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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’

#131

Post by snowwrestler »

josh2600 wrote: post #70
torstenvl wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Came here to say this. As far as I’m concerned this is a privacy protection. It’s trivial to verify someone’s position at Apple with a reference check.

Have you done this? Because the article says it is not trivial.

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

#132

Post by corry »

tinalumfoil wrote: post #96

If Apple considers level 1 and 5 to both be associates and doesn’t share more than that that’s… fine? WaPo says this can be a 6 figure difference in compensation but frankly why should a future employer get to know how much I make? Maybe I’m a level 3 but deserved to be a level 4. Maybe I’m a level 5 but actually a level 2 that’s just really good at office politics. If I want my employer to know what number Apple ass…

I can see a weird sort of logic to Apple. Why would they share their judgement about the level of an ex-employee with a potential rival company (rival in case of talent perhaps also product)? Let the employee say "I was Level 5 @ Apple" and have the hiring company verify that the person is at whatever level that implies. Why should Apple allow its rivals piggyback on its own levelling system?

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

#133

Post by theli0nheart »

smrz wrote: post #130
tinalumfoil wrote: post #96

If Apple considers level 1 and 5 to both be associates and doesn’t share more than that that’s… fine? WaPo says this can be a 6 figure difference in compensation but frankly why should a future employer get to know how much I make? Maybe I’m a level 3 but deserved to be a level 4. Maybe I’m a level 5 but actually a level 2 that’s just really good at office politics. If I want my employer to know what number Apple ass…

I cannot wait to check back in with you when you're trying to get a new job and negotiating salary. > If I want my employer to know what number Apple assigned me, I’ll tell them. Literally this article is about employers being like "hmm you told me this number but we don't believe you because Apple says its wrong"

> Literally this article is about employers being like "hmm you told me this number but we don't believe you because Apple says its wrong"

Might have been a problem in the past, but now you can point them to this article.

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

#134

Post by snowwrestler »

tptacek wrote: post #129
tedivm wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're really bending over backwards here to justify really bad behavior. Apple is actually bringing on liability by lying about what people's titles really were. They aren't saying "nothing", they're actually defaming their previous employees by lying about their level.

They're not "lying about their level". Contra the article, the term "associate" does not in fact mean "junior employee"; I can think of huge companies where everyone's formal title is "associate" regardless of seniority, in the same way that Bell Labs did MTS. Further, nobody is "bending over backwards" to defend anybody; they're writing their own take on what happened. You're asked by the guidelines to assume good f…

This would make sense if people’s titles were “associate” while employed at Apple, but they are not.

It’s the title change that seems weird and vindictive. It’s not like Apple has to report a title at all to external databases.

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

#135

Post by wpietri »

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.

Just to be clear, I'm speaking about Jobs who was by most accounts an abusive narcissist. Cook is currently CEO, sure, but Jobs is still a central character. As I'm sure you know, sometimes cults survive the death of their leaders.

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

#136

Post by qqii »

redler wrote: post #85
dsr_ wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they wanted to protect privacy, they would only have two responses: "We confirm that this person worked for Apple, ending on [date]. By policy, we don't discuss any further details." "We do not have records that this person worked for Apple."

Since it will be widely known among peer organizations that Apple has this policy, the presence or absence of the "Associate" title achieves this, in effect, does it not? I think it's unlikely someone seeking a 600K job will be mistaken for having been a retail employee.

I'd argue that false data doesn't achieve this, it just confuses everything. Using an analogy in programming terms, it would be like `job_title <- Maybe "NULL"` whereas they really ment `job_title <- Nothing`.

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

#137

Post by tptacek »

snowwrestler wrote: post #134
tptacek wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not "lying about their level". Contra the article, the term "associate" does not in fact mean "junior employee"; I can think of huge companies where everyone's formal title is "associate" regardless of seniority, in the same way that Bell Labs did MTS. Further, nobody is "bending over backwards" to defend anybody; they're writing their own take on what happened. You're asked by the guidelines to assume good f…

This would make sense if people’s titles were “associate” while employed at Apple, but they are not. It’s the title change that seems weird and vindictive. It’s not like Apple has to report a title at all to external databases.

It's a generic word that means "you worked here". Which is the point of the parent comment: it's a way of confirming that someone was an employee without revealing their title, a la Intel.

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

#138

Post by ryandrake »

Wow, I was about to post in support of this, but surprisingly this seems like a wildly unpopular opinion on HN! Honestly, I wish all companies did this. The less information out there in databases about me (or the more obfuscated), the better. People should not be able to just "request" personal information like this from some 3rd party data provider. It's none of a prospective employers' business what my full title was, what salary I made, what department I was in, or any of that.

I wish all companies just submitted "Previously worked here" as your title, for all former employees, which would nullify the privacy intrusiveness of this data.

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

#139

Post by 10000truths »

smrz wrote: post #130
tinalumfoil wrote: post #96

If Apple considers level 1 and 5 to both be associates and doesn’t share more than that that’s… fine? WaPo says this can be a 6 figure difference in compensation but frankly why should a future employer get to know how much I make? Maybe I’m a level 3 but deserved to be a level 4. Maybe I’m a level 5 but actually a level 2 that’s just really good at office politics. If I want my employer to know what number Apple ass…

I cannot wait to check back in with you when you're trying to get a new job and negotiating salary. > If I want my employer to know what number Apple assigned me, I’ll tell them. Literally this article is about employers being like "hmm you told me this number but we don't believe you because Apple says its wrong"

If your potential employer is fickle about such idiosyncrasies, then that's their shortcoming, not Apple's.

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

#140

Post by snowwrestler »

furyg3 wrote: post #9
dncornholio wrote: post #4

There's databases out there with everyone's career record where you have no control over but the employers do? I rest my case..

Wait, can a future employer request my past salary information from InVerify (or another service) without my approval or permission?

Yes, this is why one should not lie about one’s former salary. I have lost candidates over this; HR caught them in a lie and blocked them on integrity grounds.
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