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

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

#101

Post by maerF0x0 »

aperson_hello wrote: post #61
isoprophlex wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yep - luck matters way more than effort. Effort is the catalyst, luck gets you there. Which gets to an interesting point: If an organization values the effort you put into failure, it's a company you very much want to work for!

I tend to think of luck like a multiplier.

Luck is a random # between -1 and 10 .

Reward = Effort * Luck . YMMV

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

#102

Post by late2part »

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…

Whoah there tiger.

I'm a white cisgendered able-bodied conservative male and I think you're probably an unhappy person..

You are likely sexist with prejudice about normative gender roles.

Would you call a man doing the same thing a 'strong man?' Or are you referring to the southpark version of strong woman?

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

#103

Post by wobbleblob »

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.

Why? I bring that up in every job interview. None of them have ever found it objectionable. In my experience, except for some startups, it's something every company in tech is at least thinking about.

As an industry we are wasting so much potential. How many great candidates end up not interviewing with you when they see your entire tech staff consists of white and asian men aged 25-35?

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

#104

Post by wreath »

Juliate wrote: post #66
wreath wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - Women, queer people, and minorities should be hired, treated, and paid the same as straight cis white men No they should not. They should be paid similar to someone with similar work experience, skills, potential and likability. It has nothing to do with someone's skin color or sexual orientation.

Your statement does not contradict parent.

You misunderstood one of the two statements.

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

#105

Post by 65 »

It's interesting to me how trendy "diversity" is these days, and it's always in the context of race.

It's interesting how we don't ever think of diversity in terms of class, wealth, disability, etc. An Ivy League educated black person and an Ivy League educated white person are far more similar than a poor white person and a rich white person.

And yet, it seems as though we don't really care about hiring people from poorer backgrounds, maybe without college degrees, etc.

Besides, complaining about diversity in a place where there's just demographically not going to be that many minorities is a bit unnecessary. If your company is based in Duluth, Minnesota, which is 90% white, campaigning for a racially diverse company just seems kind of futile.

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

#106

Post by totalZero »

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…

Huh? I'm not stating any personal opinions about race in the workplace here, and I don't appreciate you casting me as having done so. I was saying that you seem to have misinterpreted other guy's post as a false contrapositive.

Note the "I think the point was," and also the "If I'm interpreting GP properly."

Let me make it clearer for you:

"If the canary is alive, there's oxygen."

That was the GP argument. It's not the same logical proposition as,

"If there's no canary, there's no oxygen."

Please drop the flagrant language. You're way off base.

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

#107

Post by WithinReason »

gray_-_wolf wrote: post #49
WithinReason wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The DEI people seem to me like they have a tendency to try to enforce their view via legislation. So I'm skeptical about the "market will decide" part.

Maybe in the US, but then in comes down to competition with China

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

#108

Post by Juliate »

wreath wrote: post #104
Juliate wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your statement does not contradict parent.

You misunderstood one of the two statements.

Or, you don’t understand from your perspective how the two are not contradictory.

Unless, there’s something unexpressed in either of those.

For instance, a more or less official/understood work policy not being effectively equal regarding skills, in hiring, because of (un)acknowledged bias. Or, an understated motive to do more than only fair hiring or affirmative action to counter a acknowledged bias in hiring.

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

#109

Post by nunez »

gorgoiler wrote: post #31

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 (…

I don’t know about that.

I had an interview very early in my career with a financial services company that lasted two days. I spoke with 12 (!!!) people. All of them asked me the same questions, and very few of the interviews were technical in nature.

What I learned from doing that is that they need a LOT of people to do anything, i.e., everything gets done slowly there.

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

#110

Post by tonyedgecombe »

tomp wrote: post #45
isoprophlex wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Meritocracy is an ideal that is almost by definition unachievable. Like freedom, equality, etc. It’s a very worthy ideal.

Did you know the term was coined in a satirical book about a dystopian society.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_the_Meritocracy

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