4 ms·

Some of these are good, some are bad, but this one is dangerous and unethical: When checking references for a job applicant, employers may be reluctant or proh

by 21723 4y ago

Some of these are good, some are bad, but this one is dangerous and unethical: When checking references for a job applicant, employers may be reluctant or prohibited from saying anything negative, so leave or send a message that says, “Get back to me if you highly recommend this applicant as super great.” If they don’t reply take that as a negative. When you flush a candidate on a reference check, there's a good chance that he'll figure out what happened, and justifiably become paranoid. He's going to assume someone deliberately ratfucked him, which is not necessarily what happened here--the person could have legitimately thought highly of the candidate, but forgotten to reply because the email came at an inconvenient time (or ended up in the spam folder). At the minimum, you're destroying someone's professional relationships, but if this is in an industry like Silicon Valley, where people have glowing references not because of sincerity but because everyone who matters retains a hit man to "fix" negative ones, you're putting people in danger of physical harm, including the possibility of death. Worst of all, since the candidate might not know which reference ratfucked him, you could end up getting someone innocent killed. So, don't do this. The main function of reference checks is to ensure you're not getting someone who claims to have worked at Goldman Sachs or Google for 4 years but actually never set foot there. Leave it at that and be happy.

gaadd33 4y ago
People in Silicon Valley employ hit men to murder people who give bad references? Do you have any stories of that or links? Seems pretty far fetched
- 21723 4y ago
  Bad references can ruin careers. When you're talking about the difference between getting a $500k per year job and being completely unemployable, it makes sense. That all said, people usually start with intimidation, and that's usually enough. Very few people believe in their vendettas enough to die for them, and very few people want to kill or have someone killed, just to make a problem go away, if they don't need to do so. I do have stories, but I'm not going to share them, for obvious reasons. Only one of the ones I know well involved a person actually dying, but quite a few where people were "roughed up" and are now disabled.
  - visviva 4y ago
    > Only one of the ones I know well involved a person actually dying, but quite a few where people were "roughed up" and are now disabled. Pardon my language, but what the fuck? You honestly have "quite a few" stories about people being physically assaulted because they were bad references?
    - 21723 4y ago
      I spent more than a decade in the tech industry and I know a lot of people. Silicon Valley is a disgusting place. The less you know, the better for your soul. What-the-fuck is a reasonable reaction. As for physical consequences of bad references, there's obviously going to be a spectrum. It's very unlikely that someone would get hit for saying something like "I don't like him" at a bar and accidentally costing someone a job. Those things happen, and very few people are irrational or paranoid enough to call in a hit man over something small that isn't going to happen again. If someone is deliberately running around saying, "You shouldn't hire him" or "He was fired for cause", though, it's inevitable that he's going to get what's coming to him. Rationally speaking, people usually make this calculation based on what they think the person is going to do in the future. Sometimes the motive is revenge, but usually it's just intimidation. If it's truly a one-off, people usually let it go. If someone is making it impossible to find work, though, then people get desperate.
      - visviva 4y ago
        That's fascinating (and almost unbelievable) to me. Are you aware of any other books/articles/blog posts about this aspect of SV? I'm interested to learn more.
penguinarduino 4y ago
I’m floored at this comment. Maybe I’m just deeply ignorant of what happens around me. Can you help me understand how common this is?
- 21723 4y ago
  I don't think anyone publishes statistics on this, but the thing you have to understand about Silicon Valley is that it runs on reputation. Skills are commonplace. H1-Bs have skills. 20-year-olds have skills. Instead, people get the good jobs based on what they can force other people to say about them, not based on what they can do. Silicon Valley is also a place where success forgives all sins, full of people with very little in the way of scruples, and where vendettas are generated all the time over the smallest shit. This isn't limited to Silicon Valley. In any business where reputation makes the difference between 7-figure salaries and unemployability, you're going to have people who'll stop at nothing to "fix" reputation problems. That being said, these things usually don't run all the way, because even Silicon Valley people don't kill lightly, so there's a series of escalations before it gets to that, and most people aren't willing to defend their vendettas with their lives.
calcifer 4y ago
> in an industry like Silicon Valley, where people have glowing references not because of sincerity but because everyone who matters retains a hit man to "fix" negative ones, you're putting people in danger of physical harm, including the possibility of death. Sorry, what? I'm not in SV, so maybe I'm missing something, but are you actually claiming that bad references in SV result in death? What?
- 21723 4y ago
  I'm saying that people in the tech industry will do anything to protect and expand their reputations. The stakes are just that high--we're talking about the difference between 7-figure jobs and unemployability--and most of these people have no moral scruples even when the stakes are small. The ones with scruples don't last. Given the stakes and the mentality we're talking about, the cost to have a "reputation problem" "taken care of" is a rounding error. The probability that someone would be intentionally killed over a single instance of a negative reference is very low, but it's definitely nonzero. Probably 0.05-0.25% at lower levels (SWE, Sr. SWE, entry-level manager) and 1-25% at executive levels. Thus, what the OP is advising could get someone killed, and since there is also nothing to be gained by it, I argue that it's a bad idea.
whiddershins 4y ago
Can someone, anyone, even very vaguely support this person’s claim? It isn’t beyond the realm of what I deem possible, and I’m reminded of allegations by Michael O. Church https://www.quora.com/Why-was-Michael-O-Church-targeted-by-Silicon-Valley https://www.quora.com/Why-was-Michael-O-Church-targeted-by-S... But it would also take a lot for me to put this into my ‘probably true’ or even ‘probably not true but behave as if it is because it could be’ Bayesian priors.

by 21723 4y ago

gaadd33 4y ago

People in Silicon Valley employ hit men to murder people who give bad references? Do you have any stories of that or links? Seems pretty far fetched

21723 4y ago
Bad references can ruin careers. When you're talking about the difference between getting a $500k per year job and being completely unemployable, it makes sense. That all said, people usually start with intimidation, and that's usually enough. Very few people believe in their vendettas enough to die for them, and very few people want to kill or have someone killed, just to make a problem go away, if they don't need to do so. I do have stories, but I'm not going to share them, for obvious reasons. Only one of the ones I know well involved a person actually dying, but quite a few where people were "roughed up" and are now disabled.
- visviva 4y ago
  > Only one of the ones I know well involved a person actually dying, but quite a few where people were "roughed up" and are now disabled. Pardon my language, but what the fuck? You honestly have "quite a few" stories about people being physically assaulted because they were bad references?
  - 21723 4y ago
    I spent more than a decade in the tech industry and I know a lot of people. Silicon Valley is a disgusting place. The less you know, the better for your soul. What-the-fuck is a reasonable reaction. As for physical consequences of bad references, there's obviously going to be a spectrum. It's very unlikely that someone would get hit for saying something like "I don't like him" at a bar and accidentally costing someone a job. Those things happen, and very few people are irrational or paranoid enough to call in a hit man over something small that isn't going to happen again. If someone is deliberately running around saying, "You shouldn't hire him" or "He was fired for cause", though, it's inevitable that he's going to get what's coming to him. Rationally speaking, people usually make this calculation based on what they think the person is going to do in the future. Sometimes the motive is revenge, but usually it's just intimidation. If it's truly a one-off, people usually let it go. If someone is making it impossible to find work, though, then people get desperate.
    - visviva 4y ago
      That's fascinating (and almost unbelievable) to me. Are you aware of any other books/articles/blog posts about this aspect of SV? I'm interested to learn more.

penguinarduino 4y ago

I’m floored at this comment. Maybe I’m just deeply ignorant of what happens around me. Can you help me understand how common this is?

21723 4y ago
I don't think anyone publishes statistics on this, but the thing you have to understand about Silicon Valley is that it runs on reputation. Skills are commonplace. H1-Bs have skills. 20-year-olds have skills. Instead, people get the good jobs based on what they can force other people to say about them, not based on what they can do. Silicon Valley is also a place where success forgives all sins, full of people with very little in the way of scruples, and where vendettas are generated all the time over the smallest shit. This isn't limited to Silicon Valley. In any business where reputation makes the difference between 7-figure salaries and unemployability, you're going to have people who'll stop at nothing to "fix" reputation problems. That being said, these things usually don't run all the way, because even Silicon Valley people don't kill lightly, so there's a series of escalations before it gets to that, and most people aren't willing to defend their vendettas with their lives.

calcifer 4y ago

> in an industry like Silicon Valley, where people have glowing references not because of sincerity but because everyone who matters retains a hit man to "fix" negative ones, you're putting people in danger of physical harm, including the possibility of death. Sorry, what? I'm not in SV, so maybe I'm missing something, but are you actually claiming that bad references in SV result in death? What?

21723 4y ago
I'm saying that people in the tech industry will do anything to protect and expand their reputations. The stakes are just that high--we're talking about the difference between 7-figure jobs and unemployability--and most of these people have no moral scruples even when the stakes are small. The ones with scruples don't last. Given the stakes and the mentality we're talking about, the cost to have a "reputation problem" "taken care of" is a rounding error. The probability that someone would be intentionally killed over a single instance of a negative reference is very low, but it's definitely nonzero. Probably 0.05-0.25% at lower levels (SWE, Sr. SWE, entry-level manager) and 1-25% at executive levels. Thus, what the OP is advising could get someone killed, and since there is also nothing to be gained by it, I argue that it's a bad idea.

whiddershins 4y ago

Can someone, anyone, even very vaguely support this person’s claim? It isn’t beyond the realm of what I deem possible, and I’m reminded of allegations by Michael O. Church https://www.quora.com/Why-was-Michael-O-Church-targeted-by-Silicon-Valley https://www.quora.com/Why-was-Michael-O-Church-targeted-by-S... But it would also take a lot for me to put this into my ‘probably true’ or even ‘probably not true but behave as if it is because it could be’ Bayesian priors.