Being homeless a struggle, even with a $100k job offer • Hacker News Board

Re: Being homeless a struggle, even with a $100k job offer

#101

Post by MrApathy » Wed, Dec 09, 2015, 1:09 PM UTC

kraftman wrote: post #97

“I am very pleased to offer you the full-time position of Senior Analyst, Security Compliance,” - so why doesn't he take that job? Or are they offering him the job and then by the time he goes to take it they've googled him and changed their minds?

Very likely the offer is contingent upon the successful completion of a background check. A thorough background check (criminal, education, credit) can cost a few hundred dollars, so firms won't proceed until an offer has been accepted.

Even though he was exonerated, his prison stay and other convictions may show up. He can explain, but a firm can rescind an offer for whatever reason they want (outside of protected statuses, which does not include criminal background). For a security position firms may want perfectly clean backgrounds.

Re: Being homeless a struggle, even with a $100k job offer

#102

Post by sharemywin » Wed, Dec 09, 2015, 1:11 PM UTC

mattlutze wrote: post #93

dgoldstein0 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because we are American doesn't mean we don't know how to make our own red tape.

As a matter of fact, we kind of feature it on our flag.

That's pretty awesome never looked at it that way...

Re: Being homeless a struggle, even with a $100k job offer

#103

Post by kraftman » Wed, Dec 09, 2015, 1:28 PM UTC

kevinchen wrote: post #100

kraftman wrote: post #97

“I am very pleased to offer you the full-time position of Senior Analyst, Security Compliance,” - so why doesn't he take that job? Or are they offering him the job and then by the time he goes to take it they've googled him and changed their minds?

Yes, that's entire point of the article.

It just seems strange to me that they learn enough about him to offer him a job, and then only after they've done that do they google him and find out his past. Surely you'd do that fairly early on?

Re: Being homeless a struggle, even with a $100k job offer

#104

Post by kraftman » Wed, Dec 09, 2015, 1:28 PM UTC

MrApathy wrote: post #101

kraftman wrote: post #97

“I am very pleased to offer you the full-time position of Senior Analyst, Security Compliance,” - so why doesn't he take that job? Or are they offering him the job and then by the time he goes to take it they've googled him and changed their minds?

Very likely the offer is contingent upon the successful completion of a background check. A thorough background check (criminal, education, credit) can cost a few hundred dollars, so firms won't proceed until an offer has been accepted. Even though he was exonerated, his prison stay and other convictions may show up. He can explain, but a firm can rescind an offer for whatever reason they want (outside of protected s…

Ahh, I was wondering why they would leave it that late, but avoiding extra costs makes sense.

Re: Being homeless a struggle, even with a $100k job offer

#105

Post by Thriptic » Wed, Dec 09, 2015, 1:38 PM UTC

trasc wrote: post #83

raverbashing wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the same time, there are a lot of employees suing companies "just because", so the feeling has some justification.

I do not understand this comment. Can you point at an example of this?

I've heard of several cases where people were fired for poor performance and then turned around and filed baseless, retaliatiory discrimination lawsuits. Obviously that's anecdata, but I believe that's the type of thing the poster is referring to.

Re: Being homeless a struggle, even with a $100k job offer

#106

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Dec 09, 2015, 1:39 PM UTC

etivrusky wrote: post #69

Top kek. This article is full of shit. If your skills are worth _anything_ in security then you can make easy money via bug bounties or vulnerability acquisition programs. Most web companies pay thousands of dollars for trivial XSS vulns and you want to tell me that this poor chap can't help himself? Yeah right.

[deleted]

Re: Being homeless a struggle, even with a $100k job offer

#107

Post by DawkinsGawd » Wed, Dec 09, 2015, 1:39 PM UTC

etivrusky wrote: post #69

Top kek. This article is full of shit. If your skills are worth _anything_ in security then you can make easy money via bug bounties or vulnerability acquisition programs. Most web companies pay thousands of dollars for trivial XSS vulns and you want to tell me that this poor chap can't help himself? Yeah right.

You realize that offensive web application pen testing is only a tiny corner of the whole information security industry, and that most information security professionals don't find bugs. A good portion of InfoSec professionals are not technologists at all. They are behavioral experts, legal experts, policy makers, etc.

Judging by his own description of his skill set I would say he doesn't do offensive security at all but rather remediation, policy, and/or maybe forensics.

Re: Being homeless a struggle, even with a $100k job offer

#108

Post by tluyben2 » Wed, Dec 09, 2015, 1:48 PM UTC

Dr_tldr wrote: post #38

This is part of the larger tech hiring culture of "it's better to miss hiring someone good than to hire someone who might be bad." The guy in the story is hit especially hard by this, but HR's paradigm of fear/incompetence/inability to manage people after they're hired is a big piece of it. It's not ever easy for someone classified as an ex-con to get a job, but tech discriminates more than most other professions.

Well, HR / recruiters are a bit worse in most (tech?) professions; they seem really lazy when vetting people and just go for the stereotype great employee while discarding everyone else. So the only way back would be to go for a very small company in a smaller town. In the EU he would be hired for sure; I would hire him. I never cared about previous experiences/age/gender/race only about current skills and effort and we did very well by it.

Re: Being homeless a struggle, even with a $100k job offer

#109

Post by buro9 » Wed, Dec 09, 2015, 1:59 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #88

buro9 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fully escaped? I've spoken openly of my 30 months sleeping rough on the streets of the UK. I may have "escaped" homelessness, but the mental scars accumulated whilst on the street do still haunt me. I feel it, the sense of worthlessness, the self-doubt. There's a feeling that I shouldn't be alive let alone here in this workplace or surrounded by good people, a feeling that I don't quite belong. One can put a roof ove…

May I ask: What would have helped? And what would help now? Homeless people and people who are vulnerably housed in the UK have pretty lousy treatment from "services", a lot of which is provided by faith and voluntary groups. There are huge amounts of stigma, and a lot of misunderstanding of alcoholism and drug use and mental illness.

Small, safe spaces.

That is... I went onto the streets to escape poverty, violence and sexual abuse.

For me a hostel was not a safe space, so I didn't even successfully make it onto the first rung of support. It was hostels that distributed information on where to get food and such, so I missed that too.

So there needs to be a better support system for those sleeping rough, and that needs to recognise the flaws in the offerings today and also find better ways to distribute information.

Then, I've made the argument before that we should have a better way to migrate someone off of the street. It's not enough to give a council flat, someone I knew at that time eventually committed suicide because he couldn't cope, fell apart, and suffered from the isolation.

I think instead of that, there should be spaces smaller than a studio apartment that are transition spaces. They should be private, but perhaps clustered so that there is a support network there. People should be given help on how to do things, simple things like how to shop and eat better, how to take care of a home and manage the utilities and bills, how to basically live normally again and construct those routines. How to not shrink into that space and be alone.

I did meet a lot of people with mental illnesses, I don't believe anyone can wave a magic wand and get them off the streets. But we can have the structure in place to help them so that when they are ready, it's possible.

The vast majority of the people on the streets in the UK aren't there because of drugs and alcohol, that's just a visible symptom of a small minority. Most I spoke to had normal lives, good lives, but a trauma occurred and they ended up on the street. There seemed to be a lot of divorced or widowed males. A lot of the young who were physically and/or sexually abused.

Anyhow, a link http://crackandcider.com/ . These people are good, it's no magic wand, but they will take monetary donations and turn it into basic things to help keep people warm and alive even if they are rough-sleeping. I like that they're challenging those misconceptions too.

Re: Being homeless a struggle, even with a $100k job offer

#110

Post by DominikR » Wed, Dec 09, 2015, 2:00 PM UTC

sdrothrock wrote: post #12

In his case, it sounds like the problem isn't homelessness itself, but: 1. A crappy background check system that reports him as an ex-con/drug dealer when he's been exonerated. 2. Companies using those systems and judging him without giving him a chance to speak up.

The other side of the coin is that a manager of a company that allows an ex-convict to work in sensible areas can and will be held accountable if something goes wrong.

If you were a person that has put 20+ years of hard work into your career at some company would you be willing to risk it all (and by extension the life you built for your family) to put someone who as been convicted for hacking or fraud in the past in a position where he/she could cause considerable damage?

I think this can only be solved by laws that forbid employers to use or acquire this data. In that case no one could touch you for giving someone that chance.

The question is if the outcome of such a law would be positive and where there should be exceptions to it. (for example convicted hackers being employed by banks)