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Lies Employers Use to Get You to Work with Them

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Re: Lies Employers Use to Get You to Work with Them

#11

Post by JoeAltmaier »

anon987 wrote: post #7

Great article! I usually work at BigCorps. One problem I have is that they send the exceptional workers to interview me (and other candidates), but once I start I find out I'm working with a bunch of duds. How can I get a big picture view of (almost) all of the people I will be working with along with their skill levels? I don't expect everyone in the company to be all A team or B team tier, but I don't want to be a…

Internships actually do a better job here. Some BigCorps are treating summer college student jobs as a 90-day interview process. When done right, the student works with an actual team on an actual product. Everybody gets a good, long look at one another.

Re: Lies Employers Use to Get You to Work with Them

#13

Post by anon987 »

angelbob wrote: post #9
anon987 wrote: post #7

Great article! I usually work at BigCorps. One problem I have is that they send the exceptional workers to interview me (and other candidates), but once I start I find out I'm working with a bunch of duds. How can I get a big picture view of (almost) all of the people I will be working with along with their skill levels? I don't expect everyone in the company to be all A team or B team tier, but I don't want to be a…

Start by asking, "who would my manager be?" or "who would my team be?" If you're not being interviewed by anybody who will be on your prospective team, that's already a red flag. You should be talking to your future coworkers (and maybe others, sure) and you should know which ones they are.

Oh I understand that.

To be more precise: Let's say I will be working on a team of 5 people. They send the manager and the smartest guy and things look great, but how do I gauge the skill level of the people who aren't there along with the skill level of other teams. For example, maybe my team is great, but I'll be working with other teams (infra guys, networking guys, legacy systems guys, whatever) who are obstructive and unskilled.

How do you get outside the "interview box" to see more of the company?

Re: Lies Employers Use to Get You to Work with Them

#14

Post by coldcode »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #11
anon987 wrote: post #7

Great article! I usually work at BigCorps. One problem I have is that they send the exceptional workers to interview me (and other candidates), but once I start I find out I'm working with a bunch of duds. How can I get a big picture view of (almost) all of the people I will be working with along with their skill levels? I don't expect everyone in the company to be all A team or B team tier, but I don't want to be a…

Internships actually do a better job here. Some BigCorps are treating summer college student jobs as a 90-day interview process. When done right, the student works with an actual team on an actual product. Everybody gets a good, long look at one another.

I worked at a company that took 90 interns per summer. All of them outside of our mobile team did nothing but fake intern projects. We made ours do actual product work that shipped; the rest of the interns were very jealous. We made offers to three and one accepted, the other two went on to graduate degrees.

Re: Lies Employers Use to Get You to Work with Them

#15

Post by jpt4 »

angelbob wrote: post #8
carsongross wrote: post #4

This is just another instance of western societies devolving from a high-trust environment into a low-trust environment. In the short term, cheating in the prisoners dilemma of social trust is beneficial for the cheater, but in the long run it ends up resulting in lower economic growth, making everyone poorer. Social trust is the key to economic growth (by allowing de-risked specialization) and political liberty (by…

What do you see in contrast to "the west"? I'm just curious what you're comparing the US (and possibly Western Europe) to. I don't see China as being a tremendously high-trust social environment, for instance.

> What do you see in contrast to "the west"?

The West of a previous time, presumably.

Re: Lies Employers Use to Get You to Work with Them

#16

Post by carsongross »

angelbob wrote: post #8
carsongross wrote: post #4

This is just another instance of western societies devolving from a high-trust environment into a low-trust environment. In the short term, cheating in the prisoners dilemma of social trust is beneficial for the cheater, but in the long run it ends up resulting in lower economic growth, making everyone poorer. Social trust is the key to economic growth (by allowing de-risked specialization) and political liberty (by…

What do you see in contrast to "the west"? I'm just curious what you're comparing the US (and possibly Western Europe) to. I don't see China as being a tremendously high-trust social environment, for instance.

I agree regarding China, and I think it will end up limiting economic growth there once they get past the industrialization bump. (I believe they are past it.)

I contrast the west with, for example, Russia, which has a very intelligent work-force and extensive natural resources, but has been unable to break out of the corruption and lack of trust endemic to their culture. India is another example: there is no reason they shouldn't be a first world country looking only at their human and natural capital. The middle east is lousy with countries with incredibly intelligent peoples stuck in second-world (at best) conditions. And so on.

Re: Lies Employers Use to Get You to Work with Them

#17

Post by RogerL »

anon987 wrote: post #13
angelbob wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Start by asking, "who would my manager be?" or "who would my team be?" If you're not being interviewed by anybody who will be on your prospective team, that's already a red flag. You should be talking to your future coworkers (and maybe others, sure) and you should know which ones they are.

Oh I understand that. To be more precise: Let's say I will be working on a team of 5 people. They send the manager and the smartest guy and things look great, but how do I gauge the skill level of the people who aren't there along with the skill level of other teams. For example, maybe my team is great, but I'll be working with other teams (infra guys, networking guys, legacy systems guys, whatever) who are obstructi…

"Show me the code base"

Haven't tried that, not sure how it would go over, but I feel pretty reluctant to go somewhere new without getting that chance.

Re: Lies Employers Use to Get You to Work with Them

#18

Post by hga »

angelbob wrote: post #8
carsongross wrote: post #4

This is just another instance of western societies devolving from a high-trust environment into a low-trust environment. In the short term, cheating in the prisoners dilemma of social trust is beneficial for the cheater, but in the long run it ends up resulting in lower economic growth, making everyone poorer. Social trust is the key to economic growth (by allowing de-risked specialization) and political liberty (by…

What do you see in contrast to "the west"? I'm just curious what you're comparing the US (and possibly Western Europe) to. I don't see China as being a tremendously high-trust social environment, for instance.

Add Japan to the list of "the west" about this; obviously not all that western, but famously a high trust society, which also obviously had made a fantastic difference in their economic growth.

Re: Lies Employers Use to Get You to Work with Them

#19

Post by tjradcliffe »

If employers really want people to work with them, they will pay them more. Everything else is meaningless and unenforcable. Cash on the barrel is the only thing that counts.

For job seekers, it's fair and reasonable to assume that any employer who makes promises against the future is lying, so for every promise you are made ("You'll eventually get to work on cool technology X!") you should increase your starting salary expectations, because you need to get a fair wage for being lied to.

Re: Lies Employers Use to Get You to Work with Them

#20

Post by RogerL »

monroepe wrote: post #3

My new manager just admitted to me a couple weeks back that my old manager (who is his manager now) straight up lied to me to get me in the door. He lied about how quickly my salary would increase. They told me that every six months salary is generally increased. Now that six months has come, he tells me that it is very rare for an increase mid-year.

If it isn't in writing, it doesn't count.

Heck, in writing doesn't count for much if it isn't part of a contract.

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