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The advice can be generalized even more. When communicating with an employer or potential employer: -> Subordinate yourself to the desires of capital in all ar

The advice can be generalized even more. When communicating with an employer or potential employer: -> Subordinate yourself to the desires of capital in all areas. -> Suppress the self. -> Become a true human resource. You are seeking to sell a large chunk of your life, and the buyers don't want scratched or dented goods. Desires of your own are flaws in the product you are selling. This is, sadly, sound advice, but I think it's important to reflect on what this means about how incidental human flourishing is in our current political economy.

keiferski 3mo ago
I don’t think the post says this at all. It’s mostly just common sense, like “don’t tell the interviewer you just want the job for the money and the ability to live abroad.” Instead be interested in whatever the company is doing. This seems pretty straightforward, but I guess people like OP are exposed to a lot of bad interviewees by nature of their job.
luisminv 3mo ago
Well I guess this is an overstatement for the sake of explaining your point and as such it's very effective, but I don't agree with this perspective. The advice tells you to remember that the person hiring you has also put work into that conversation, and that they'll appreciate realizing you have put work into it too. So i think there's an instance of letting our humanity flourish in this, since you're doing an exercise in empathy. There might be too few of these opportunties/spaces left tbh
thewebguyd 3mo ago
[dead]
Aurornis 3mo ago
I’ve done a number of interviews in my career. You don’t have to be a genius to see through the candidates who play this game where they tell you a perfectly sanitized, idyllic response that they’ve calculated as the optimal phrasing that you want to hear. A lot of applicants do it. The skill of interviewing is to get a sense of what the true situation is underneath what the candidate is saying with their words. These candidates who show up and do the “subordinate yourself to the desires of capital in all areas” schtick are plentiful. It doesn’t fool an experienced interviewer, so they’re going to be evaluating whether or not you can do the job without becoming a problem based on whatever other signals they can get. The candidate’s words are almost a no-op, other than a slight signal that they have a tendency to blow smoke instead of having real conversations.
- bluGill 3mo ago
  I suspect a lot of interviewers think it is a good thing when someone repeats those lines. That is they are not trying to get under the words.
  - deleted 3mo ago
    [deleted]
  - red-iron-pine 3mo ago
    the monkey says and does what we want it to do -- why go deeper?
- ElevenLathe 3mo ago
  Right, it's game of pretending that you sincerely desire these things. They don't want a faker, they want a true believer, and they have plenty of skillful people like you to use as tools to suss out who is and who isn't. To stick with the merchandise analogy, you must (sometimes) become like the "outlet" stores who fill their inventory with junk designed to be sold cheaply rather than marked down high end stuff. This flatters your customer into thinking they got a good deal, and is an effective way to make sales. This is an endless game of cat and mouse.
  - Aurornis 3mo ago
    > They don't want a faker, they want a true believer I'm trying to explain that it's easy to spot the fakers. When you do a lot of interviews you see a lot of candidates who follow the advice above. Unless it's your first month of doing interviews, it's really easy to see right through. The candidates never think they're coming off as fake, though. Really skilled interviewers can bait these candidates into telling little half-truths and inconsistencies that reveal their game.
    - ElevenLathe 3mo ago
      You're explaining that you think you do a good job of spotting the fakers. How would you know if you weren't? And anyway, the fakers (approximately everyone) don't have a choice but to be fakers, since the truth (I want this job because I want the money and visa it will confer) is disqualifying. Because no one is motivated primarily on the opportunity to work on adtech (to pick a popular example), one must choose one of: 1) Be truthful, and say the main reason you want the job is the money and the visa. You will be looked over as not having enough passion for the work. 2) Lie completely and say your number one motivation is adtech, something you would prostrate yourself to do in slum conditions if necessary. You will be sussed out as a faker. 3) Come up with some mixture of the two that the company can believe. If you can fool them into thinking you are at least somewhat motivated by the chance to work on their awful product, but also that there is truthfully some other motivation, you come across as a good bet and might not be thrown out of the pipeline.

keiferski 3mo ago

I don’t think the post says this at all. It’s mostly just common sense, like “don’t tell the interviewer you just want the job for the money and the ability to live abroad.” Instead be interested in whatever the company is doing. This seems pretty straightforward, but I guess people like OP are exposed to a lot of bad interviewees by nature of their job.

luisminv 3mo ago

Well I guess this is an overstatement for the sake of explaining your point and as such it's very effective, but I don't agree with this perspective. The advice tells you to remember that the person hiring you has also put work into that conversation, and that they'll appreciate realizing you have put work into it too. So i think there's an instance of letting our humanity flourish in this, since you're doing an exercise in empathy. There might be too few of these opportunties/spaces left tbh

thewebguyd 3mo ago

[dead]

Aurornis 3mo ago

I’ve done a number of interviews in my career. You don’t have to be a genius to see through the candidates who play this game where they tell you a perfectly sanitized, idyllic response that they’ve calculated as the optimal phrasing that you want to hear. A lot of applicants do it. The skill of interviewing is to get a sense of what the true situation is underneath what the candidate is saying with their words. These candidates who show up and do the “subordinate yourself to the desires of capital in all areas” schtick are plentiful. It doesn’t fool an experienced interviewer, so they’re going to be evaluating whether or not you can do the job without becoming a problem based on whatever other signals they can get. The candidate’s words are almost a no-op, other than a slight signal that they have a tendency to blow smoke instead of having real conversations.

bluGill 3mo ago
I suspect a lot of interviewers think it is a good thing when someone repeats those lines. That is they are not trying to get under the words.
- deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
- red-iron-pine 3mo ago
  the monkey says and does what we want it to do -- why go deeper?
ElevenLathe 3mo ago
Right, it's game of pretending that you sincerely desire these things. They don't want a faker, they want a true believer, and they have plenty of skillful people like you to use as tools to suss out who is and who isn't. To stick with the merchandise analogy, you must (sometimes) become like the "outlet" stores who fill their inventory with junk designed to be sold cheaply rather than marked down high end stuff. This flatters your customer into thinking they got a good deal, and is an effective way to make sales. This is an endless game of cat and mouse.
- Aurornis 3mo ago
  > They don't want a faker, they want a true believer I'm trying to explain that it's easy to spot the fakers. When you do a lot of interviews you see a lot of candidates who follow the advice above. Unless it's your first month of doing interviews, it's really easy to see right through. The candidates never think they're coming off as fake, though. Really skilled interviewers can bait these candidates into telling little half-truths and inconsistencies that reveal their game.
  - ElevenLathe 3mo ago
    You're explaining that you think you do a good job of spotting the fakers. How would you know if you weren't? And anyway, the fakers (approximately everyone) don't have a choice but to be fakers, since the truth (I want this job because I want the money and visa it will confer) is disqualifying. Because no one is motivated primarily on the opportunity to work on adtech (to pick a popular example), one must choose one of: 1) Be truthful, and say the main reason you want the job is the money and the visa. You will be looked over as not having enough passion for the work. 2) Lie completely and say your number one motivation is adtech, something you would prostrate yourself to do in slum conditions if necessary. You will be sussed out as a faker. 3) Come up with some mixture of the two that the company can believe. If you can fool them into thinking you are at least somewhat motivated by the chance to work on their awful product, but also that there is truthfully some other motivation, you come across as a good bet and might not be thrown out of the pipeline.