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Wow, that is breathtakingly cynical. I’ve hired many people over decades and I’ve never lied to a single one of them. And in the dozen or so tech jobs I’ve had,

Wow, that is breathtakingly cynical. I’ve hired many people over decades and I’ve never lied to a single one of them. And in the dozen or so tech jobs I’ve had, only one hiring manager (the CEO!) has lied to me. Lastly, I only work places where my manager does give a shit about me. I’ve left a couple gigs because I learned I was wrong about that, but seen it confirmed in plenty of others. Your advice is not universal. Consider broadening your sample size.

ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
This is the kind of thing that people tell themselves, to act as an anodyne for their own behavior. In my case, I have always acted with the highest personal standards of Ethics and Integrity. Frequently, the favor has not been returned, and I have had to learn to deal with it. I will say that my Integrity was directly relevant to my career. I worked for a Japanese corporation, and they knew they could trust me. My employees also knew they could trust me. It's entirely possible to live in the corporate world, without surrendering your moral backbone.
- sonofhans 4y ago
  Yes! I totally agree. The times that I’ve been treated unethically do not excuse similar behavior from me. It’s an awful race to the bottom. I talk about this with my son. A long reputation for consistent, ethical behavior is difficult to get, easy to lose, and impossible to over-value.
ditonal 4y ago
If you can label them breathtakingly cynical, I’d label you breathtakingly naive. And label the grandparent experienced and realistic. When it comes to being “default alive” there is _zero_ consideration for the human impact. I could not agree more strongly that there’s all sorts of social mores around employee behaving well but virtually zero around executive behavior (you put an exclamation after CEO as if it should be surprising, when the opposite should be). I’ve read these CEOs brag about “generous severance” that turns out to be 3 weeks. WSJ reported less than a week ago Coinbase execs netted BILLIONS in PERSONAL profits to execs in the last year. Think any of that money could have been used as a rainy day fund to not fuck over people who resigned from their last job expecting to start at Coinbase? https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/coinbase-leaders-net-1-2-billion-in-share-sales-11653606214 https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/coinbase-leaders-net-1-2-bi... The amount of apologism for tech execs who act so selfishly over and over again, while the cogs are held to these insanely high standards of behavior, is infuriating. Call a spade a spade. Brian Armstrong is a selfish piece of trash who dumped hundreds of millions of his company stock for his own profit while reneging on people who took his company’s word for what it was and put their financial health in his hands.
- sonofhans 4y ago
  Oh, shit, I’m not apologizing for anyone. I agree with you that plenty of tech execs behave in awful ways. There’s no excuse for that, and I provided none. I’ve never been a cog. I simply refuse to. I take jobs where I’m valued and treated well, and I leave those I don’t. This is entirely possible if you make it a high-order goal. There’s nothing naive about it; I’ve made a good living this way for 30 years.
  - antisthenes 4y ago
    > I’ve never been a cog. I simply refuse to. I take jobs where I’m valued and treated well, and I leave those I don’t. This is entirely possible if you make it a high-order goal. There’s nothing naive about it; I’ve made a good living this way for 30 years. That's an incredibly privileged position. Sometimes, people resort to various tactics, including embellishing and ghosting to get ahead, especially when they feel like they have no other choice. That doesn't excuse it, but it happens anyway. What's important to remember is that the power wielded by the company and the employee is not symmetrical, so they have to be treated with a double standard. A company will always be better equipped to lose an employee or handle a rejected offer after a round of interviews than an employee in the reverse position.
    - Scea91 4y ago
      > That's an incredibly privileged position Often it is also position that was earned by hard work and delayed gratification. You make it sound like OP is in such position purely due to luck but he obviously made some right choices along the way.
jkubicek 4y ago
Totally agree. In the years I've been a hiring manager I've never lied or misrepresented anything about my company or team to potential hires. To be honest, I don't understand why any competent manager would lie; any high-performing individual you hire is going to bounce as soon as they realize they've been lied to. Always be honest about the current state of your team and you'll get people who want to help you succeed.
- sonofhans 4y ago
  Yeah, I don’t get it either. A recruiter I can see, although not condone: they’re motivated differently. But a manager? As a manager your career and livelihood are literally dependent on the people you hire. Why start that off in such a shitty way?
outworlder 4y ago
> Wow, that is breathtakingly cynical. I’ve hired many people over decades and I’ve never lied to a single one of them So, when they ask you for the budget, do you give them the highest possible comp numbers in your budget?
- asolove 4y ago
  Is it wild to imagine an ethically-run company has salary bands based on levels and makes offers within those bands based on maintaining internal equity? I don’t naively believe all or most companies do this. But I have been a hiring manager at two that do.
- sonofhans 4y ago
  No, I give them a range, and tell them the principles behind it. “My range for this role is $XX - $YY. How much we offer you depends on your skills and experience. If you want to negotiate for the high end of that range, you’ll need to be truly excellent. If you think that range is off for this role, I’m happy to talk about that, too.” This is easy, honest, transparent, and gets both parties off to a good start. If I do my research well the range is pretty close to the market for what I need. If the candidate wants more they can either argue with me, or say goodbye and find another position.
  - stackbutterflow 4y ago
    Is "truly excellent" a measurable quantity and do you tell the candidate exactly what level they need to reach and what knowledge they need to have to get the highest comp? If so would you accept a candidate taking a few months to hone their skills and come back to you at the same stage of the interview? Do you put in transparently (after all we're talking about being honest and transparent here) in the job description so that candidates know beforehand how they'll be judged? Do you let the candidate apply again a year later? if they have grown and learned a lot then there's certainly no reason not to hire them this time. If so then yes, your process is honest and transparent.
    - sonofhans 4y ago

ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago

This is the kind of thing that people tell themselves, to act as an anodyne for their own behavior. In my case, I have always acted with the highest personal standards of Ethics and Integrity. Frequently, the favor has not been returned, and I have had to learn to deal with it. I will say that my Integrity was directly relevant to my career. I worked for a Japanese corporation, and they knew they could trust me. My employees also knew they could trust me. It's entirely possible to live in the corporate world, without surrendering your moral backbone.

sonofhans 4y ago
Yes! I totally agree. The times that I’ve been treated unethically do not excuse similar behavior from me. It’s an awful race to the bottom. I talk about this with my son. A long reputation for consistent, ethical behavior is difficult to get, easy to lose, and impossible to over-value.

ditonal 4y ago

If you can label them breathtakingly cynical, I’d label you breathtakingly naive. And label the grandparent experienced and realistic. When it comes to being “default alive” there is _zero_ consideration for the human impact. I could not agree more strongly that there’s all sorts of social mores around employee behaving well but virtually zero around executive behavior (you put an exclamation after CEO as if it should be surprising, when the opposite should be). I’ve read these CEOs brag about “generous severance” that turns out to be 3 weeks. WSJ reported less than a week ago Coinbase execs netted BILLIONS in PERSONAL profits to execs in the last year. Think any of that money could have been used as a rainy day fund to not fuck over people who resigned from their last job expecting to start at Coinbase? https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/coinbase-leaders-net-1-2-billion-in-share-sales-11653606214 https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/coinbase-leaders-net-1-2-bi... The amount of apologism for tech execs who act so selfishly over and over again, while the cogs are held to these insanely high standards of behavior, is infuriating. Call a spade a spade. Brian Armstrong is a selfish piece of trash who dumped hundreds of millions of his company stock for his own profit while reneging on people who took his company’s word for what it was and put their financial health in his hands.

sonofhans 4y ago
Oh, shit, I’m not apologizing for anyone. I agree with you that plenty of tech execs behave in awful ways. There’s no excuse for that, and I provided none. I’ve never been a cog. I simply refuse to. I take jobs where I’m valued and treated well, and I leave those I don’t. This is entirely possible if you make it a high-order goal. There’s nothing naive about it; I’ve made a good living this way for 30 years.
- antisthenes 4y ago
  > I’ve never been a cog. I simply refuse to. I take jobs where I’m valued and treated well, and I leave those I don’t. This is entirely possible if you make it a high-order goal. There’s nothing naive about it; I’ve made a good living this way for 30 years. That's an incredibly privileged position. Sometimes, people resort to various tactics, including embellishing and ghosting to get ahead, especially when they feel like they have no other choice. That doesn't excuse it, but it happens anyway. What's important to remember is that the power wielded by the company and the employee is not symmetrical, so they have to be treated with a double standard. A company will always be better equipped to lose an employee or handle a rejected offer after a round of interviews than an employee in the reverse position.
  - Scea91 4y ago
    > That's an incredibly privileged position Often it is also position that was earned by hard work and delayed gratification. You make it sound like OP is in such position purely due to luck but he obviously made some right choices along the way.

jkubicek 4y ago

Totally agree. In the years I've been a hiring manager I've never lied or misrepresented anything about my company or team to potential hires. To be honest, I don't understand why any competent manager would lie; any high-performing individual you hire is going to bounce as soon as they realize they've been lied to. Always be honest about the current state of your team and you'll get people who want to help you succeed.

sonofhans 4y ago
Yeah, I don’t get it either. A recruiter I can see, although not condone: they’re motivated differently. But a manager? As a manager your career and livelihood are literally dependent on the people you hire. Why start that off in such a shitty way?

outworlder 4y ago

> Wow, that is breathtakingly cynical. I’ve hired many people over decades and I’ve never lied to a single one of them So, when they ask you for the budget, do you give them the highest possible comp numbers in your budget?

asolove 4y ago
Is it wild to imagine an ethically-run company has salary bands based on levels and makes offers within those bands based on maintaining internal equity? I don’t naively believe all or most companies do this. But I have been a hiring manager at two that do.
sonofhans 4y ago
No, I give them a range, and tell them the principles behind it. “My range for this role is $XX - $YY. How much we offer you depends on your skills and experience. If you want to negotiate for the high end of that range, you’ll need to be truly excellent. If you think that range is off for this role, I’m happy to talk about that, too.” This is easy, honest, transparent, and gets both parties off to a good start. If I do my research well the range is pretty close to the market for what I need. If the candidate wants more they can either argue with me, or say goodbye and find another position.
- stackbutterflow 4y ago
  Is "truly excellent" a measurable quantity and do you tell the candidate exactly what level they need to reach and what knowledge they need to have to get the highest comp? If so would you accept a candidate taking a few months to hone their skills and come back to you at the same stage of the interview? Do you put in transparently (after all we're talking about being honest and transparent here) in the job description so that candidates know beforehand how they'll be judged? Do you let the candidate apply again a year later? if they have grown and learned a lot then there's certainly no reason not to hire them this time. If so then yes, your process is honest and transparent.
  - sonofhans 4y ago