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Every employee who leaves Apple becomes an ‘associate’

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Every employee who leaves Apple becomes an ‘associate’

#111

Post by browningstreet »

This fits cleanly into my recent hiring experiences. I can't remember a new employer ever contacting an old employer to verify employment. I've worked in SF for 20+ years now... and currently work for an SF based financial entity. They did a background check, as is normal in this industry, but that was it.

In fact, I've always been prepared to say "no" to contacting previous employers, as it's just annoying. And as someone who has hired hundreds of people, I've never been called to verify someone's previous employment.

It may happen out there, but from my own experience, it feels like an edge case.

Re: Every employee who leaves Apple becomes an ‘associate’

#113

Post by eloisant »

sly010 wrote: post #23
_fat_santa wrote: post #6

Wouldn't there be other ways for you to prove you were a "Level 4" or whatever at Apple and not an associate? An offer letter from Apple? Or just the totality of circumstances in general. If say you're interviewing for a "Sr Engineer" position, you're just not going to have an instance where the candidate shows experience and knowledge but doesn't get hired because some record from Lexis Nexis says that he was an "as…

You can try (especially if you know ahead of time) but background check is done by a third party. Recruiters and interviewers don't care until background check flags it. You can try to be upfront about it, but it just creates a weird situation and they will defer to the 3rd party background check anyway. Any evidence you may share with the background check company is not present on the final background report (since…

Yes, what I imagine would happen is that the background check company will contact you, you'll send them your last paycheck with your title on it and be done with it.

Re: Every employee who leaves Apple becomes an ‘associate’

#114

Post by bitwize »

HWR_14 wrote: post #91
wpietri wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. I have read a bunch of cult-escapee biographies, as the cult dynamic fascinated me. All of them had an extreme narcissist at the center. Somehow I had never connected that with the famous tech company with an extreme narcissist at the center. But you're right, that pattern of retaliation against people who dare to leave fits perfectly here.

I mean, I don't feel like Tim Cook is an extreme narcissist cult leader, but I don't know enough about him. Of course, the fact that he hasn't mythologized himself as much as Steve Jobs did is a piece of evidence in favor of him not being a narcissist. If I had to choose a "tech company cult" it would be Tesla/SpaceX/Boring/whatever else Musk is running.

Tim Cook could just be the Miscavige to Jobs's Hubbard. The charismatic, narcissistic cult leader often has a bulldog of a right hand man who enforces order and compliance, keeping the cult together even after the leader is gone.

Re: Every employee who leaves Apple becomes an ‘associate’

#115

Post by sprayk »

rvba wrote: post #74
sprayk wrote: post #69

(Just to throat clear ahead of time... I obviously find what Apple is doing super shitty. I just want to find some reason besides "Apple bad" for why they would do this.) Could they be doing this title change, at least in theory, as an information security measure? Competitors and journalists could potentially corroborate (or have an easier time corroborating) leaks if they can verify that a former employee is the po…

They dont want others to pouch their employees - so they screw those who leave by deleting their title?

less about screwing the competition, more about hindering their ability to learn about development through trawling resumes. The more I try and describe it, the weaker it sounds in my head, but the idea is you could get some info on what Apple is doing by looking at resumes referencing Apple, then corroborate what you saw by checking former position with those firms.

Re: Every employee who leaves Apple becomes an ‘associate’

#116

Post by tablespoon »

torstenvl wrote: post #62
tablespoon wrote: post #3

> Apple offers a phone number employers can call to verify titles of former Apple employees. A voice recording on that line directs callers to the web site for InVerify, an employment verification service provider owned by credit agency Equifax. When The Washington Post called InVerify’s customer support number, a customer service representative said Apple is the only company he knew of that changes job titles of emp…

> This is a huge dick move by Apple. Ehh, I think this is a Chesteranlon's Razorfence situation. Never attribute to malice something for which you do not yet understand the purpose. HR world generally is afraid to denigrate former employees for liability reasons, and many corporate HR departments have a policy of confirming only whether an employee worked for the company, and nothing else. Choosing a vague term like…

> Ehh, I think this is a Chesteranlon's Razorfence situation. Never attribute to malice something for which you do not yet understand the purpose.

Do you mean "Chesterton's Fence"? I get no hits for "Chesteranlon's Razorfence" or "Chesterton's Razorfence."

That is a pretty remarkable corruption of the term, though. Or are you trying to coin a term?

> HR world generally is afraid to denigrate former employees for liability reasons, and many corporate HR departments have a policy of confirming only whether an employee worked for the company, and nothing else.

> Choosing a vague term like "associate" (which simply means "employee," as compared to "partner" or some other term that suggests an ownership stake) aligns with that reasoning decently well.

Except that's not what "associate" does -- it's a job-title term associated with low rank. It would have been far more obvious to use "employee" if they wanted a vague term that simply meant employee or something like "title not provided" if they wanted to make it clear what they were doing.

It also sounds like they do load the correct title to this database while the employee is still employed at Apple (otherwise, what would they change when they leave), so it doesn't seem like they're mainly concerned about "confirming only whether an employee worked for the company." If they were, why not just give everyone a generic title in the DB from the start?

Re: Every employee who leaves Apple becomes an ‘associate’

#117

Post by tomcam »

exhilaration wrote: post #103
kuroguro wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think about it the other way - you could have been a janitor for Apple and your new employers would be none the wiser.

There's no way the janitors are Apple employees. Standard procedure at big companies is to hire contractors for janitorial and food services.

Maybe the parent poster was exaggerating a teeny bit for your viewing pleasure

Re: Every employee who leaves Apple becomes an ‘associate’

#118

Post by FireBeyond »

sly010 wrote: post #23
_fat_santa wrote: post #6

Wouldn't there be other ways for you to prove you were a "Level 4" or whatever at Apple and not an associate? An offer letter from Apple? Or just the totality of circumstances in general. If say you're interviewing for a "Sr Engineer" position, you're just not going to have an instance where the candidate shows experience and knowledge but doesn't get hired because some record from Lexis Nexis says that he was an "as…

You can try (especially if you know ahead of time) but background check is done by a third party. Recruiters and interviewers don't care until background check flags it. You can try to be upfront about it, but it just creates a weird situation and they will defer to the 3rd party background check anyway. Any evidence you may share with the background check company is not present on the final background report (since…

I had a background check at an employer, not for a sensitive position, who, when unable to verify employment, found my Facebook and reached out to someone on there (who happened to be my partner) to see if they would "confirm" what they knew to be my job.

That was after their initial email to me:

"Hi, we're about to start your background check. Just want to confirm that this is the correct email address for you?

Are these also the correct details for you? [And proceeded to list Full SSN, address, DOB]."

Like, I'm really rather glad that this actual _was_ the correct email address. But in any case I was furious. On both counts.

In credit to my employer, once I reviewed these two things with them, they fired the background check company.

Re: Every employee who leaves Apple becomes an ‘associate’

#119

Post by dev_tty01 »

ant6n wrote: post #84
adrusi wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it doesn't. It clearly could mean that, but it literally just means the person has associated with the company. I don't know why they'd use language that could create that confusion, but it's not straightforward dishonesty.

It could mean that, but not clearly, and it really doesn't mean that.

Setting aside whether it is a good practice or not, if all of these agencies know that Apple does this, then it becomes a de facto meangingless term.

If this has been an ongoing practice for a while and an agency is not aware of it, then it is a bad agency to work with.

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