4 ms·

Realizing the desired outcome a company may desire isn't dishonest. Being agreeable enough to play the game by the rules isn't dishonest. You'd rather clever

by ipaddr 3y ago

Realizing the desired outcome a company may desire isn't dishonest. Being agreeable enough to play the game by the rules isn't dishonest. You'd rather clever enough but defiant employees? Or not clever and some other combo? Being honest is realizing your situation and making tradeoffs to prioritize what's important. Pretending that your ability to call out weaknesses in the interview process makes you the best candidate is dishonest. If you feel that's more important you are forgetting why you are part of this process in the first place. If the outcome is they get a better interview process because of your feedback but you don't get the role, you failed in your original purpose. You need to be honest with yourself why you even applied in the first place.

Vegenoid 3y ago
> Realizing the desired outcome a company may desire isn't dishonest. Being agreeable enough to play the game by the rules isn't dishonest. Answering in a way that is not consistent with what you truly feel or believe is dishonest. I don't think it's an amoral dishonesty, as you say, you've been forced to play this dumb game. There are many cases where being untruthful is not morally wrong. > Being honest is realizing your situation and making tradeoffs to prioritize what's important. I wouldn't say that's 'being honest', it's being pragmatic.
- bluefirebrand 3y ago
  > Answering in a way that is not consistent with what you truly feel or believe is dishonest. I don't think it's an amoral dishonesty, as you say, you've been forced to play this dumb game. There are many cases where being untruthful is not morally wrong Thank you for this reply, I couldn't have said it better. It's important that people realize 1) Representing yourself falsely is dishonest 2) Dishonesty isn't an especially bad thing in many cases. In fact it's socially expected in many cases, such as in interviews. That doesn't make it less dishonest. It means that a lot of our society is an engine that basically runs on dishonesty.
  - vundercind 3y ago
    It took me a while to get that interviewers aren’t really looking for honesty when they ask stuff like “why do you want to work here?” I mean maybe they are, but they’re gonna be very unhappy with the most-honest answer from 95+% of candidates for the vast majority of employers and jobs. So of course, you’re supposed to be… quite a bit less honest. And I guess maybe there’s some value in filtering out people who don’t get that? Or who refuse to “play ball” on principle? IDK the reasons, I didn’t make the rules. I was raised with and internalized honesty as very important, and adjusting to an adult world (mostly—almost entirely, actually—the business world) in which that needed to be judiciously tempered and certain kinds of dishonesty were expected and failure to play along punished, was quite a damn shock. I adjusted eventually but I’ve never really been happy about it.
    - saagarjha 3y ago
      What they're usually asking for is "why do you want to work here instead of somewhere else, if they offered you a similar position".
    - gregw2 3y ago
      I ask why people want to work here (or similarly “what do you want from your next position”) as a basic check of whether their and my motivations are aligned and how strong their motivation might be. Sure people can lie, but it also helps clarify if you both have the same ideas about what the role involves short or medium term. There is not a right answer, but there are some wrong ones that indicate a disconnect that do come up sometimes.
petsfed 3y ago
The classic example of requiring dishonesty to pass the test is one I've seen a few times: "Is it ever ok to steal?" If you answer anything but "NEVER, and thieves should be publicly drawn and quartered", you won't get the job, even if you have no particular foibles with e.g. inmates in death camps stealing from their captors, etc. Either you're too stupid to recognize the difficulty in expressing complete and coherent moral directives in 10 words or less, or you're sufficiently coerced by your economic circumstances to bend some of your own ethics. Obviously, what they want is for you to infer "is it ever ok to steal from your employer?", but again, this is complicated, because every single company that I've taken one of these tests for had robust anti-union rhetoric as part of their onboarding "training, and "be completely ready to work when you clock in", "your whole checklist must be complete before leaving" and "you must clock in and out only at the designated time" in their stated expectations for all workers. In other words, making any attempt to receive all the wages you are entitled to under the law is considered "theft" by the company, and they'll frequently have such rhetoric in the same training packet as the anti-union rhetoric. These personality tests are perverse-incentive city, and clearly nobody requiring them has a high enough opinion of the people expected to take them to recognize that.
anigbrowl 3y ago
You're conflating honesty with humility.
- tsegratis 3y ago
  Would you say the absence of humility always equates with dishonesty If I can't see my mistakes and failures, I would say I have zero ability to be honest; maybe I'm not 'lying' as such; I'm so far gone I don't even know I'm lying

by ipaddr 3y ago

Vegenoid 3y ago

> Realizing the desired outcome a company may desire isn't dishonest. Being agreeable enough to play the game by the rules isn't dishonest. Answering in a way that is not consistent with what you truly feel or believe is dishonest. I don't think it's an amoral dishonesty, as you say, you've been forced to play this dumb game. There are many cases where being untruthful is not morally wrong. > Being honest is realizing your situation and making tradeoffs to prioritize what's important. I wouldn't say that's 'being honest', it's being pragmatic.

bluefirebrand 3y ago
> Answering in a way that is not consistent with what you truly feel or believe is dishonest. I don't think it's an amoral dishonesty, as you say, you've been forced to play this dumb game. There are many cases where being untruthful is not morally wrong Thank you for this reply, I couldn't have said it better. It's important that people realize 1) Representing yourself falsely is dishonest 2) Dishonesty isn't an especially bad thing in many cases. In fact it's socially expected in many cases, such as in interviews. That doesn't make it less dishonest. It means that a lot of our society is an engine that basically runs on dishonesty.
- vundercind 3y ago
  It took me a while to get that interviewers aren’t really looking for honesty when they ask stuff like “why do you want to work here?” I mean maybe they are, but they’re gonna be very unhappy with the most-honest answer from 95+% of candidates for the vast majority of employers and jobs. So of course, you’re supposed to be… quite a bit less honest. And I guess maybe there’s some value in filtering out people who don’t get that? Or who refuse to “play ball” on principle? IDK the reasons, I didn’t make the rules. I was raised with and internalized honesty as very important, and adjusting to an adult world (mostly—almost entirely, actually—the business world) in which that needed to be judiciously tempered and certain kinds of dishonesty were expected and failure to play along punished, was quite a damn shock. I adjusted eventually but I’ve never really been happy about it.
  - saagarjha 3y ago
    What they're usually asking for is "why do you want to work here instead of somewhere else, if they offered you a similar position".
  - gregw2 3y ago
    I ask why people want to work here (or similarly “what do you want from your next position”) as a basic check of whether their and my motivations are aligned and how strong their motivation might be. Sure people can lie, but it also helps clarify if you both have the same ideas about what the role involves short or medium term. There is not a right answer, but there are some wrong ones that indicate a disconnect that do come up sometimes.

petsfed 3y ago

The classic example of requiring dishonesty to pass the test is one I've seen a few times: "Is it ever ok to steal?" If you answer anything but "NEVER, and thieves should be publicly drawn and quartered", you won't get the job, even if you have no particular foibles with e.g. inmates in death camps stealing from their captors, etc. Either you're too stupid to recognize the difficulty in expressing complete and coherent moral directives in 10 words or less, or you're sufficiently coerced by your economic circumstances to bend some of your own ethics. Obviously, what they want is for you to infer "is it ever ok to steal from your employer?", but again, this is complicated, because every single company that I've taken one of these tests for had robust anti-union rhetoric as part of their onboarding "training, and "be completely ready to work when you clock in", "your whole checklist must be complete before leaving" and "you must clock in and out only at the designated time" in their stated expectations for all workers. In other words, making any attempt to receive all the wages you are entitled to under the law is considered "theft" by the company, and they'll frequently have such rhetoric in the same training packet as the anti-union rhetoric. These personality tests are perverse-incentive city, and clearly nobody requiring them has a high enough opinion of the people expected to take them to recognize that.

anigbrowl 3y ago

You're conflating honesty with humility.

tsegratis 3y ago
Would you say the absence of humility always equates with dishonesty If I can't see my mistakes and failures, I would say I have zero ability to be honest; maybe I'm not 'lying' as such; I'm so far gone I don't even know I'm lying