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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’

#291

Post by dzhiurgis »

treis wrote: post #144
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…

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'm really curious why employers care at all about your past employment. To me it always seem just a an advertisement if that.

How I and my colleagues got hired and makes 100% sense to me:

1. Skim their github

2. Ask questions about their stuff on github or some past work they shared

3. Give them a realistic task and a week to solve and push to github. Evaluate it - very easy to gather the motivation and skill.

4. Evaluate performance for a month or two. If they say what they are it will appear immediately.

Of course some psychopathic companies want you to solve shit on the spot, which is kinda fine if it reflects actual work culture.

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

#292

Post by dragonwriter »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #291
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'm really curious why employers care at all about your past employment. To me it always seem just a an advertisement if that. How I and my colleagues got hired and makes 100% sense to me: 1. Skim their github 2. Ask questions about their stuff on github or some past work they shared 3. Give them a realistic task and a week to solve and push to github. Evaluate it - very easy to gather the motivation and skill. 4. Ev…

> I'm really why employers care at all about your past employment

Some of it is “can you perform”

Some of it is assessing how little they can get away with offering you, if they decide to hire.

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

#293

Post by FireBeyond »

hammock wrote: post #249
FireBeyond wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Or anybody. So any ex-employee could potentially fail a background check / employment verification check (as at least one person here has). Because Apple, previously happy to say "Yes, this person works here as a Senior Product Manager" now says "Eh, sure. They were associated with the company."

They're not obligated to, you're right. But it's not exactly endearing of a company that has any gratitude whatsoever to its employees. But then again, from a company that was more than happy to engage in multiple illegal acts to collude to avoid poaching, to collude to keep salaries artificially deflated, I'm not entirely surprised.

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

#294

Post by codehitchhiker »

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…

If you get your InVerify or Work Number report, and it does not say associate, you would be an anomaly. InVerify told me it's really obnoxious because they have to keep a special process in place for Apple employees to get their actual job titles. The problem, of course, is that The Work Number, does not do this, which is who Sterling is partnered with instead of InVerify.

HireRight will check InVerify AND The Work Number, and if you pull your reports from there (which I have), you can see that for yourself.

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

#295

Post by codehitchhiker »

trulyawful wrote: post #192
Retric wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I specifically mentioned the private sector twice. I go back and forth, and I only started off with government because it was contextual where I was replying. It has never happened to me in either context and I left Apple quite acrimoniously. Apple lying at all is bad. It doesn’t matter to who. It’s potential liability if a candidate gets wind of it, but if these folks are going after the NLRB to address the concern,…

I can assure you many lawyers have told me I do have a case.

I went to the NLRB because the law that was being violated was the NLRA, and I was filing charges on behalf of others, not just me.

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

#296

Post by ghaff »

genocidicbunny wrote: post #290
hammock wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you considering anecdata? The US's two largest employers (Walmart and Amazon) and Marriott use "associates." Target, Hilton, Qdoba and other companies use "team members." Starbucks uses "partners." Hyatt uses "colleagues." Cabela's uses "outfitters." Cringe for sure, but not using "employee" is more common than many think. I certainly understand that this context may be less familiar than the different use o…

Do these companies consistently use associates, or is there a division between say hourly and salary, or retail vs back-office employees? (I am specifically excluding things like directory and C-level positions because those tend to be much more specialized contracts.) For example, Trader Joe's has Crew Members for the average retail workers, and Mates/Captain for the manager level. Just the titles alone implied a hi…

I work for a moderately large software company. We absolutely refer to everyone as associates if we're referring to everyone who works for the company. (Naturally everyone has specific titles as well, which may not be what they refer to themselves on their business cards/at conferences/Linkedin/etc.)

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

#297

Post by codehitchhiker »

rmah wrote: post #270
codehitchhiker wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that it's not standard at all. Apple is the only company that reportedly does this. I have worked in a lot of jobs over my 21 years of working, and every single job has the correct title EXCEPT for Apple. InVerify AND The Work Number both said that Apple is the only company that does this. How would that be standard?

Then, IMO, all those other companies are the ones people should be complaining about, not Apple. No employer should share employment details beyond "he worked here" with third parties for any reason.

I'm complaining about Apple because they cost me more than $10,000 in wages by being the only ones who LIE.

Omission would be nice, especially across the board, but that's not what this is. They put me in a position where I had to prove I didn't lie.

If there's a law that employers cannot ask for your previous job title, that's great, but employers shouldn't be allowed to furnish fraudulent data either.

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

#298

Post by tester756 »

trenning wrote: post #20

Sounds like when you leave Apple you are free to give yourself a title promotion since they wipe all that info. I would also pass on any company that needs references to my job title because their dystopian background check through the infamous Equifax says I'm an associate, even with a software engineering background, haha that part was beyond silly.

How about being asked to screen shoot part of employee agreement

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

#299

Post by drewg123 »

rmah wrote: post #267
drewg123 wrote: post #68

Wow, I would hate this. When I left Google, I had just been promoted to L6 (staff) SWE, and I delayed my departure by 2 weeks in order for my promo to take effect. I did this primarily so that I could list the new level on my resume and have it seen as accurate in the future. And also so that if I decided to re-join Google, I'd come in as an L6.

Google will not confirm your title. They will only say you worked there.

There is an internal page called epitaphs which lists your title/level when you departed. So any current employee could check "for a friend". Or at least this was the case in 2015 when I left.

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

#300

Post by nwallin »

hammock wrote: post #56
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."

That is essentially what wiping title record with "associate" does. It's a generic term that is commonly synonymous with employee.

> It's a generic term that is commonly synonymous with employee.

It is not. It implies an entry level/unskilled/probationary position.

You would call a person who works tier 1 support an associate, or works the cash register in an Apple store, or a person whose job title reads "Software Engineer" and had been with the company for 2 months. You would not call a person whose job title reads "Software Engineer" and had been with the company for 18 months an associate.

If you've got a stack of applicants and one of them comes up with some bullshit like their previous employer claims their job title was Associate and they claim their actual job title was Software Engineer, that means I either have to do legwork to figure out what's actually happening, is this person lying about their experience etc, or just hire someone else. It's not a disqualifying characteristic, but if the resume says one thing and the background check says a different thing, that's a red flag. Sometimes the red flag is nothing, basically all of us have had a scumbag for an employer at various points in our careers, who's might to lie about us to future employers just because they're spiteful. But red flags have to be chased down and verified before you can hire someone with red flags on their resume.

Right now, in 2022, I would just hire them if they had a pulse, red flags or not. But when the next recession happens? And we've gone through three rounds of layoffs, and only now are positions opening up in onesies and twosies and there are 40 applicants? I'm just going to discard the 30 resumes with red flags. Among the 10 remaining resumes I'm gonna interview the 5 who went to the best schools and had the most experience.

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