“Millennial savages me on Glassdoor for giving constructive feedback” | Hacker News Reader

“Millennial savages me on Glassdoor for giving constructive feedback”

linkedin.com

It's like a squabble between children. Applicant with an over-inflated ego submits a sub-par writing sample. Owner with an over-inflated ego rejects it with a gratuitous insult on top of some helpful criticism. Applicant throws a fit. Owner throws it right back.

Oh, wait. Did I say "helpful criticism?" The first comment strikes out the word "subsequently," calling it "entirely unnecessary and redundant" before exhorting "Don't use unnecessary words." Well, speaking of unnecessary words, how about "entirely" and "redundant" in your own comment? The rest are in a similar vein, coupling actual criticism with needless (and antagonistic) commentary. Instead of calling out a sentence as merely "too long," he has to then label it "an absolute monstrosity."

Nice dodge, millennial job seeker. This is not someone you want to work for.

Well said. It's also interesting how the owner justifies his behavior by talking about how his own professors similarly insulted him when he was younger. Ie, it's the exact same reasoning used by frat boys for hazing their pledges. "I was insulted and belittled last year, and therefore, I'm going to do the same to you, and one day, you'll get to pass it on to someone else." Yes, that's some fine reasoning there.

Millennials today might be willing to accept constructive criticism, but they sure aren't willing to accept insults and belittling behavior. Good for them. I'm glad we have platforms like glass door where such behavior can be publicly called out.

I also like how he casually reminds the applicant of his ivy league history.

Well you are entitled to your opinion, so am I and here it is...I feel people who waste other people's time with mediocrity deserve to be insulted. The response is justified and proportional (however harsh it may be) to the atrocity inflicted by the applicant. I hope the applicant learns from this and thinks twice before submitting sub par work.

Is there any evidence to believe the applicant had an "over-inflated ego"?

I don't think there is anything in the review to suggest that and the only piece of evidence we have is the author's claim that the applicant "sent an application and bragged about their tremendous writing ability"

My guess is he/she did not so much "brag", but included the usual snippet everyone does when trying to highlight their skills/sell themselves.

Dig a little deeper (or at least clean the dirt off the nameplate). This is a legal position and the written product is what they essentially sell. Your argument is the equivalent of hiring an applicant who submitted a regression analysis to handle time series data.

>The first comment strikes out the word "subsequently," calling it "entirely unnecessary and redundant" before exhorting "Don't use unnecessary words." Well, speaking of unnecessary words, how about "entirely" and "redundant" in your own comment?

Not that I disagree with your overall point, but are you implying that feedback/commentary should be held to same standard as what it is critiquing?

I think it should be. Lead by example.

It seems to me that having to polish all feedback to a publishable level of quality would (greatly?) reduce the amount of feedback someone could give. I've appreciated informal feedback that I've received in the past and if that was the bar that needed to met I would have likely never received anything back.

Agree. I was surprised by the length of some of the comments. Most of the editorial notes and critique I've seen are very terse.

I'd agree that, in general, you shouldn't necessarily aim for the same level of polish in feedback that you would in a piece for publication. Here, though, I think the excessive length of his comment undermines the credibility of his feedback and contributes to the sense that he's piling on the criticism.

Guy tries to show how much more mature he is by stereotyping an entire generation? Sounds to me like both parties involved are a little low on the EQ spectrum.

I think I agree with the glassdoor review actually.

An unsolicited and unnecessarily harsh critique with language like "My English and history professors at Cornell would have ripped this to shreds (as I just did)" is not appropriate as an application response.

Fair point. At first read I thought she was being a bit sensitive, but maybe I was reading too much into her response which could also be read just as a reasonable warning to future applicants.

Among the other benefits the Internet has provided, we can now watch in real-time the blow-by-blow of weighty matters such as an English language critique gone wrong (coming from a site as utterly devoid of respect, purpose and integrity as LinkedIn).

The timestamps on his edits indicate this all happened nearly a year ago. The timestamps also indicate he invested about three minutes in editing the writing sample (assuming that's all of it). So I looked up the Glassdoor review, and sure enough it was posted on the same day...

I love stories so I wondered what else this fellow was up to around that time. Turns out he was writing non-stop and cranking out video content.

I have to wonder if this recent post isn't something he planned to write back then but ran out time. In any case, for a guy working 9,000 hour weeks he sure had a lot of time to write great big articles about his life.

If he graduated college in 2004 then he would be in his mid-thirties and considered by most definitions to be a millennial himself or very close.

I shouldn't be surprised that a business owner would publicly trash someone to make themselves feel superior after seeing it happen so often, but how could he not see how embarrassing this would be? No wonder he needs a communications specialist.

Lost me at "millennial". How can people jump on the millennial-hating train and not see it as the "kids these days" "get off my lawn" horseshit that it really is?

The author could use a good editor.

It's a matter of numbers that take generalities to extremes. Thirty years ago, some of the things I read about in all seriousness with serious tone would have been laughed at as having no basis for debate or serious consideration. Yes, people should generally feel relatively safe at school. But the idea that we should regress back to segregated living and social quarters because some people can't handle being in a situation with someone that disagrees with them, or perhaps has a better argument?

As a libertarian and a deist, I'm on the outs with almost anyone who tends towards most extremes (even people in my own party, "taxation is theft" mantra for example). There were pacifists in WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, etc... They've always been there. But today as long as it's your guy being the agressor it seems to be okay, but as soon as it's the other guy, it's all bad.

It's like all reason and accountability went out the window at some point. Yes, some of what gets reported is sensational examples far from the norm... but it's at a rate that astounds me. There are a lot of people who have had a very sheltered existence and assume that what's fair is always what's right and that their sheltered view is what is real. It usually isn't.

I honestly can't tell if you're taking a position on the use of the word millennial here.

He's explaining why he, and others like him, have difficulty respecting the people for whom the word 'millenial' applies.

I think it's important to keep in mind that the term 'millenial' refers to actual people.

Thank you, that's roughly what I was trying to say... short of digging up specific examples, that I don't fell represents the overall issue which is relatively hard to express void of specific examples. There are also plenty of people in the millenial generation that I wouldn't want to apply the term broadly to, because I think it has a relatively deserved negative connotation.

Other than for comedic effect, I don't like generalities and stereotype expressions... but it really does seem to be a generational shift from a subset of Gen-X to a majority of Gen-Y and Millenials that just seem opaque when it comes to understanding anyone that doesn't agree with them, or has a different culture or perspective in practice.

In some ways it's absolutely fascinating and in others it's absolutely terrifying and oppressive.

maybe it's better explained by the fact that never before did the social circles of children and adults align so closely.

"I graduated from Cornell in 2004."

That pretty much puts him in the the same millennial bucket. lol

In all seriousness, the applicant's writing was fine, and his correction was superficial at best.

Does he not realize how bad this article makes him look?

The writing was pretty bad, actually. But his isn't a lot better.

It sounds like Pollard was trying to emulate his writing professors (forgetting he is supposed to be a businessman now). I've met people like that. Trying to teach "life lessons" (in which they don't succeed) instead of sticking to the prime objective.

And Pollard's writing professors sound like blowhards who don't have much else going on in life but pompous critiques. Pretty much like a number of university soft science professors.

Throw an immature bratty job seeker in the mix and wait for the fireworks!

Then again... the applicant could have taken the criticism, adjust, and resubmit, thanking them for the prior critique. I see a LOT of very simple mistakes in articles today, published in print or online. It constantly makes me question as to what happened to actual editors and those that proof content.

Editors cost money.

As a Cornell alum, I can confirm the accuracy of your assessment. The nice thing about math and engineering is that it's objective; you either solved it correctly, or you didn't. My liberal arts requirements and freshman writing seminars, not so much.

My high school English teacher regularly "ripped to shreds" papers like that in the early 1980s. It was very difficult to write to his satisfaction. But he was a great teacher.

My big takeaway is that Jonathan Pollard has a bigger megaphone than a new college graduate making a negative Glassdoor review.

Second to that is that the word magnanimous is probably not in Pollard's vocabulary.

Ughh, more pretentious mockery of millennials. So sick of being looked down on. You know what's more immature than being a 23 year old with inflated ego? Having the experience, yet proceeding to ridicule knowing full well that's not the approach.

Pro Tip: Don't give feedback to people that don't want it.

I have never seen anything on Glassdoor or LinkedIn worth caring about, ever.

I spend almost all of my time avoiding both places and giving zero fucks about the people that get sucked into those whirlpools of desperate flailing for attention.

I suppose I can understand why a guy named Jonathan Pollard is so sensitive about proving his innocence & credibility. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Pollard

That's quite the non-sequitur.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com