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Comment by Sohcahtoa82 | Hacker News Reader

> “if they ask about time off in the first interview then they are never going to be there!”

The fact that this attitude is common scares me when I'm doing interviews.

Time off is incredibly important to me. What's the use of making a great income if you can't get the time off to enjoy it?

The culture about the use of PTO varies wildly between companies. A friend of mine worked somewhere that supposedly gave 20 days PTO per year, but trying to actually use more than a single day at a time was always met with denials, and even if you did take a Friday off, you were expected to work 10 hours/day the other 4 days of that week to make up for it.

So yeah, when I'm interviewing, I want to know how much time people are taking off, but I don't want the interviewer to think I'm lazy and will be trying to avoid work as much as possible.

View on HN

Your quote of the article made me think I was going to hate the advice, but then I realized you quoted it out of context, here's the full quote:

> People might claim they have “signals” for these things… “if they ask about time off in the first interview then they are never going to be there!” But these are all bullshit. If you’re using signals like these you’re just guessing and turning away good candidates

I had the same thought process.

Maybe we should all ask this question in our interviews so we can avoid these shitty teams that way!

Unfortunately, there are too many different ways to be shitty, so while it would filter out a few, a lot of shitty teams wouldn't be detected by that particular question.

So you're saying we need more questions

I like to ask if their health insurance covers drug rehab. That goes over well.

That’s a pretty huge distinction. Can’t believe he misrepresented the author like that.

Vote with the down arrow. Why is it the first comment in this thread eden is complete nonsense?

He didn't misrepresent or disagree with the author. He added extra commentary on something the author brought up.

The lack of context reltated to what the author wrote is a sin of omission -- because anyone reading a top-level comment that begins with a quote (like this) is, to a first approximation, going to imagine the commenter is responding to the position of the author.

I think that’s a good reason to read the linked article before drawing conclusions about its contents from discussion threads. Having read the article first, I understood immediately that the comment was not misrepresenting anything from the article, and that their commentary bolsters the point made there.

And you don’t necessarily have to read the article before comments. I often don’t! But when I encounter something in comments which seems incongruous with what I’d expect or hope to find in the article, that’s a good prompt to go ahead and read it to gain context.

A sin or lie by omission requires intent, and the OP stated their intent was not to misrepresent the author.

That is not how quotation marks are designed to work.

The words offered up as a quote are meant to represent the views of the person being quoted. In this instance that is clearly not the case.

This is a perfect example of how quotes can be used to misrepresented a view.

To be fair, they used `>` to quote the article, and then included the article's `"` to indicate that the article itself quoted someone else.

If you re-read the comment with the assumption that they were not trying to (mis)represent the author, it still makes sense, so I don't think that was the intention.

There is even a name for that: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity

That was not my intention. I was operating under the assumption that anybody in the comment section had read the article first, since then it would have been known that I wasn't quoting the author, I was quoting something the author quoted.

It's the correct assumption to be made for the comments section to the article you quoted from.

Reading the comments to decide if you want to read the article is also a valid workflow. Although anyone doing that (me included) isn't entitled to complain about quotes not having enough context.

I always look at the HN comments first to see if the article is worth reading, and probably other people do as well. HN loads quickly, doesn't have a paywall/cookie pop-up so it's just a better experience to look here first, and often the comments here are better value anyway.

It's easy to write something with an assumed context that is easily misinterpreted by readers without that context. I think it's unreasonable to interpret that as 'misrepresenting' something unless you can show that the writer knew their audience wouldn't have that context.

Ooof...re-reading my comment, I can certainly see your interpretation.

It definitely was not my intent to paint the author of the article as the person who made that quote.

Unfortunately, I can't edit my comment now.

I was going to not read the whole thing based on your comment, but now I'm reassured

I also regularly give a quick peek to the comments sections before reading the article in order to figure out whether I should bother reading.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't

I was also put off from the article by the quote, but that's on me, not you. The article was great and I agree with everything in it.

As I once told a boss who tried to cancel my already approved vacation in a former job/company, you can't stop me from going. You can only stop me from coming back. Let me know which you prefer. (I really needed that vacation and I was done with bullshit.)

Well put. I'm guessing there were no consequences, other than to lower your already low opinion of the company?

No consequences. I think my opinion truly hit the gutter when I got that boss from hell :).

I had a manager who tried to cancel my vacation the day I was at the airport for the flight. I had given advance notice, and they agreed to it, especially when my vacation days have been maxed out for months. Obviously I went for it anyway, and left the team as soon as I come back.

I recently had a job offer taken away for other atupid reasons that we discussed, but conveniently after I brought up how I should handle billing for time away. Maybe I dodged a bullet.

Usually I am more inclined to hire someone who discusses time off during an interview. It shows that they think about their life-work balance.

I do not need heroes, I need reliable folks who do not burn themselves out.

Or to put it in a cliche... I need people who work to live rather then live to work.

and also importantly people who have family to take care of. If someone comes to me and asks for time off because they have children or partners or parents to take care off and they take that seriously that certainly deserves some respect

would make a better impression on me than someone showing up with a Patrick Bateman business card in hand

plenty of people have families and abuse the crap out of them, and people without families that want one still need to socialize enough to meet people to eventually have a family

book != cover

We interviewed someone a while back and she said (without being asked - asking questions on this line is illegal) she was prepared to leave her husband and kids to move here. It didn't affect our results, but we all agreed in the discussion after that was a negative sign if we were allowed to consider it. She probably would have been good, I hope her search went well.

If you say that during your interview unasked, what kind of company are you looking for?…

> It didn't affect our results

I laughed - HR and legal approved this comment?

Nobody should have to even give a reason for a time off request if it's part of your work agreement.

Sure thing. But I always give reasons. That stuff builds trust.

Even silly things like "hey I'm tired and feeling down, gonna take a couple of days off" builds a lot of rapport.

And unless you're dealing with a huge asshole of a boss, it's never a problem. And if it is, you'd get warned so you can leave faster.

If I ask for time off to sit on my arse all day and play games what would you say?

Who are you, and how did you get into my kitchen?

… hopefully you would be told yes. Paid time off is a basic right in most countries.

This is especially true if the company uses "unlimited"/not-tracked/etc. time. Otherwise, unless you know someone at the place (and even then it can vary by group), you're left with making assumptions about norms that may not be accurate.

Personally, I've never not used all my PTO in a given year and would consider being unable to do so a show stopper.

Unlimited just means they don’t have to pay out when you quit or get laid off, doesn’t it?

Bingo.

Yes, but it also doesn't give any indication of norms around the amount of time off people take.

Expectations may differ from how much time is in a traditional PTO bank but at least in general, it's OK to take accrued time off barring special circumstances.

I worked at a place that gave us 2 weeks and then took an act of Congress and months of social engineering to take even a day.

We got bought out and the new overlords announced they were going to give us five weeks of vacation. There was actual laughter in the room. We can't even use 2 weeks, what's 5 gonna do for us?

Wonder what did you guys produce that required all hands on deck at all time non-stop?

In Norway you're required by law to take four weeks and a day vacation every year. Almost everyone has five weeks vacation time in total. Both you and your employer can demand that three of those are continuous during summer, and most of the country shuts down three weeks in July.

We really need a new standard. Unlimited PTO Min 20 days/year. If you don’t put a number then it’s assumed to be 0

In Australia it is 4 weeks minimum (and 10 days for sick/carers leave). The leave accumulates if you don't take and have to be paid out as per your finally pay if you leave the company. Since it is a liability on balance sheet most companies will demand you to take leave if you have accumulated over 20 days. You can also ask to cash out any leave more than 20 days.

Yeap, PTO is a liability on the books and unlimited PTO is a way to get rid of it.

I live in a state where that's not required, so it doesn't happen anyways. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

When I put in my two-weeks at my last job, my boss said that if I can get all my work transferred in only a couple days (I did, since I basically had almost no work, hence my search for a new job), then I could just fill the rest of my two-week notice time with my remaining PTO. No reason to spend two weeks pretending to work at my computer.

The author's company avoids that "unlimited PTO" pitfall in their job listings by describing the benefit as:

> generous time off

That doesn't necessarily mean it's "unlimited". It could be that you get eight weeks and they just don't say so.

I think most people understand that "unlimited" does not mean you can take half the year off. It means there is no hard limit and it is up to a discussion between you and your manager. 8 weeks is pretty generous.

I imagine it's really hard for employers to balance that, though.

A good employer wants employees to take the time off they need without worrying about running out of PTO to do the stuff they want. They don't want an employee to ever have to think "Shit, if I take that day off for a dentist appointment, then I won't have enough PTO for that weeklong trip to Hawaii!"

But if you try to avoid this scenario by being extremely generous and declare an explicit 8-week PTO policy, then you will have people using 6-8 weeks PTO. Even as someone that strongly values work-life balance and PTO, 8 weeks is pretty nuts. If everyone took 8 weeks PTO every year, that would be pretty costly and could significantly impact productivity. 8 weeks is 1/6th of the year! It would cause chaos with people frequently coming in and out of the office.

So I think an unlimited policy sounds good, but expectations have to be set. Personally, I'd like to see it paired with a 10-day MINIMUM policy, with at least one full week off.

Yes, at my work the manager made it clear he expects people to take time off -- often getting then to take the minimum is a struggle.

I guess to someone in the US, 8 weeks sounds like a lot. But, especially if you consider holidays and sick time, 6-8 weeks total over the course of a year doesn't seem unreasonable. I've been in that range for total nonweekend days off for much of my recent career.

It depends a lot on the company in the US.

If we're including holidays, I've seen plenty of companies that do 4 weeks PTO + 8-9 holidays which is just shy of 6 weeks, and there some that do 5-6 weeks PTO after you've been there for a number of years.

But there are also ones where you basically get no PTO. Presumably (hopefully?) you get paid more money to work at these places, but I've never found them worth investigating.

I don't include holidays in that total.

I've heard the "unlimited PTO" policy referred to jokingly as the "no PTO policy" at some shops.

Most companies are great about it though and encourage PTO.

I once asked hr from a position advertising "unlimited PTO" what was the average of PTO days in the team. She panicked a little bit

Great question.

I really like the policy of "minimum mandatory time off" some companies have. That makes a big statement about where their priorities are in terms of care for their employees' well-being.

The company I'm at effectively has that as part of their unlimited PTO policy, though the timing is company-mandated, being the first week of August and the week between Christmas and New Years, which is a week so many people are likely to take off anyways, it just makes things easier to make everyone take it off.

Going into the week off in August, I wasn't sure how seriously they took it, but sure enough, I didn't get a single e-mail that week other than weekly reports from automated tools. I even checked Slack that Friday, and there wasn't a single message except for the channel where people post pictures of fun stuff they do over the weekend.

It was pretty nice.

I pretty much hate policies that require you to take PTO at specific times. They're almost never the times I would choose to take on my own and are often at times it's difficult to combine into a longer trip.

Having everybody take the time off can be good, but it doesn't achieve the goal of making sure all processes can go as usual while any individual isn't there, as mentioned in your peer comment about banks.

Banks tend to have this policy because there are a lot of ways to steel in ways that you can cover your tracks. But most of those ways require regular effort to cover your tracks, so if you are locked out of the office for at least two weeks someone is likely to notice. Note that this is two continuous business weeks. Nothing happens over Christmas so that doesn't count.

I had a manager who couldn't let anything happen without her input. She went on vacation and participated in everything via Slack for two weeks. Making her disconnect might have helped more people realize how much she was ... "translating" requirements and work status between her reports and other teams.

In many jurisdictions, there's a statutory minimum amount of annual leave; you can take less but then the difference must be paid in lieu. (Versus if you give 30d, 18d is minimum, and employee takes 20d, then you don't have to do anything. Obviously could have a company policy of paying it if you want.)

So, a more cynical take on mandatory time off, and something that absolutely does happen, is that they'd just rather not have the work than have to pay extra for it.

Also common is not rolling over into the next year, so use it or lose it.

If the company thinks they have a good story around PTO they will sell it in the first interview. As an interviewee it's very important to me and I will definitely ask questions, but later in the process when I have more leverage. I don't think someone asking in the first interview is lazy, just perhaps naive. They'd be better to ask about work/life balance and expectations in general and then probe what the interviewer answers back.

At my company you get one interview, if you get a second interview it is because we liked you but someone else was better and passed your resume on to a different team. One thing we do is take every candidate to lunch (COVID has changed this of course) with someone who doesn't have input into if you are hired: so feel free to ask those questions that you are not sure about.

Having done a few interviews, nobody knows what questions to ask.

I always leave time off conversations to the offer negotiation stage when I make it past the interview stage. I want my time off in writing and if it's not enough I'll ask for much more money before I accept.

> lunch ... with someone who doesn't have input

I think part of this could be that they don't know whether to believe that you truly have no input.

When I was an interviewee, my lunch escort told me they didn't, and I was pretty sure it wasn't a devious trick to get me to let my guard down, but I had no way of knowing for sure. I also thought, if there isn't a formal process, maybe if I say something too dumb or wrong, they would still mention it to someone. So I stuck to really superficial topics.

Then I got hired and later served as a lunch escort. Now knowing the process and knowing there truly is no input, I tried to convince the interviewee, and he didn't seem to believe me just like I didn't when I was in his shoes.

Yeah, in principle it's a great idea. Realistically no rational candidate would believe that the lunch escort has no input.

Even if they have "no input", if the interviewee did or said something really extreme it would be reported back.

Maybe, but taking the time to talk to hr means it would be awful before someone would go through the effort.

Maybe better than a single 'lunch escort' would be a group of friends, or a team the candidate isn't being considered for or something.

So that there's some joviality (or not! Something to get an impression of) without putting such one on one pressure on the candidate so that it still feels like an interview. Candidate can just sit and eat even and enjoy others' conversation.

Correct. It is in the interest of the company to sell you on all the perks and they should do that up front.

It is in your interest to view PTO as any other form of compensation and to make those compensation demands after you have demonstrated how valuable you are to the company via the interview process. You don't start negotiating salaries before the first interview, because that's a bad strategy.

How often do people really negotiate PTO? I have been flatly refused the times I have asked about it. It seems to be much more difficult than negotiating salary or other comp. Companies handle those individually so they are used to negotiating on them. PTO is often handled at a departmental or company level and companies can be hesitant to make exceptions for an individual employee.

I have seen salary bumps offered when additional PTO is requested, which can be calculated into x days of unpaid leave.

Spot on. I always ALWAYS ask about time off during interviews. But I don't ask the manager because I found they always try to stretch the truth or reframe shit.

I just ask the individual contributors how much PTO they've taken in the past 12 months. It's more or less an open question, doesn't necessarily means I'm interested in taking too much PTO. You'd be surprised of how honest people are. I had interviewees even start venting about burnout. Someone from an e-commerce company (not Amazon) told me he's gonna take a month off as he took 0 vacation days for the past 1.5 years (!!!). He admitted he's probably going to get in trouble but he doesn't care anymore.

You should ask about vacation and sick leave both, not generic PTO. The two can be very different, or the same thing.

I get vacation that I'm required to take every year. I have unlimited sick leave - but I actually have to be sick to use it (going to the dentist for a regular checkup counts as sick though)

Someone who replies with that kind of hyperbole is just saying they don’t want anyone who is going to take more than a bare minimum of PTO.

If you’re dealing with a reasonable person, you should be able to preface the question by explaining how having sufficient time off helps you do your best work and avoid burnout, and that you want to clarify expectations up front to make sure that you and the company are an ideal match.

It’s also of course a bit less risky to bring up this sort of thing a bit later in the interview process when you’ve built a bit of a rapport with the interviewer and ideally demonstrated your value somewhat.

> If you’re dealing with a reasonable person, you should be able to preface the question by explaining how having sufficient time off helps you do your best work and avoid burnout

If you are dealing with a reasonable person, hopefully you want have to explain any of that.

Sure, I've just found that it can be helpful to clarify intent is all, especially when you're dealing with someone you've just met - e.g. maybe the interviewer is mostly reasonable, but is scarred from past negative experiences with colleagues who were legitimately lazy. This phrasing might help such a person understand where you're coming from a bit more easily.

If you need to clarify intent for something as fundamental as work/life balance, wouldn’t that be (at best) a yellow flag?

This needs to not be a taboo. It’s very important how many days I get off, how many hours I’m expected to work and if I’m expected to work nights and weekends. Those are like my top 3 concerns, I don’t really care about your snacks or vision or stack to be honest.

But they do care about those things - a lot. And since being employed requires both parties are happy with the deal, it is something worth considering that obviously not caring about the things they care about could cause them concern.

It goes both ways of course - them not caring about your well-being is obviously just a big a red flag for a candidate.

If you are not dealing with a reasonable person you don't want to work there anyway.

Have you ever had a date where the first thing someone talks about is something like having babies, or going on and on about their ex, or they want to know how much you make in the first 15 minutes? It is not a pleasant feeling, and makes it pretty clear what their priorities are (and aren’t). Namely that having some idea who YOU are and if they like you doesn’t really matter much.

If someone starts the interview process talking about about the vacation amounts (and not much else), that isn’t that different. Chances are at that point they don’t know folks on the team, and vice versa, they don’t know about the company (much), or what the job would likely look like, it may entail, or really much of anything.

It’s just weird, and a bit concerning, in the same way that someone might ask about perks and pay without even trying to understand any of those factors too. Because those factors matter too, a lot.

I’m not saying asking about vacation is a round file thing - rather I have seen, and can definitely imagine, scenarios where it is or would be a pretty major red flag.

If part of the general background comp discussion after someone has spent some effort figuring things out, or as part of the initial listing? Of course, that’s not weird at all. And giving a pay range for a role is of course necessary to avoid people wasting their time.

So ‘it depends’

Interview is not a date. Its a formal meeting where parties are trying to acheive something concrete. Hire a good employee, find a good job.

If someone starts off with asking about essential thing that is important factor for them it means that its a dealbreaker issue for them.

Whats the point of interview if they know there is no flexi time, and you only look for flexitime jobs??

Its actually a matter-of-fact approach that goes straight into details and saves everyone time. Given it was properly delivered I would be more inclined to hire engineer like that.

If properly delivered? Sure. As many folks seem to be indicating in these threads, as the primary or even sole topic of interest to them?

Would you then consider that a plus?

They know what they want, they do go around the bush doing pleasantries and waiting for the script to get to the place where they can ask the question they wanted to ask in the first place.

To me person like that will be first to raise a hand when something is not right in the project. It might also be a good indication of goal oriented thinking, they know whats important and prioritize to achieve goal

As long as they’re not just talking about nothing but what they want, then they aren’t the problematic cases I was referring to.

The few times I’ve had someone do that, the last thing those folks did was (as one put it) “look for problems” by raising project issues or really doing anything but the bare minimum. A bare minimum that had to be clearly articulated several times to the several people I’ve run across - who one then specifically asked EXACTLY what I meant by ‘keep the system running’, so they could exclude a bunch of long term maintenance work from that minimum shrug

IMO, if someone is curious and cares about what they are working on, it shows, and we would never even have this discussion about them - even if they did ask about EXACTLY what the vacation policy was.

I remember a friend who wanted to work for apple. He wanted to take time off before he started.

They said "hey, we shutdown anyway during the holidays you can take it then, just start now"

and of course, did he get to take that time off? NO.

Think about it the other way, if they reject a candidate for asking, it's their way of saying "The PTO situation is terrible here".

Yeah, if I ever discovered that a potential employer took this view of PTO then I wouldn't want to work there anyway. Huge red flag.

Small point: The author of the article does NOT have this attitude. He's calling it out as a bullshit attitude...FWIW

Whoops! I should have read the article. Edited.

I'm hearing answers about why they would be either inclined to or not inclined to hire based on that question. My opinion is that it's just a question. Answer it and move on. Don't read for patterns where they don't exist. This also reflects lot of unconscious biases we might be nurturing by having strong opinions about these.

And then there are cases where you can take PTO, but you end up having to work during that time anyway.

It seems you live in US. In other parts of the world it's perfectly normal to have time off and benefit from it. But as a compensation wages are higher.

However, I prefer having some free time for myself than accumulate a large amount of money.

Agree. If I were the interviewer I would probably do the same. Asking about how people spend their life can also reveal a lot about their personality as well.

Asking about how people spend their life is often illegal to ask. If you don't know the local laws only ask job related questions. This is why my company gives me a script of questions I'm allowed to ask - to get the conversation started on legal topics in ways that are unlikely to stray into illegal areas. (more than once I've had illegal information given to me - but I didn't ask so that is okay)

Illegal information isn't anything that will affect how someone does the job in general. You learn about personality, but I hope you can deal with those personalities anyway.

Thank God I was born in a poor socialist country and I don't have to think about obvious stuff like my days off

Edit: sorry if that sounded offending but I can't wrap my head around the fact that people in US have problems of this kind

I think time off is very important, but you don't need to ask it during the interviews. Just wait until they give an offer and then ask for what you want.

agree: if you don't get the job it doesn't matter, and until they offer you the job you don't have any leverage.

so spend how much of my time and theirs going through the entire interview process to find out the answer to a trivial question that could make or break any final decision?

....Or...and hear me out here...fuck that noise.

if people are making snap judgement about candidates from asking a basic company culture/hr question during the interview question, then the candidate winds up having dodged a bullet one way or the other.

Nah, just like salary, I'm getting a ball park range on that topic before bothering to come into the office for an interview. Otherwise, you're wasting other people's time and your own.

Maybe it’s just where I’m at in my career and priorities, but I’m way more inclined to put work/life balance first and leave comp discussion for negotiation.

I make plenty. I could make more, sure. Could I be more aggressive at making more? Absolutely. But I care far more about being happy where I work. And anyone trying to hire me knows or should know the market well enough they’re not going to make an absurdly lowball offer.

This is so strange. I have 40 hrs /week (registered, if I work over time I can take days off to compensate for) and 30 days of vacation per year (on doctor's note sick days are not taken from the vacation-days account).

It's plenty of time for my employer to extract value from me. If the org wants me to work more, they can make me be in meetings less.

The context is key. First interview.

The issue isn’t taking time off, it’s that the prospective employee’s head is up their proverbial ass. First interview is propspecting. If you were selling a product, if the customer is asking about the return policy before even selecting an option, it’s a similar signal.

When you’re in a subsequent interview talking about the benefit plan, salary, etc, that’s where that sort of question is appropriate - you’re finalizing the deal.

I find this line of thinking incredibly bizarre. If PTO is important to the candidate, why should they waste their time spending hours interviewing only to find out that the work-life balance in this position isn't going to work for them? To you that's having their head up their ass? God that's strange to me. I'm sure glad I don't work for people who make sweeping judgements like that.

You’re looking for a job. You have 10 minutes to ask questions that make you stand out, to a individual who probably cannot answer the question.

You do you.

That's so spot on. Your Q&A session is your chance to learn something real and convey what you care about. A good question might me like "what's the hardest thing you had to do this year" or "how did you make decisions in cases of disagreement?" or something like that. It shows you're thinking about the job and whether you're a right fit.

High quality questions say something about you. Low quality questions do too. Would you ever hire someone whose question is like "so, do a lot of hotties work here?" Probably not, because ... what kind of person is this? Similarly, if the person who doesn't have an offer and doesn't know much about the role is hyper-focused on their time-off, something is off too. PTO is important, it's just a thing you need to be thinking about once you have an offer and think the job is otherwise a match, not as like the #1 question.

Different priorities I guess. Personally I’m exchanging my time for money and would like to know what kind of a deal I’m getting. I’m too old for all the fluff bullshit.

Yes yes yes I’m sure you’re changing the world and creating super exciting CRUD

Hey, nothing wrong with CRUD; it's what makes the world go around.

Not that that's anything like a reason not to ask what you need to ask, and turn a Q&A into a brownnosing session.

I know, I’m creating CRUD as we speak

> Different priorities I guess. Personally I’m exchanging my time for money and would like to know what kind of a deal I’m getting. I’m too old for all the fluff bullshit.... Yes yes yes I’m sure you’re changing the world and creating super exciting CRUD

You know, I actually found this comment clarifying. I don't look at work as solely exchanging time for money (don't get me wrong, I care about money a lot, I just want to get a lot more than money out of my work) so I was coming at it from a different direction.

I do think there's an employee-employer compatibility in play here. Because I care about engagement/mission, I tend to work at companies with a strong culture and seek the same when I interview others - but yeah it's a good reminder that this is not for what everyone wants/needs.

Depends. HR does everything they can to ensure I don't consider the questions I'm asked when deciding if we hire them. They can't stop me, but it is tricky to shoehorn your questions into their form so I don't try.

Employment is a partnership, not servitude. That means the employer needs to convince the employee to work for them. I'm fine being rejected by a place that will treat me like shit.

Isn’t a partnership supposed to be mutual?

You seem to think that it should be one sided, with them doing all the selling/figuring though, which seems to be pretty problematic in other ways.

For some folks, at some times, that can certainly work. But it sounds like you want them to be in servitude to you, not an actual partnership.

Working a full time job with family and hobbies is incredibly time consuming. I'm not going to squeeze in 6-10 hours of interviews for a company before I ask an important questions about company culture, PTO, benefits, salary etc. I'll ask the questions I find important in the first interview, if it isn't a good fit I just saved me hours of time interviewing at a company I don't want to work at - and I just saved hours of interviewing an employee they don't want to have.

Umm exactly? I’d rather get my own red flags out of the way rather than waste 8h of everyone’s time to find out the company has a shitty culture. I also checksum the compensation and on-call and other things in the first interview

Like it or not, when interviewing for a job, you're doing a sales presentation. A good sales presentation doesn't open by saying what you want. It opens by finding out what the customer's problems are, then you demonstrate that you can solve them, then when the customer is sold the price negotiation starts.

If you want to vet a company's benefits and culture beforehand, which is a good idea, do the homework first and research it before getting into the sales process.

> Like it or not, when interviewing for a job, you're doing a sales presentation

Maybe in the 90s. Nowadays it's becoming very balanced in the way that companies are the ones who are doing a sales presentation as well.

The company buys, the candidate sells. This is proven by which way the money flows - from the company to the employee.

But both have to agree. You're right that a company will have to be willing to offer enough to get the candidate willing to sell.

I recall interviewing a candidate long ago who was only interested in what the company could do for him. He never displayed any interest in the company or what he could do for the company. I recommended no hire.

After all, what would you think if you went to a car dealership and their salesman would only talk about how much you had to pay and how much the dealership wanted your money, and never talked about what the car would do for you?

I understand that I have to bullshit people like you in interviews and pretend to care.

Picking a career you're interested in and company you're interested in makes things a lot easier than having to maintain a phony facade.

A word of caution - interviewers tend to interview people an order of magnitude or two more times than candidates do interviews. What this means is they learn to detect the bullshit. A friend of mine is in the recruiting business. He interviews candidates all day, and has for many years. He told me that detecting bullshitters and liars is a crucial job skill, and he's pretty good at it.

Maybe, but who dreams about envelopes? Yet society would fall apart without someone making them. The same can be said for the vast majority of things most companies make - it needs to be made, but it is in reality boring.

All companies have interesting problems to solve along the way. But most have boring products. I can work for most companies because even though the product is boring I know I will find something interesting. (the exceptions are companies doing something I find immoral)

> who dreams about envelopes?

There are all kinds of people. That said, if envelopes isn't your bag, nobody is making you interview with them. Find something that does interest you. Me, I'd rather be a lion tamer than a tax accountant (yes, I have the hat), but the guy who does my tax accounting loves it.

> I know I will find something interesting.

And there you go.

I don’t have to maintain a facade. Most companies don’t actually give a hoot if you buy into the CEOs blabberings. They care if I can get my tasks done on time and with decent quality. It’s all a part of the Gervais principle

You're right, but people know that someone interested in the work is likely to do a better job. Also, my point is about selling your ability to solve the company's problems rather than focusing on "what do I get".

Besides, why not pick a career that interests you? It makes for a better life.

And they know they need to not hire people who think this way, as it is inevitably cancer for whatever team or product they are on.

Why not find something you actually care about instead of spending all your time and effort faking it?

This made me chuckle because occasionally, for some things I buy, return policy might be my primary concern (more important than even having the item in the first place).

You're reading way too deeply in to signals that could mean anything. At the risk of coming across as antagonistic - I'll probably start asking about PTO in the first interview even though it tends to be irrelevant to me, to avoid working with organizations that foster this mindset.

PTO is not the return policy, it’s a core feature of the product (in this case the job).

There's a delicate balance. I've worked on teams where it felt like I could never rely on one team member because he was using sick leave, personal days, PTO, and going to appointments at every opportunity. I don't hold it against him personally, but professionally it's hard to estimate workload for a given task if one person on a team of 5 is hardly ever actually doing work.

I've also worked on teams that, same as your friend, heavily implied that taking longer leave breaks were a no-go.

As with all things, it's a balance.

The problem is not what's important to you when you do an interview. It's not a friendly club, it's the guys who will pay your rent for a while, just act like you pretend to understand this, and ask by side channel, out of sheer strategy.

You CAN refuse once the contract arrives for signature, the interview is a lot also for the company to have argument to sell you to management as a worthy investment.

I admit I never take a guy talking about time off myself, because while I agree it's an important contractual part and something we must give as generously as we can, the fact he asked the first minute of our relationship means it's going to be painful for him and for us, because we're not a paradise company, things can be tough and high pressure (investment bank), people not nice on purpose and sometimes you have to do the right thing rather than the perfect thing, so compliant positive nearly sacrificial profiles will be happily surprised by what's still good while a dude asking "and holidays, 20 or 25 days" the first day will be very sad and burnt out by all the shit.

> things can be tough and high pressure (investment bank)

> people not nice on purpose

Sounds like a miserable place to work.

I've considered places like that - but none would offer me 5x market pay. If they would pay me 5x what I'm worth - I can save the extra for 5 years and then retire.

I'm not sure if I'd take such a job if it was offered, but at least it would be an interesting offer.

Sounds like a toxic workplace environnement. I'm grateful that my bank/employer cares about our work/life balance. A burnout employee is not a productive employee.

I've stopped applying to place where they are not upfront with their PTO / Salary brackets. It sounds like you don't want people to take their PTO.

This sounds absolutely dreadful. You’re doing everyone you turn away a huge favor, and I feel bad for anyone you don’t. If I got even a hint of this in an interview I’d be out the door without letting you complete a sentence.

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