told. "Just a few times a year, we have to make everything work together, so we go 24/7 to integrate it all, and IT'S GREAT, the upper management is there too on the weekends, and buys us pizza!". Okay, wow...

Then I talked to an engineer, and I asked them how often this "24/7" thing happened. They looked haggard and said, "it's going on all the time...".

I did tell the next manager/group-leader type about test-first development, and he seemed mildly interested.

Oddly enough, I didn't pursue the job opportunity there.

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

#80

Post by brigandish »

That was like reading a religious text or self help book - some helpful information and the odd insight scattered among a much more plentiful, hugely moralising nonsense.

There were many clues but this one stuck out for me:

> under-represented minorities (URM)

URM wasn't used anywhere else in the document which means it was a little teaching moment from the righteous to us poor yokels that conveniently also signaled their position amongst the righteous.

wtf indeed.

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