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What you've revealed in this thread is a callous greed and desire to exploit your employees. But none of us are impressed by that. Rather, what we want in an em

What you've revealed in this thread is a callous greed and desire to exploit your employees. But none of us are impressed by that. Rather, what we want in an employer is somebody who will leave us alone and not harm the world. It is up to you to show us that you're a respectful and decent employer. At the end of the day, it's not like you could write your own code. So you need to beg us to work for you, not the other way around.

notahacker 5y ago
It's not "callous desire to exploit employees" to prefer not to hire candidates whose ego isn't so enormous they think interviews should consist of employers begging them, or indeed to prefer to hire the candidates that have enough motivation to take the job or at least basic social skill to be able to think of a reason it might be interesting or suited to them. Candidates usually get the opportunity to ask the employer what's good about working for them at the end of the interview if the interviewer hasn't spent the entire interview emphasising it anyway, and also have the opportunity to say no if they're not impressed. If their answer was "we're the ones with cash, and you're the one who's short enough of cash to be interviewing here", I suspect quite a lot of candidates would pass....
- stickfigure 5y ago
  These two positions ("employer is trying to exploit me", "candidate expects employers to beg them") are both ridiculous strawmen. Employment is little different from dating. If someone asks "tell me why you want to date me", you're well within social norms to demand they answer the same question first. It's a rude question that attempts establish a mental framing and nobody over the age of 25 should be swayed by stupid jedi mind tricks like this. Any employer who expects candidates to beg for positions is probably an abusive prick. Any employee who demands to be treated like a primadonna is probably too annoying. Great, now let's move on to the part of the interview that matters: Do we like each other? That's a two-way information exchange. If someone fed me that "I am here to find out how I can help you and your business to succeed" line in an interview I'd struggle not to write them off as a B-school ass-kisser. There's nothing genuine about it.
  - notahacker 5y ago
    I'd have said "candidate expects employers to beg them" was a straw man if I wasn't replying to someone literally insisting that's the role of the interviewer. Would have said much the same about comparing interview questions to Jedi mind tricks! And tbh if someone asked me interview style questions during a date I'd run a mile... It's not a "stupid Jedi mind trick" to ask people why they want a job, it's a pretty straightforward way of finding out whether they have a particular skill, interest or aspiration that might lead to further relevant questions and a filter to remove people who either don't want the job, haven't read the job spec, think they're too important to answer questions or somehow both realise that framing matters and think framing themselves as uninterested is a good move. "I am here to find out how I can help you succeed" or regurgitating the list of the company's "principles" off their website probably comes off as fake, "no, you tell me why I should take the job" certainly comes across as egotistical: perfectly acceptable answers include talking about being good with their tech stack, knowing their market, looking for a more senior role or wanting to find a new employer that values x more (do you value x?) and can include followup questions. I go back to my earlier point: if you get to the inevitable point in the interview where you're asking them questions and their answer to what's good about the job or what they like about the company is "no, what's good about you" or "um....", the alarm bells start ringing. The whole point of interviews being a two way information exchange is not setting off the same alarm bells in employers' minds

notahacker 5y ago

It's not "callous desire to exploit employees" to prefer not to hire candidates whose ego isn't so enormous they think interviews should consist of employers begging them, or indeed to prefer to hire the candidates that have enough motivation to take the job or at least basic social skill to be able to think of a reason it might be interesting or suited to them. Candidates usually get the opportunity to ask the employer what's good about working for them at the end of the interview if the interviewer hasn't spent the entire interview emphasising it anyway, and also have the opportunity to say no if they're not impressed. If their answer was "we're the ones with cash, and you're the one who's short enough of cash to be interviewing here", I suspect quite a lot of candidates would pass....

stickfigure 5y ago
These two positions ("employer is trying to exploit me", "candidate expects employers to beg them") are both ridiculous strawmen. Employment is little different from dating. If someone asks "tell me why you want to date me", you're well within social norms to demand they answer the same question first. It's a rude question that attempts establish a mental framing and nobody over the age of 25 should be swayed by stupid jedi mind tricks like this. Any employer who expects candidates to beg for positions is probably an abusive prick. Any employee who demands to be treated like a primadonna is probably too annoying. Great, now let's move on to the part of the interview that matters: Do we like each other? That's a two-way information exchange. If someone fed me that "I am here to find out how I can help you and your business to succeed" line in an interview I'd struggle not to write them off as a B-school ass-kisser. There's nothing genuine about it.
- notahacker 5y ago
  I'd have said "candidate expects employers to beg them" was a straw man if I wasn't replying to someone literally insisting that's the role of the interviewer. Would have said much the same about comparing interview questions to Jedi mind tricks! And tbh if someone asked me interview style questions during a date I'd run a mile... It's not a "stupid Jedi mind trick" to ask people why they want a job, it's a pretty straightforward way of finding out whether they have a particular skill, interest or aspiration that might lead to further relevant questions and a filter to remove people who either don't want the job, haven't read the job spec, think they're too important to answer questions or somehow both realise that framing matters and think framing themselves as uninterested is a good move. "I am here to find out how I can help you succeed" or regurgitating the list of the company's "principles" off their website probably comes off as fake, "no, you tell me why I should take the job" certainly comes across as egotistical: perfectly acceptable answers include talking about being good with their tech stack, knowing their market, looking for a more senior role or wanting to find a new employer that values x more (do you value x?) and can include followup questions. I go back to my earlier point: if you get to the inevitable point in the interview where you're asking them questions and their answer to what's good about the job or what they like about the company is "no, what's good about you" or "um....", the alarm bells start ringing. The whole point of interviews being a two way information exchange is not setting off the same alarm bells in employers' minds