3 ms·

That CEO and Mark Shuttleworth must be trading notes. It is okay to bring up something like flunking out of school 20 years ago but why drill someone on it?

by sireat 3y ago

rwmj 3y ago
It may be a way of filtering out older workers without having a policy as such.
- jstarfish 3y ago
  That is totally possible, but I recognize this as an interrogation tactic. Your resume is a showcase of your best accomplishments. Short of clearance-level interviews with your family and friends, people in C-level positions ask for transcripts from 20 years ago because it's the only intelligence concerning your failures they can get their hands on (your previous employers won't ever attest on-record that you sucked). So with that in hand, think about how you're going to feel when the only things they want to talk about are topics you were struggling to understand while your brain was still underdeveloped. He's big-dicking you to ensure your submission in any ongoing business relationship, and probably lowball you on salary just because he likes taking things from people after humiliating them. Asking about failures in past jobs is fair game-- you are free to disclose that much at your discretion. Asking for a transcript itself isn't even that weird either, just to verify you went to the school you said you did. But grilling you about failures from 20 years ago is someone engaging in emotional abuse; they're desperate to have something to hold over you.
  - shaftway 3y ago
    I like to assume that people have the best (if sometimes misguided) intentions, and I have an alternate theory. This firm clearly put a huge amount of stock in education. They were 4 blocks from a major CS university, and a significant number of staff were recent grads. I suspect the CEO had a masters which only adds credence to their belief in the education system. On top of that, they knew how much I was making ($x), how much I was asking for ($x + $50,000), and ended up offering me more ($x + $150,000). That's not the kind of thing you do when you're trying to dissuade someone from taking a job with you. Especially when the offer is 100% cash (company was private and they offered no equity). I strongly suspect that this person came from a bubble of education, and just didn't understand how you could be a poor student and then successful outside of academia.
    - jsjdjd37 3y ago
      I've had similar red flags when interviewed by management with masters or PhD's. They seem to think they would be tainting themselves by hiring someone obviously dumb, in their view.

That CEO and Mark Shuttleworth must be trading notes. It is okay to bring up something like flunking out of school 20 years ago but why drill someone on it?

by sireat 3y ago

That CEO and Mark Shuttleworth must be trading notes. It is okay to bring up something like flunking out of school 20 years ago but why drill someone on it?

rwmj 3y ago

It may be a way of filtering out older workers without having a policy as such.

jstarfish 3y ago
That is totally possible, but I recognize this as an interrogation tactic. Your resume is a showcase of your best accomplishments. Short of clearance-level interviews with your family and friends, people in C-level positions ask for transcripts from 20 years ago because it's the only intelligence concerning your failures they can get their hands on (your previous employers won't ever attest on-record that you sucked). So with that in hand, think about how you're going to feel when the only things they want to talk about are topics you were struggling to understand while your brain was still underdeveloped. He's big-dicking you to ensure your submission in any ongoing business relationship, and probably lowball you on salary just because he likes taking things from people after humiliating them. Asking about failures in past jobs is fair game-- you are free to disclose that much at your discretion. Asking for a transcript itself isn't even that weird either, just to verify you went to the school you said you did. But grilling you about failures from 20 years ago is someone engaging in emotional abuse; they're desperate to have something to hold over you.
- shaftway 3y ago
  I like to assume that people have the best (if sometimes misguided) intentions, and I have an alternate theory. This firm clearly put a huge amount of stock in education. They were 4 blocks from a major CS university, and a significant number of staff were recent grads. I suspect the CEO had a masters which only adds credence to their belief in the education system. On top of that, they knew how much I was making ($x), how much I was asking for ($x + $50,000), and ended up offering me more ($x + $150,000). That's not the kind of thing you do when you're trying to dissuade someone from taking a job with you. Especially when the offer is 100% cash (company was private and they offered no equity). I strongly suspect that this person came from a bubble of education, and just didn't understand how you could be a poor student and then successful outside of academia.
  - jsjdjd37 3y ago
    I've had similar red flags when interviewed by management with masters or PhD's. They seem to think they would be tainting themselves by hiring someone obviously dumb, in their view.