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Comment by cbtacy | Hacker News Reader

This may be true for entry level jobs, but for senior level jobs the "stain on the resume" issue is very real. A friend was a recruiter for FB until a few months back and has repeatedly stated that over the last 18 months she had an increasingly large percentage of targeted senior candidates refuse to even take her calls.

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I would also suggest as someone on the other end is that they have been very aggressive trying to get people during the pandemic. The recruiter name changes every few months but you get multiple calls and so on, moreso than others I've been engaged with.

Seeing exactly the same...recruiter after recruiter from FB go through the same dance. I don't know why they keep doing this given I never respond.

I told the recruiter at the start of the pandemic in no uncertain terms that I would never work for facebook or any company owned by them, and to not contact me again. I haven't received another request since.

I also told a recruiter that FB would be the last company I would ever work for - about 3 years ago. They stopped. Then about 2-3 months ago they renewed their attempts. I am guessing someone I know got hired and gave them my contact details again.

The same taint would apply after working at Google or Apple or even Barclays banks or MIT. Who wants to go through a 3 interview process just to find out that great candidate simply won't sign until the offer is bumped at least 3x

Anecdotal but a fair number of devs I know would be fine with those names, not FB. Facebook is both evil and trivial by reputation. You can do unimportant work that makes the world worse there, so why not compromise and work for some firm that's evil but important, or good but trivial?

They'd use the interview for practice and free food.

Having said that, I'm not sure you can really tell in the stats that FB needs to pay more for similar talent?

Not sure how MIT comes into it though, isn't that a university?

I was trying to explain the determinant factors.

I say MIT, because of it's tech prestige. I could have said Harvard for lawyers. Would you hire a paralegal coming from a prestiguous school to fill an average position ? Maybe, but for many it's not worth the time trying to catch a fish that won't fit on the boat.

Lots of recruiters are having trouble. You haven't demonstrated that anti-FB sentiment makes it harder for ex-FB people to get hired.

And generally, sourcers at Big tech are contract employees until they get enough talent through the door to go full time. So it may be that this person was unable to do this, and is putting some of the blame on FB's reputation (but it could also be true, I have no inside information).

Amazon?

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