When I was learning how to interview better, I just applied to companies I ethically didn't agree with.
Yes, it's legal to do, but isn't it a shade hypocritical?
Aka, who cares?
Are you serious?
>Aka, who cares?
Surely the company would rather not waste the money.
You either accept that "people who take your free stuff might not be profitable" or you do a better job screening who you give free stuff to. Zoom exists.
Hard to find the crime or tort in the other thing? I've been flown places for interviews, I don't recall ever contractually agreeing to consider working at the place, and I can't imagine how the heck you'd prove that (unless your interviewee was an absolute idiot and tweeted "Woo free trip!").
I suppose you'd be jerk or something if it were a non-profit, but I don't think anyone ought to lose sleep over this high-risk business decision being abused, given the razor thin line between "I'm going to screw this company" and "Oh, looks like this place isn't for me."
Personally though, I don't do this, nor would I. I think it's too easy become corrupt from doing things this way.
You don't force them to do it, you don't lie in your resume that they decided was a desirable candidate. If they can't convince you to come on board, that's on them; hiring is a mutual negotiation.
When you apply, the implication is that you might accept an offer and that if you don't, it will be based on things that you learn during the interview, rather than on things you've determined before the interview. Just because you didn't sign a piece of paper saying 'I claim there is some chance of my accepting an offer' and just because you didn't literally utter any untrue words doesn't change that; human society depends on these unsaid implications to function. If you deliberately flout them, you are abusing social trust for your own benefit.
(And enough of abusing trust leads to a low trust world. If enough people thought like you, companies would start requiring signed statements that you agree with the ethics of the company and that you could be sued if you are found to have wasted the company's money.)
>If they can't convince you to come on board, that's on them; hiring is a mutual negotiation.
If you know very well, ahead of time, that there's nothing practical that they could do to hire you, coming to an interview is abusing the system. The fact that it's not literally impossible for them to convince you to take the job doesn't change this.
If I was really interested in the job, and they end up hiring another candidate, I just wasted 4 days flying to New York while they never told me my odds, what they thought of other candidates' resumes before I flew out, or even how many there were. Probably not even give me feedback on their final decision. Is that fair?
Because they chose to spend some money, candidates have to repay them with complete honesty through the process, even when they don't have to do the same? This is not a fair negotiation scheme either. At some point, you have to accept that both sides understand how the system work, and are making deliberate decisions to get the most they can out of it. Don't forget that one side gets to do that professionally full time out of a dedicated budget, and that's not you.
There are things factored into budgets that you're still not supposed to do. Stores have a cost set aside for shoplifting. That doesn't mean you're supposed to go shoplifting.
>They are also always free to change their circumstances to hire you; it is never "literally impossible" to hire someone...
I was using that phrase in exactly the opposite way from how you seem to have misread it. The fact that it's not literally impossible doesn't matter, because it's practically impossible.
>If I was really interested in the job, and they end up hiring another candidate... Is that fair?
Proper social skills requires understanding what's going on in social situations even if you have not been told everything. In our world, one of those situations is knowing that you are supposed to be willing to accept the chance of not getting the job when you spend your time applying.
In the same situation, the company is not supposed to be willing to accept the risk of the jobseeker fraudulently expressing interest in a job in order to get the free plane flight.
Now, the thing is, these are unsaid. You are won't find a big sign saying "chance of not getting job acceptable, chance of fake jobseeker unacceptable". If you're one of those Internet literalists who says "well, they didn't explicitly prohibit it", both of those look pretty similar. This is why social skills are a thing. If you're at a party and the host says "take as much soda as you want", you're not supposed to get a box, put ten bottles of soda in it, and take that out to your car. That's not acceptable, and you're supposed to know it's not acceptable, without being told.
Obviously we disagree on what is proper... both for hiring and for Internet forums.
And you did that on the forum, so people get to point it out on the forum.
Then you assume your own conclusion I use that to lecture me and call me names. This is just not how arguing works.
You and I are obviously of a different mind, that does not prove that I'm wrong and that certainly does not mean you get to be this rude. I am sorry you didn't convince me. Now let's go our separate way, though I feel another Kafka trap is coming...
Your story reads like sour grapes. The company you interviewed at was not dishonest with you, so it doesn't justify being dishonest back with them (or other companies).
There is nothing further to be said. This is no longer an argument. We disagree, and that's fine, you don't have to be rude about it.
I receive emails every week from AWS and others offering me to join this and that team, this and that "confidential project", asking me to call them or send a CV on every email I use on GitHub, PyPI, or HN. Would I feel bad to finally accept their non-stop pleas and tell them "no" face-to-face? Absolutely not.
For your own information, I have never done it, to date.
But outsiders may agree with the interviewers ethics, and would see wasting their time as unethical.