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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’

#181

Post by bradly »

rowanajmarshall wrote: post #88
bradly wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked at Apple and I’m okay they do this. My role is my information to share. I don’t need that sitting in some database in perpetuity.

But if someone wants to verify your role (which sounds reasonable), contacts Apple and they say you were an associate while you said you were a senior, that's gonna cause problems. And apparently is.

Why do they need to verify my role? The new company interviewed me and can decide if I qualified for the job and if they want to pay me what I am asking. Most likely the new company is simply trying to pay me as little as possible.

> you were a senior

Also, there isn't senior at Apple and their roles are not a public API. They can change. If Apple says my role was "level 5" what does that mean to the new company?

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

#182

Post by lsaferite »

snowwrestler wrote: post #140
furyg3 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why would I tell them what my previous salary was though? I'll tell them what I want to make. If that's not enough then I guess we weren't a good fit. When I interview people, previous salary has _never_ been a question.

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

#183

Post by SilasX »

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…

I have to disagree. If they don't want to give titles, they should ... not give titles. That is, give no information for that field/query. If the system requires it, do something like "n/a".

When you state "employee title: Associate", you are conveying[1] that the title "Associate" Is A Thing at Apple, and the former employee had that title. And if (as is the case here) it is the most unadorned title anyone can have at Apple, then their title was the most unadorned one. If that's not actually the case, that does seem like "lying about their level".

So I'd say there's a big difference between not answering about title, vs making something up and affirming the made-up thing was had.

[1] to any reasonable person until you explicitly clarify otherwise

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

#184

Post by rdtsc »

Am I the only one surprised these sharing databases even exist?

What if Apple went the other way, and artificially inflated the level? Every engineer is "Senior engineer level XIV". Or, they could be evil and tie the level entered to the conditions of leave. If you sign a bunch of non-competes and non-disclosures etc, you get marked 2 levels up in this db.

One of my employers used to let us pick our own titles. We couldn't say "CEO", of course, but if you'd like to be "Super staff engineer IV" or "Solutions Architect III" you could. They didn't care as long as you helped out and did a good job.

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

#185

Post by pempem »

paisawalla wrote: post #153
smrz wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"

> I cannot wait to check back in with you when you're trying to get a new job and negotiating salary. Hi, checking in. Your current/previous salary is no business of your future employer. You don't have to share it, and it shouldn't form the basis of your future salary. If this seems alien, or improbable to you, people can and do learn how to tactfully steer conversations away from disadvantageous topics.

People do manage to do so. In fact I work with folks to help them find the right words for this situation and others.

Still a trend I'm seeing is occurring in negotiation. Specifically "do you have a counter you want us to match? prove it with an offer letter"

orthogonal but still related.

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

#186

Post by bradly »

ensignavenger wrote: post #97
bradly wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked at Apple and I’m okay they do this. My role is my information to share. I don’t need that sitting in some database in perpetuity.

I can understand that- its odd that they offer the phone number but don't provide accurate information on it, though. Why offer the hotline at all?

For legal reasons many companies will only say if someone worked there or not. Giving any more specific feedback is not something that is done at the companies I've worked at.

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

#187

Post by ghaff »

FireBeyond wrote: post #107
hammock wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Apple does not have to share their database with these third party companies, but not only do they choose to do so they also make sure the information is wrong. Apple is, essentially, being unethical on two levels By giving out wrong personal information, the argument could be made that they are protecting privacy. I do not believe saying "associate" is wrong, though. It's a term that is commonly used by HR to refer…

> "Employee" is a term fraught with legal and other liability in it's use (think Uber drivers - are they employees or contractors?). HR departments will refer to everybody as “associates” to mitigate risk. If Apple wanted to confirm employment, but not divulge titles, they could say associate. But yet if you call these services while the person is still employed, they absolutely will divulge titles. There's no risk m…

>But yet if you call these services while the person is still employed, they absolutely will divulge titles.

Is that actually the case?

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

#188

Post by vsskanth »

BrandoElFollito wrote: post #164
vsskanth wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no law in the US unfortunately so there's no obligation on the employer to provide this information either. There is something called "The Work Number" that certain employers subscribe to for employer verification, but that is not accepted by USCIS.

In that case can't you prove this via your pay slips? Or your tax filings?

I've seen some people use a combination of payslips and offer letters as evidence to submit to USCIS but its rolling the dice, since it really depends on the immigration officer looking at your file. Some are OK, some aren't.

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

#189

Post by Retric »

trulyawful wrote: post #178
treis wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Future employers will ask your level and if Apple tells them something different they're going to think you're lying. I can see it being problematic when applying to Government or enterprise roles. They will do their due diligence and might rescind an offer if they find a discrepancy.

I’ve been investigated by federal and state governments nine times (welcome to contracting) since leaving Apple, up to and including a full SSBI, and have never heard a word about a discrepancy. Ever. Public sector, private sector, HireRight, nobody has ever flagged it, and I know what that looks like because others have been. HireRight in particular is sensitive to job level or title differences in what you report a…

Apple lying to the federal or state government etc doing background checks is quite different than sharing incorrect information to private systems.
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