15 ms·

The ethics of this is very clear cut, it's unethical. It's unethical for a company to interview candidates if they don't have the intention of offering anyone

• paulcole 5y ago
  I interview all the time for jobs I have no interest in. But I’m wrong about a lot and willing to hear someone else’s pitch. It’s the interviewers job to convince me I should work there. Plus I get interviewing practice and maybe get to meet interesting people.
  • noutella 5y ago
    Yet you could get convinced, which in my eyes makes what you do honest.
    • glitchc 5y ago
      You and a few others have said the same, but I don’t see the honesty angle. Window-shopping is not the same as entering a grocery store to buy milk. The intent is different in both cases regardless of the outcome. I condone the behaviour nor think it’s unethical. Talent should be able to shop the market, just as companies shop the market for talent. Edit: Whoops! Grammar
  • etrautmann 5y ago
    Yes - there are plenty of reasons to interview for a job you may not take. It’s crucial to have multiple offers when negotiating, practice interviewing, understanding the range of cultures, etc. I think it’s quite reasonable to interview somewhere if there’s a 10% chance or greater that you’d work there, which is hard to know before they’ve convinced you throughout the process.
  • acatnamedjoe 5y ago
    There's a big difference between interviewing for a job you're not interested in, but with an open mind, versus interviewing for a job where under no circumstances will you accept the role.
    • sneak 5y ago
      I mean, he could always quit Fronk and take the job at the marketing target. I don't think the difference is as big as you seem to think. Everyone has a price. :)
    • _dark_matter_ 5y ago
      I struggle with this distinction. Almost any role I'd be willing to take for enough money. If you're upfront about those expectations I believe it's fine to take _any_ interview.
    • benlivengood 5y ago
      Something not mentioned in the article is how willing 'Fronk' was to match and exceed every interviewer's offer. Get offers from FAANG enough times and Fronk would be paying quite nicely to stay competitive. It's not only unethical but stupid to commit to turning down a better offer than the one you currently have.
  • gwbas1c 5y ago
    Honestly, I really don't know if I want to work for a company after meeting a few people there.
    • paulcole 5y ago
      I guess I should say that I prefer to work for small < 20 person companies. Usually in the interview process I meet enough to get a good idea.
• paulgb 5y ago
  Also, it sounds like the recruitment consultants might be in on it? If so, it’s also unethical for them to take commission on what they know is a fake candidate.
  • DangerousPie 5y ago
    Not just unethical, isn’t that just plain old fraud at this point?
  • mytailorisrich 5y ago
    If a company agrees to pay a consultant just for fielding candidates for interview that's their problem. The standard practice is for recruiters to be paid only in case of successful placement (and often only in case of successful probation period).
    • some_random 5y ago
      Yeah that was kinda confusing, did that use to be standard practice?
    • behringer 5y ago
      It's not their problem that they were defrauded. But yes it would be stupid.
    • hinkley 5y ago
      They could be paying a fee for candidates that get an offer. Of course that incentivizes recruiters to get a single candidate multiple offers. On the face of it this is good for the candidate, but it makes me wonder about some of my previous experiences.
  • celticninja 5y ago
    They get comission when the job is filled by a candidate they supplied, not just for sending someone to an interview.
    • OJFord 5y ago
• bluGill 5y ago
  It is also unethical to abide by a NDA if the company is doing something unethical. It might or might not also be legal to talk though, ask a lawyer. Of course NDAs might not even be legal in the first place. If the company is doing something illegal, then the NDA doesn't have any meaning for sure.
  • aj3 5y ago
    There's no indication that company was doing anything illegal though.
    • bluGill 5y ago
      ethics and legality are different things of course. You need to figure out how to handle things when they are opposed. There are no easy answers.
      • JackFr 5y ago
        There is an easy answer. If you feel that there are circumstances under which you cannot abide by the terms of the NDA, then don't sign the NDA.
        • bluGill 5y ago
          The problem is most NDAs are for things I can abide by, and I won't know until after signing that this is an exception. In fact in this case I wouldn't have expected the things the NDA is stopping me from talking about were even things.
        • Kim_Bruning 5y ago
          How would that work? Normally you don't get to hear much until after you sign the NDA.
    • rswail 5y ago
      Perhaps not illegal, but by definition, unethical, otherwise the NDA on the actual intended role would not be needed.
• zamalek 5y ago
  I agree that it's blatantly unethical, but there's also a degree of "evil genius" or supervillain here.
• toss1 5y ago
  Yup It is basically spamming, not in email, SMS, or robo-calls, but in job interviews. It seems there are no bounds to the areas that marketers will go to insert their message into your life, welcome or not.
• gwbas1c 5y ago
  It also just seems grueling. Some interviews are stressful for me, even if I'm a little skeptical going in. It's not just the interview: It's picking the right clothes, going somewhere I've never been, getting there on time, and the general disruption to my day. I once went to an interview where it took me 90 minutes to find parking. Another time I got super-confused coming in the door because there was no receptionist and no one told me where to go in the building.
  • rossdavidh 5y ago
    I would never take such a job, but it is probably a lot less stressful if you don't really care at all how well you do. Oddly, you would probably also do much better, since wanting to do well at an interview is bad for one's interview performance. Desperation is a turn-off. You might end up with a lot of job offers. Until you decide to leave this company, of course, in which case you might suddenly lose your appeal...
• havelhovel 5y ago
  I don’t know why the ethics for this is clear cut or what priors that statement is built on. Technical interviews are a relatively new social development. People are saying x or y are unethical, but it would be nice to see some actual justification one way or the other.
  • wyldfire 5y ago
    It's deceptive and exploits the interviewers' time in bad faith. That is a clear justification IMO. Similar but less clear cut whether it's unethical is when people go on 'practice' interviews where they don't have a serious interest in the position.
  • phreack 5y ago
    Because you're wasting the company's time and money, making them spend resources on interviewing someone with no intention of actually joining the company. All in order to underhandedly advertise to them without their knowledge or consent.
• nostromo 5y ago
  I agree. But I’d point out that tech companies farm interviewees for ideas on how to approach problems all the time and don’t hire the vast majority of qualified candidates. It’s unpaid labor. It’s a bit of karmic justice to hear of people turning the table and using this as a way to inject ideas into a target company.
  • hinkley 5y ago
    The second trade show I went to (as an exhibitor), someone warned me that a lot of wannabe investors walk the floor trying to get a gestalt of the tech industry. Those people are not going to buy our product so don't let them wind you up on a topic. Very much explained some experiences I'd had at the previous trade show.
• paxys 5y ago
  Not unethical if you make your intentions clear from the get go and recruiters/hiring managers are still not willing to take no for an answer. Every single day I'll reply to a cold call with "not interested" and the recruiter will still press on.
  • AnimalMuppet 5y ago
    So because the recruiters keep wasting minutes of your time, you're going to waste hours of it in an interview? That seems like exactly the wrong answer.
• honestthrow1 5y ago
  And likewise it's unethical for a candidate to attend an interview if they have no intention of considering a potential offer. This resonates with me and I'm also conflicted about it the same time. I'm currently happy at my job, and don't think I'd like to consider another job any time soon. However, historically, in previous jobs, I usually don't notice that I want to move on, until it's too late, and I'm too burnt out to do well in interviews. It's been recommended to me, by multiple people to interview frequently, even if not interested in changing jobs, to get some practice in. But doing that feels unethical. I frequently consider it, but have never done it because it feels dishonest and unfair. But then by the time I want to change jobs I'll be burnt out, and and out of practice interviewing, creating a very depressive loop of failing at job interviews, depressing me further.
  • robertlagrant 5y ago
    I don't think it's unethical to interview for jobs. You don't have to lie to progress through interview rounds; just say you're keen to hear more about the role and what the possibilities are. (I also struggle with staying too long in jobs.)
  • isoskeles 5y ago
    I don't see this as unethical because there is still the possibility that they will give you an offer that you would consider. It's just that they'd probably have to offer quite a bit in terms of compensation and opportunity to actually make you budge if you're happy with your current job. Although, I have never done it either. I've always been too busy at work, and I view the dishonest aspect as the potential lie I have to make up to take off a day from my current job to go interview.
    • HeyLaughingBoy 5y ago
      Why do you need to give a reason? Can't you just say that you want to have a day off?
  • otherme123 5y ago
    danluu talked tangentially about this in a recent twitt. He said that people are interviewing without intention to accept the offer, but roughly half of them end up switching jobs. It seems that usually companies pay their long term employees below the market, and they only notice when/if they go job hunting.
• hinkley 5y ago
  Is this... what's the word... ethical? "Our investors think so! Well, I mean, if the investors think so, it must be.
• BeetleB 5y ago
  > And likewise it's unethical for a candidate to attend an interview if they have no intention of considering a potential offer. If FAANG recruiters keep contacting me without my applying to them, I think it's fair game to expect that you'll get a number of people who interview "for fun". If you're going to use sales tactics to get future hires, you have to accept a certain level of waste.
  • Johnny555 5y ago
    Even if you interview "for fun", there's still a chance that you'll be so enticed by what they offer that you'd accept. There's nothing unethical about interviewing for a company that you don't think you'd want to work for -- it's their job to make the case that you should work there. But this isn't the case if you're paid by another company to go to the interview and you are forbidden from accepting an offer.