Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Lies Employers Use to Get You to Work with Them

linkedin.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 83 posts

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

#61

Post by Nacraile »

s73v3r wrote: post #49
Nacraile wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> CS graduates from MIT and Stanford could be expected to justify hours of their time in "Scrum ceremonies" (which means that they aren't trusted, which means that their credentialing institutions and work experiences aren't trusted). Even average programmers in the bowels of Fortune 500's IT organizations had more autonomy than the typical "Agile" programmer today. If that's been your experience with Agile, you've h…

"Seriously, stand-up isn't supposed to be about accounting for your time" And yet, in most places, it devolves into just that. "In my (very positive) experience, stand-up is about maintaining situational awareness in the team." And how could this not be more easily done with bug trackers and status emails? "it's an opportunity to pick the collective brain and gain some clarity / help with what you're doing." Most peo…

> "In my (very positive) experience, stand-up is about maintaining situational awareness in the team." > And how could this not be more easily done with bug trackers and status emails?

As far as I'm concerned, bug trackers and status emails are functionally equivalent to stand ups at a scrum board. I find email to be a terrible form of communication for open-ended discussion and would much rather do so face to face, but it's self-evidently a matter a personal preference.

> "Seriously, stand-up isn't supposed to be about accounting for your time" > And yet, in most places, it devolves into just that.

The fact that some people do it wrong is a straw man.

> "it's an opportunity to pick the collective brain and gain some clarity / help with what you're doing." > Most people don't pay attention to other's updates; especially updates that they know aren't relevant to what they're working on.

I've always found people are pretty good at picking up on the verbal cues when somebody's asking a question and answering it, even if they weren't paying particularly close attention.

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

#62

Post by meatysnapper »

Nacraile wrote: post #39
michaelochurch wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High-trust and low-trust understate the severity of the phase change, which is more accurately described as a shift from trust-density to trust-sparsity. You go from a state where people spawn with the "bozo bit" off to one where they spawn with it on. You get a completely different political dynamic when that happens. Obviously, trust has varying degrees and context. In Japan, you can leave your laptop at a cafe; in…

> CS graduates from MIT and Stanford could be expected to justify hours of their time in "Scrum ceremonies" (which means that they aren't trusted, which means that their credentialing institutions and work experiences aren't trusted). Even average programmers in the bowels of Fortune 500's IT organizations had more autonomy than the typical "Agile" programmer today. If that's been your experience with Agile, you've h…

Agile is the gonorrhea or methodologies. At best, it is a minor annoyance; at worst it really impacts your ability to get it on.

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

#63

Post by rsmove »

alistairSH wrote: post #41
coldcode wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How are those "fake projects" not a gigantic waste of everybody's time? We put our interns to work - either embedded on product teams, or working with our architecture/R&D teams on new technology. I think the interns generally enjoy the experience and we try to hire the best of them back after graduation.

At a prior digital analytics company we ran a 3 month training academy where the candidates spent half their time learning our methodology/trade and the other half of the time working on client projects under close supervision. After several iterations of this process we were able to develop talent efficiently. We were able to have our pick of the talent pool to hire as well as source other top performing candidates to other companies in need of the skillset we taught them.

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

#64

Post by scarmig »

nmrm2 wrote: post #24
carsongross wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Isn't colonialism is a much better explanation in the case of India and, to a lesser extent China?

It needs a bit more than that.

All the Americas were colonized, and most (but not all) are doing better than India. Indonesia is roughly twice as rich per capita. South Africa is even richer. And Malaysia even richer than it. Algeria, Libya. Korea and Taiwan were both colonized and much more exposed to WW2, and they're very well off.

The poorest countries in the world were mostly colonized, but that's because most of the world has been victims of colonialism. And the effects of colonialism reverberate to the present day. But it's not really powerful IMO as an explanatory variable for differences in human development in the non-European world.

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

#65

Post by wolfgke »

Why don't you ensure that all the promises simply written down in the employment agreement, so that in case that you are betrayed you have a lever (on the other hand: If the employer are not willing to write it into the employment agreement, there is a chance that he will try to cheat you sooner or later).

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

#66

Post by spacko »

white-flame wrote: post #29

The best defense is a good offense. In other words, you should not be locked into your relationship with your employer, especially as a new hire. It's always your option to quit if things aren't as advertised, and not worth salvaging. This means managing your finances and attitudes to be more mobile, and not basing your security and contentedness on the good will of your employer. Bad employers act a lot like politic…

This strategy would only work if "bad employers" (in this context those who will lie during the hiring process) are in the minority. Even a lying employer can still end up being a comparatively good place to work - but nonetheless - your strategy will just repeat the situation and at some point you will have to explain why you are switching all the time.

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

#67

Post by hwstar »

wolfgke wrote: post #65

Why don't you ensure that all the promises simply written down in the employment agreement, so that in case that you are betrayed you have a lever (on the other hand: If the employer are not willing to write it into the employment agreement, there is a chance that he will try to cheat you sooner or later).

What employment agreement? In the US most everyone is employed "at-will" which means you or your employer can terminate the employment relationship for any reason whatsoever. It's usually only C-level executives which have employment agreements in the US.

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

#68

Post by hwstar »

PaulHoule wrote: post #48

You know a recruiter is a fresher when they say that they need to fill this job real fast because the last guy burned out.

Red Flags...

Immediate requirement to fill a newly opened position. Must be able to assume a project which had abrupt departures of project members. Must be able to work in a fast-paced environment. Travel required.

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

#69

Post by jackmaney »

fredkbloggs wrote: post #47
Aloisius wrote: post #31

I don't want to hire anyone who would be unhappy working for me. Lying to someone about what their life would be like working at the company seems totally counterproductive to that goal. I do appreciate it when a candidate has a list of questions related to things that are important to them. In my experience though, that is exceedingly rare - at least with engineers. I'm lucky to be asked basic questions like what ti…

The essence of the modern employment contract is that we keep showing up and doing more or less what we're told, and you keep the paychecks coming until doing so would jeopardize senior management pay, at which point you kick us to the curb with nothing. Anyone on either side of the table expecting something else is delusional. > I don't want to hire anyone who would be unhappy working for me. Then you're not going t…

I have no idea why you got downvoted. I simply don't believe that there is a single employer out there who would not lie to their employees.

And your question to Aloisius is excellent: what's in it for us?

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

#70

Post by jackmaney »

Nacraile wrote: post #39
michaelochurch wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High-trust and low-trust understate the severity of the phase change, which is more accurately described as a shift from trust-density to trust-sparsity. You go from a state where people spawn with the "bozo bit" off to one where they spawn with it on. You get a completely different political dynamic when that happens. Obviously, trust has varying degrees and context. In Japan, you can leave your laptop at a cafe; in…

> CS graduates from MIT and Stanford could be expected to justify hours of their time in "Scrum ceremonies" (which means that they aren't trusted, which means that their credentialing institutions and work experiences aren't trusted). Even average programmers in the bowels of Fortune 500's IT organizations had more autonomy than the typical "Agile" programmer today. If that's been your experience with Agile, you've h…

> Seriously, stand-up isn't supposed to be about accounting for your time

BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!! No. Stand-up is all about accounting for time:

* What did you do yesterday? (That's accounting for time)

* What are you working on today? (That's also accounting for time)

* What roadblocks/hurdles are you encountering (That's accounting for things that take unexpected amounts of time...ie also accounting for time)

Post reply on HN