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Every employee who leaves Apple becomes an ‘associate’

washingtonpost.com

241–250 of 337 posts

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

#242
post #18

I think it's really important to note that 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. They're selling or sharing employee information, and they're purposefully making it so that information is wrong. I want to stress this- I ask during the intervie…

It's a really good point about Apple willfully using an Experian service as part of this strategy. As to defamation, I don't think that's clear. Apple is intentionally using the term to be as legally vague as possible about how it externally reports its past connection to its ex-payees. This is mostly liability management, essentially saying less that can't be called false, instead of the defamatory tactic of saying…

While I agree it’s probably not defamation and is just meant to say as little as possible, there’s no way this would be the end all in court - apple surely keeps the original records internally so a court case could easily find your original title.

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

#243
post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Starbuck refers to their employees as partners in addition to an actual title. (I worked for HEB in high school, which did the same thing.) If they genuinely had no titles for anyone beyond partner, then yes, that would be fine. Apple doesn't work like that.

Starbucks has internal titles as well!

Thus supporting my point, as I said.

Edit: I'm "posting too fast", and this seems like a trivial point, so, in advance of being able to make a new comment:

The relevant "point" here is not about what is or isn't SOP at any company, which I was never disputing.

I was making a point about how they should convey employee status and whether Apple(etc)'s practice counts as "lying about your level".

To summarize:

1) It's fine to have a policy of "never disclosing employee titles".

2) If you go that route, then you should simply not comment when asked about an employee title, and give "n/a" for a field requesting it.

3) Saying, "Employee title: Associate" is not doing that, because it's falsely asserting their holding of a title -- and that title's (false) reality -- that they do not hold.

If you don't dispute any of that, great! If you do, I'd love to hear that commentary, on which it would be orthogonal to bring up what is or isn't SOP at any company.

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

#244
Is it possible Cher's offer was rescinded once the employer googled her and discovered that hiring her would be a potential nightmare? I was in a Slack room she was in during an all-hands meeting and I remember that it wasn't my favorite interaction to watch. Can't really say more about it, but if I were a hiring manager, even if my company did everything perfectly -- I'd worry about hiring an employee that is prone to very publicly airing real or imagined dirty laundry with the media and/or being aggressively activist among other employees. Really wouldn't want the drama.

Claiming an offer was rescinded because of a job title mismatch -- I've never heard of that. It's very likely the employer did some research while waiting for the reference check to come back. Being able to conclusively say why the employer rescinded the offer is just speculation.

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

#245

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 don’t know about Apple but at the other FAANGs level is a made up thing that sorta correlates to comp and experience. You can have inexperienced people at a principal or staff level and highly experienced people at a lower level. Depending on your region someone in NYC at a lower level might be bringing more comp than someone in a rural area at a higher level. It all comes down to what you can negotiate, what role you’re applying to, and how experienced the interviewer(s) think you are.

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

#246
post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Starbucks has internal titles as well!

Thus supporting my point, as I said. Edit: I'm "posting too fast", and this seems like a trivial point, so, in advance of being able to make a new comment: The relevant "point" here is not about what is or isn't SOP at any company, which I was never disputing. I was making a point about how they should convey employee status and whether Apple(etc)'s practice counts as "lying about your level". To summarize: 1) It's f…

It doesn't support your point. It supports the original commenter's, who points out that not confirming internal titles is SOP at a bunch of companies.

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

#247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sounds like something out of the CIA

Almost. In my experience those periods of employment are just blank.

Way back when but assume this is still the case, there were positions in the CIA (in DC, i.e. not agents) where you officially worked for someone like the Navy and weren't supposed to tell people you worked for the CIA. I was offered such a position but didn't take it.

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

#249
post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The company involved stated that if the person was currently employed, they would give the job title (and that while their service would report 'Associate' post employment, if someone cared enough to clarify, they would be able to call them, give identifying information, and they would be able to get job titles from historic data).

So this isn't a case of Apple fucking past employees over. It's just a case of them not wanting to give the titles to Experian. What a lot of hullabaloo over nothing.

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

#250

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…

> 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? Having gone through this with several employers, the largest company doing this verification is HireRight. HireRight is BEYOND incompetent at every single level. They refuse documentation such as offer letters on company letterhead to prove a title. The only documentation they ac…

I checked my data on The Work Number [1], and see that my prior employer shared details on pay, overtime and even Bonuses received!

It seem my prior employers were providing information down to gross and net pay PER pay cycle, with details about my medical, dental and vision insurance coverage [!!]

This is from Equifax, the company that got hacked and lost PII, and they are getting extremely detailed information!

[1] https://employees.theworknumber.com/

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