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Databricks counts being laid off as “red flag”

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Re: Databricks counts being laid off as “red flag”

#141

Post by mcv »

olivermuty wrote: post #75
polynox wrote: post #69

What a disgusting but revealing story. By saying "being laid off is a red flag" they are loudly signaling that actually they have no way of measuring interview performance and are just trusting the former employer's judgement? So why even bother with the interview then? It would be like if someone is selling me their car and I run the car history report and see it was in a minor collision but was repaired. I look ove…

Not sure if this is the best analogy because if I had a choice of cars I would almost always pick the one that has not been in a collision :p

Maybe the car that has been in a collision has learned something valuable from the experience.

Re: Databricks counts being laid off as “red flag”

#142

Post by aflag »

mjfl wrote: post #24

Don't say you were laid off, say you left the job to start a new web site, but it's not working out financially. And obviously have a small website ready with a reasonable sounding business idea. It is totally reasonable for counting being laid off as a red flag, it puts a ceiling on your performance - if you were really that productive, they would have kept you.

So lie to get a job?

Re: Databricks counts being laid off as “red flag”

#143

Post by mcv »

3np wrote: post #105
polynox wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fair. A car that is in a collision is always at best as good as a car that has not been in a collision, whereas that's not the case with an employee who was terminated. I was trying to get at where you don't need to trust someone else's judgement of something, you can just ... go look yourself. Or hire your own expert. Because why do those other things if they don't actually change the outcome?

Maybe closer one: You stop dating a prospective partner when you find out it was their ex who instigated their breakup.

A lot depends on the why. I may have different tastes than their ex.

Re: Databricks counts being laid off as “red flag”

#144

Post by ranting-moth »

_t4za wrote: post #10
cochne wrote: post #6

I think their HR culture may be a little toxic. When I told them their offer was not enough, they got very irate. They said if I only care about money I’m not a good fit for their culture of builders, and that I should watch out because there are lots of lay offs happening. It all left me with a very poor impression of them.

> They said if I only care about money I’m not a good fit for their culture Is this meant to convince you to take the offer, or is this just to vent off some steam before closing your file?

I think it's called burning bridges.

Re: Databricks counts being laid off as “red flag”

#145

Post by mcv »

millenseed wrote: post #93

It's funny how people blindly trust some anonymous person's post on none other than blind.

I think general experience with toxic hiring processes may also be a contributing factor for people believing this story.

I don't know if it's true, but it definitely sounds like something that could easily have happened.

Re: Databricks counts being laid off as “red flag”

#146

Post by ranting-moth »

cochne wrote: post #6

I think their HR culture may be a little toxic. When I told them their offer was not enough, they got very irate. They said if I only care about money I’m not a good fit for their culture of builders, and that I should watch out because there are lots of lay offs happening. It all left me with a very poor impression of them.

A "little toxic?". This is a nuclear bridge burning option from them, for absolutely no reason at all.

Instead: "Mr. Cochne, we're sorry that we can't match your salary expectations this time. We do find you a good fit for the company, so please think about us in the future."

There. No hard feelings. No burning bridges. Professional. People come and go.

Re: Databricks counts being laid off as “red flag”

#147

Post by blitzar »

SQueeeeeL wrote: post #4

Damn, the top comment on the article is about how you need to lie in tech interviews. How far have we fallen if we don't even have enough dignity to walk away from garbage tier companies who can't even put any real effort into hiring. Lying is not a solution, letting companies like Databricks die a slow painful death because they create toxic environments and all their programmers keep quitting is the solution.

> is about how you need to lie in tech interviews.

Doing recruiting rounds as a candidate in the early 00's taught me that you have to lie in interviews. All the questions were "give an example of a time when ... " - everyone displayed leadership when they were captain of the national championship winning football team, and overcame adversity when they climbed the three mountains taller than everest in the same day. At the end of the day ... it worked.

Much like social media etc today - real life cant compete with the fantasy of the 100x coder who added $50mil of sales to the bottom line of their last employer.

You should also consider lying to your doctor when they ask how much you drink / smoke / exercise. They will just assume that you are so 2x whatever you say for drinking and 1/10th the amount of exercise you self report - because everybody lies.

Re: Databricks counts being laid off as “red flag”

#148

Post by DonHopkins »

ramesh31 wrote: post #11
RajT88 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lying is not a solution Agreed. You should not lie in interviews. A common way of avoiding having to lie is registering your own consulting company after getting laid off. No resume gap! As far as if it fools recruiters, no idea. It's got to sometimes, right? I see it too often on LinkedIn for it to be useless.

>A common way of avoiding having to lie is registering your own consulting company after getting laid off. No resume gap! As far as if it fools recruiters, no idea. It's got to sometimes, right? I see it too often on LinkedIn for it to be useless. "Consulting" is the programmer equivalent of claiming "Entrepreneur" as a job title. Sure it exists, but it generally translates to "Unemployed".

Maybe for you, but tell that to the bank that gladly gave me a mortgage thanks to all the income I've made consulting in the past years. This web site is teeming with successful consultants and contractors.

When Silicon Valley was less toxic, less exploitive, and not so riddled with useless frat boy brogrammers, there generally didn't used to be any stigma attached to being laid off.

I was loyally working at Kaleida (a joint venture of Apple and IBM) for a long time, and then applied for my dream job at Paul Allen's Interval Research Corporation, but they took a while getting back to me with an offer. But in the meantime Kaleida announced they were shutting down and laying off all employees (after having been steamrolled over by the Java Juggernaut).

Apple and IBM allowed Kaleida to pay out generous layoff packages (even converting worthless "KVAR" virtual stock options to cash) and gave job offers to most of the technical staff (which I turned down, because Interval was much more fun and interesting to me).

I told Interval that I wanted to delay accepting their job offer by a month or so, until after the Kaleida layoff, so I could qualify for the financial compensation in the Kaleida layoff package, and they understood completely and were just fine with it.

During that time period and before, Apple would even lay off batches of employees for a while to downsize, then eventually hire some of them back again, restoring all of their accumulated benefits and seniority.

Re: Databricks counts being laid off as “red flag”

#149

Post by throwaway2037 »

lmm wrote: post #61
smeagull wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just another way of lying. If it makes you feel better about it, then fine I guess.

I've had plenty of employers tell me something in the interview that was technically true but very misleading. They seem to think that's quite different from lying.

"technically true" -- The best kind!

Re: Databricks counts being laid off as “red flag”

#150

Post by coldtea »

cochne wrote: post #6

I think their HR culture may be a little toxic. When I told them their offer was not enough, they got very irate. They said if I only care about money I’m not a good fit for their culture of builders, and that I should watch out because there are lots of lay offs happening. It all left me with a very poor impression of them.

>They said if I only care about money I’m not a good fit for their culture of builders

Run, don't walk away from them...

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