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Comment by cj | Hacker News Reader

While I sympathize with the OP's complaints, as an employer (small 15 person company) I would defend most of these practices (employment verification, reference checks, university degree verification, etc)

I've (literally) employed people who were working 3 jobs without any of the other employers knowing about one another. We were being scammed. This happened not just once, but with 2 people (1 full stack engineer who is a HN regular, and another was an account manager).

This was at a 15 person company, and 2 out of the 15 were working multiple full-time W-2 jobs all with full time benefits. At the end they were both let go once we discovered the deception (their downfall was neither of them were meeting productivity expectations, not getting their work done)

After this, we heavily beefed up our pre-employment screening, which is all of what this person is complaining about.

Unfortunately there are people in the job market who scam companies. To find and weed these people out before they make it in the door, we need to do things like verify your degree (even if it was 20 years ago) not because we care whether you have a degree, but as a test to see if you were truthful on your resume.

Edit: Also, if anyone requests reference checks from your current employer, you should say no. It's not standard practice to check current employer, only prior employers (at least in the US).

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Agreed. We hired someone who simply lied about getting their degree.

OP mentioned having to bring a diploma, and to me that does indeed seem ridiculous.

In the USA, the National Student Clearinghouse [1] provides degree verification that is the standard. It is much more reliable than someone showing a piece of paper.

How do I know this? The hire who lied about graduating also produced a falsified diploma, which blew me away. I confirmed it was false because when I checked with the university in question, they pointed out some things that confirmed although it was similar, they never would have issued one like this. (And the registrar confirmed this person did indeed never graduate)

[1] https://nscverifications.org/

Isn't it criminal offence to provide fake documents?

In most jurisdictions, you bet. It’s also a criminal offense to lie about material job history or qualifications.

It’s rarely prosecuted outside of high profile cases though.

So employers beware and all.

"Ex-Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson claimed he had computer science and accounting degrees from Stonehill College in Easton, Massachusetts. In fact, he only had the accounting degree." https://www.marketwatch.com/story/5-big-shots-who-lied-on-th...

The sad part was he was actually a very competent CEO and after he left they had a revolving door of CEOs until they admitted failure and sold the company.

This happens quite often. We had a mayor in the past who claimed to have a degree in civics or something from a university, when that was found out to not be true, they issued a press release trying to save face. He was re-elected, somehow.

I get the anecdotal impression that bad deeds in politics mostly serve as confirmation for those who already don't like the politician and are largely ignored or excused by those who do like him/her.

Same issue with Erdoğan. He was never able to prove that he had a university diploma. Plus, while he opens criminal cases for absurd tweets he never went to court for people who claimed that his diploma is fake.

*citation needed. You’re gonna have to be a lot more specific

I would have no idea where my actual physical diplomas are.

Most, and possibly all, universities have a registrar's office through which you can order copies of transcripts/diplomas. I only know this because I had to submit transcripts as part of a job application, decades after graduating :)

Attending university is one of the biggest regrets of my life. I'd rather find a different job than have to have any contact with that scam world again.

In the U.S., almost all registrars offices now just use the National Clearinghouse service. Many schools will simply refer you or your browser to their site. They also track student enrollment, so if you are a company paying for somebody to go to school and want to verify it, you can, or if somebody claims they are close to finishing you can verify enrollment through the Clearinghouse.

Oh this is exactly what I am looking for. I wonder if UK and EU has something similar.

I the UK, I used at some point an Apostille service to verify my UK issued degree. This additional document helps on the verification of authenticity of the degree.

Glad it's helpful! That's why I shared it - I had never heard of it until someone with more HR background than me recommended it.

> Agreed. We hired someone who simply lied about getting their degree.

Were there any problems with their performance? I mean, why do you care about their diploma if they were able to pass interview and then perform on the job afterwards?

If they lied to get the job, they've demonstrated a willingness to be dishonest for personal gain. What will they do on the job if an opportunity presents itself?

~Everybody lies to get jobs. The interview process demands it. "Why do you want to work here?" being a common one. In most situations you can't answer that honestly without being rejected, and there are other similar, very-common questions. You're supposed to be socially-aware enough to tell the right sort of lie. 10:1 you've repeatedly been lied to regarding "tell me about a time that..." questions, if you ask those, and had no idea it was a lie (though you may have caught, or suspected, some poorly-done ones). Why? The good story will beat the truth every time, unless you've lucked into your truth also being a good story. At a minimum most of the ones that give a good impression have had a lot of editing and embellishment.

I do agree that outright fabricating credentials is a worse lie, but the job market and interview process is morally corrosive by nature.

I totally agree with this, In particular with the typical "Why do you want to work for this company?" or "Why are you leaving your current job?"

The honest and most common answer "I want more money" makes you look greedy and you had to come up with a more acceptable excuse, Like "Your product is very interesting", "I'm "Looking for new challenges".

kind of like the initial steps of dating where you kind of know what the other is up to but you don't talk about it until you had evaluated each other and decided that "yeah I want to be your girlfriend" or "yeah I want to hire you" and then you finally can take your mask off and talk with honesty.

Monkey brain fault, I guess

There is no need to lie though. "I didn't feel that my compensation matched my responsibilities, for e.g. ---- "

These are just normal human things. Like for e.g. How to give negative feedback to a direct report, while not discouraging them to keep trying harder and motivating them. You need to have tact and be strategic in how you approach that conversation.

The common retort "Well I just want it straight without sugar coating, corporate speak sucks!" doesn't address that not everyone is the same, and you need to apply a layer of human sensitivity to certain types of conversations. The more you know someone the more you will be familiar with their mental state, and the more freely you can say things without this 'emotional handshake'.

You can answer most 'tell me about a time' questions without outright lying. A question can be taken at face value, or you can recognize the intention behind the question, and rehearse an answer that goes to the heart of the issue. The concern from the other side is perhaps a reassurance that the candidate can think critically, or how they work in a team, or handle conflict, etc.

> The good story will beat the truth every time, unless you've lucked into your truth also being a good story.

I'd argue this is about story telling capability. Telling a story well, is an art. Chances are you've seen a number of stand up comics tell an otherwise factually boring story - but somehow made it hilarious. This is why there is the "they were so funny when they said 'foobar'....guess you had to be there."

The problem here though is now your interview process is evaluating stroytelling skills rather than job skills per se - well unless you're looking to hire a good storyteller. On the other hand, interpersonal communication is important...

Exactly this.

> What will they do on the job if an opportunity presents itself?

What kind of opportunity are we talking?

I think it highly depends on the circumstances. Job performance and lying to gain entry don't necessarily correlate. The "dishonest for personal gain" argument goes out the window in this profit-driven world. If anything, it's encouraged with the precedence already being set by the employer market itself. Employers will cheat candidates out of whatever they can get away with; that's the norm not the exception.

If a candidate has more work experience than their would-be college educated peers, you've effectively shut out a valuable asset for no good reason. Maybe they've assessed the position and determined it's an arbitrary barrier for getting hired, but honesty would be far too risky. If they passed your interview, then either your education requirement is unnecessary or your interview process sucks and you're allowing bad candidates in regardless. Maybe this trait of fabricating education credentials means they're actually resourceful and understand risk assessment?

FWIW I'm a high school drop out, no degree. I work in FAANG and I'm going on 17+ years of work experience in tech. Lack of degree has never been an issue for me. If I see the requirement there, I still apply and each time the employer has waived it. I'm just playing devils advocate here.

Well, I'm horrified by this. I don't want anyone to have such easy access to such personal information of mine without my consent.

The opt-out process for the site is detailed here: https://www.studentclearinghouse.org/privacy-policy/

Crtl+F for 'opt-out" and you can find the email address there and other information.

As the FTC mentions on their website [1]:

> Most college registrars will confirm dates of attendance and graduation, as well as degrees awarded and majors, upon request

And for the National Student Clearinghouse, you do need a person's name, school, and date of birth. Although date of birth might not be wildly difficult to get, it is an extra piece of info that won't surface if finding someone's name randomly on the internet or in a phone book.

The report is very plain - it confirms basically what the FTC quote mentions.

Given that registrars give out that info, are you still concerned? If so, I'm interested in what you would propose as a solution if you are applying to a job and they want to confirm that what you have stated on your resume is true. Perhaps a system like credit scores use where you can lock your credit against being checked, and then unlock it for a short time window?

I'm sure HN can think of all kinds of clever approaches to allowing this, and perhaps the clearinghouse website will indeed change significantly sometime.

I consider the clearinghouse's approach as similar to the insecurity of checking account numbers. Basically, if someone has your name, checking account, and routing number, they can ask a bank for money from your account. As an account holder, I've asked my bank, "Can I tell you to not give money to certain parties from my account?" And their answer was a flat no. I am much more concerned with that, and nothing is changing on that front anytime soon. At least I can move my money somewhere without a checking account, but it's still fairly hard to live without a checking account somewhere.

[1] https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/avoid-fake-d...

> Given that registrars give out that info, are you still concerned?

Yes, absolutely. It should not be legal for registrars to be doing that either IMO. I don't generally think that it should be legal to build businesses on the exchange of third party information without the direct consent of the third party in each specific instance.

In times past, perhaps a reasonable approach would have been to fax a photocopy of the alleged degree to the registrar or clearinghouse for pass/fail verification.

These days the individual ought to be able to initiate the registrar or clearinghouse to send a digitally signed document to the company.

> You are not fucking suppose to verify or reference check on me before I even had my interview or offer. So now my boss / management knows I am job hunting?

OP is okay with employment verification, but it should wait until after the offer is signed. Any offer will be pulled back if the job seeker lied about their job history

We're talking references here, so this gets very sticky. They're not just wondering "were you employed at X from dates Y to Z", they want to get that person's opinion on what kind of employee you are, then make a judgement call on whether that's the kind of employee they want to hire.

If you move a judgement call of that kind to after the offer stage, then the offer letter becomes a lot less meaningful.

Yes. I give references that aren’t problematic from a tipping off current employer perspective. If references are going to factor into the employment decision it sort of has to be before the offer or what’s the point?

> If you move a judgement call of that kind to after the offer stage, then the offer letter becomes a lot less meaningful.

That may be true, but if a potential employer gets current employer references before any offer is made, the candidate is at serious risk of unemployment (let go and no offer to replace it), or an uncomfortable change in relationships at the old job. The risk to the candidate is high.

Besides, many offers are lowball without much room for negotiation. Why would a candidate take the risk, not even knowing if there's a good enough offer contingent on the reference?

If a potential employer asked for a current-employer reference from me before making any offer, I would terminate the process even if I expect a great reference, because it shows the employer doesn't care about (or doesn't think about) the fundamentals from an employee's perspective, and that is a big clue that it's likely to be an awful place to work in other ways.

A good employer doesn't act as if employer and employee are in equal positions with the same to lose. I've been jerked around by too many employers and potential ones who don't care about effect on their employees, sometimes at large financial cost to myself, so these days I'd just drop the company if they seem oblivious to how things affect the candidate. There are plenty of good ones who also pay well, and those are also the ones I'd rather help succeed.

If it's just about the amount of the offer or level of the position, they always have the option to revise it up after they get a reference they like.

> they want to get that person's opinion on what kind of employee you are

At least in the US such reference checks are impossible these days. To avoid litigation any serious company is going to:

a.) have the call directed to an HR rep rather than the manager or any other employees

b.) the HR rep will only verify title and dates of employment.

I haven't heard of anyone doing the type of reference check you're describing since the very early 2000s.

Unless you have a clause in your employment contract forbidding employees from having another job you have no right to care if they do as long as they are meeting productivity requirements.

They weren’t meeting productivity requirements.

And how are you supposed to know that before hiring them?

Huh?

This entire thread is about pre-screening job applicants so you know before hiring them that they're working multiple W2 jobs so you don't get "scammed" and accidentally hire somebody who is already working multiple full time jobs. But, it's not a scam unless they're not meeting productivity requirements. How do you know the person you're going to hire is not going to meet those productivity requirements before hiring them?

The sub thread you are replying to was from someone with specific anecdotes where people whom they had hired were not meeting performance goals and it turns out were working for multiple companies.

The relevance here is many managers have experience with employees who seemed fine in interviews and barely met performance bars (or just flat out didn’t) despite working just one job.

It’s well within their legal rights (and a useful heuristic!) to not hire someone because they’re not comfortable rolling the dice on a candidate being able to meet performance criteria because they’re working multiple jobs. Because working multiple jobs is a lot harder than working one job on pretty much any metric one can think of, and is not a protected class or status.

They’ll also reap any blowback or rewards from doing so, including difficulty finding candidates, or not.

It's also well within their legal rights to not hire somebody because the hiring manager doesn't like people who wear plaid. Not such a useful heuristic.

It depends entirely on the industry and job of course. Managers (and owners) prosper or not based on a number of factors, one being their ability to hire and retain employees that bring value to the company in excess of their costs.

A manager considering it for something like a software dev position would just be hurting themselves, though likely only a little as I doubt ‘candidate wears plaid’ comes up often.

If it was someone hiring for a fashion designer position, or a public facing spokesperson position, plaid could be a huge plus or a huge minus (I’m guessing huge minus as of right now for most), and what the candidate wears and how the they present themselves relative to current fashions and norms is a huge and important element that the hiring manager would be incompetent to not consider.

That said, there are plenty of managers who are pretty incompetent.

> How do you know the person you're going to hire is not going to meet those productivity requirements before hiring them?

You don't. But you never know that for sure. The whole interview process is just gathering data to make an estimate about whether or not the person will successfully perform in the role. Them having another job would be almost the strongest indicator I could imagine that they will not be successful.

> Them having another job would be almost the strongest indicator I could imagine that they will not be successful.

As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, many people successfully work multiple jobs.

Firstly I'd imagine there's actually a minuscule number of people who actually do that successfully. But even so, the fact that some can pull it off doesn't mean that it's not a very strong indicator toward poor performance.

You can't. But the op had already hired scammers, and they were not meeting the productivity requirements.

Or, you can try to guesstimate that by checking with previous employers. Which was the OP's point I guess, or alternatively the OP's point was "I give my employees a 40 hours/week contract, so they can't really have another job (and still perform adequately, or simply they can't depending on the law of the country)"

Do note that in Europe these have been (severely depending on where you exactly live) restricted. In my case for instance you need an objective reason to limit someone from having other employment which is quite restrictive in what you can limit as an employer. There is no case law yet (as it's very recent) so we will see what happens in practice.

How are benefits impacted when an employee’s hours are reduced? - https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-samples/hr-...

> Most benefits plans will detail the eligibility requirements to participate in the plan, including employee classification (full-time, part-time, regular, temporary, etc.) and/or numbers of hours worked per week or month. Once these classifications change for a covered employee, his or her eligibility will need to be reassessed.

> Short-term, temporary changes usually will not change an employee classification. For example, if a full-time employee goes on vacation for three weeks, most employers would not change the employee's full-time status. However, if an employee reduces his or her hours during the school year to accommodate his or her class schedule, employers may want to reclassify the employee to part time due to the length of the arrangement. It boils down to how the employer defines the classifications and how they are used in the eligibility requirements of each plan.

---

Without getting to an attempt to measure productivity...

The nightmare scenario for HR in this situation is to have someone who is a full time worker and getting full time benefits is found to be splitting their time between two or more companies in a way practically means that they couldn't be working the necessary number of hours to be eligible for benefits at the company.

Having an insurance company or similar decides that your employee isn't eligible for the benefits that you claim they are and ask for an audit of employee time now and going forward, this gets into the "this is gonna suck" category.

There are also issues of IP assignment where one (or both) companies make claims to the inventions that were produced "during work hours" at the other company.

> you have no right to care

An employee lying on their W-4 about having multiple jobs can create a lot of legal and bureaucratic overhead.

Where is the lie?

Most full-time contracts have exactly that clause, you can safely assume that theirs did.

That employee also likely assigned all IP they created during work hours to two companies.

Not in my experience. I've worked one salaried job for over a decade alongside other salaried jobs. I let my employers know (and ensure them my long-standing job won't affect my other one), and also checked the contracts to be sure I'm all good.

obviously no one has issues with this scenario where both employers know. but the recent overemployed scheme where you get multiple jobs, do nothing for months while taking advantage of remote & people understanding that it takes time to get started, then look for a new job once you get fired from one - that's clearly abusive & wrong

That's pretty surprising, maybe it varies by region? Are you in the US? Basically every full time contract I've ever seen has it. I'm currently writing a new one for a different company in a totally different field, using a default template, and the template has it too.

That's not to say that some employers wouldn't be OK with it, just that it tends to be thrown in by the lawyers because why not.

I only worked at one company that explicitly forbid me from being employed by another company.

There are plenty of reasons to care, off the top of my head 1) are they working for competitors 2) are they more likely to burnout or not stay in the role, 3) can you really trust them given their deception, etc

There's generally non-compete clauses in employment contracts in my experience. I think #2 is a valid concern. And #3 only is if they were deceitful, which isn't always the case when someone is working multiple jobs.

> There's generally non-compete clauses in employment contracts in my experience.

Non-competes are illegal or unenforceable in the following US states: California, North Dakota, the District of Columbia, Oklahoma, Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Washington.

Also, if a company asks you to sign one, you can say no. I always do.

I don't think that is true in this context.

For example, in California, you can't ban someone from working for a competitor after leaving.

You absolutely can ban them from working for a competitor at the same time.

> You absolutely can ban them from working at at a competitor at the same time.

How?

You write it in their contract or fire them when you find out.

California offers protection for "lawful conduct occurring during nonworking hours away from the employer's premises."

Note that it specifies "nonworking hours". There is also an exemption for working for a competitor.

https://www.mossbollinger.com/blog/2020/december/my-employer...

How does that "ban them from working at at[sic] a competitor at the same time"? So, you fire them. They'll still have the other job and can get another.

Im not sure what part you are confused by. Is it the word ban?

My employer can also ban me from stealing money or tools. If they discover it, they can legally fire me.

You stated that non-competes are illegal. This is incorrect in the context of moonlighting with competitors or concurrent employment (with anyone during working hours). Those types of non-competes are completely legal.

I expect we will see a rise in the number of contracts that explicitly state no other employment during business hours.

> Non-competes are illegal or unenforceable in the following US states

Non-compete in this context means post-facto (forward-looking) non-competes.

Section 16600 of the California Business and Professions Code provides that "every contract by which anyone is restrained from engaging in a lawful profession, trade, or business of any kind is to that extent void."

California also provides an exemption if the second employment is during business hours of the first employer , or with a competitor

> Section 16600 of the California Business and Professions Code provides that "every contract by which anyone is restrained from engaging in a lawful profession, trade, or business of any kind is to that extent void."

That is the letter of the law, but that has not been the interpretation (re: a 2020 appellate ruling mentions this)

https://calawyers.org/business-law/california-appellate-cour...

I also happen to know that ND non-competes are enforceable in a limited fashion.

Non-competes in CA & CO are totally enforceable if:

1 - you are a manager.

2 - you are selling a company.

If you are a coder or regular employee, then no, the non-competes are not worth the paper they are printed on.

> The Jimmy John’s agreement prohibited employees during their employment and for two years afterward from working at any other business that sells “submarine, hero-type, deli-style, pita, and/or wrapped or rolled sandwiches” within 2 miles of any Jimmy John’s shop in the United States, according to Madigan’s lawsuit. An agreement in effect from 2007 to 2012 extended that to 3 miles.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-jimmyjohns-settlement/jim...

https://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/22/jimmy-johns-drops-non-compet...

They were being sued in IL & NY by the states' attorneys general over the issue.

Non-competes cannot be enforced against mere managers in California.

I think it falls under lying by omission. A company will want to know if you intend to hold another full time job. The applicant knows that, that's why they don't mention it. Avoiding multiply employed candidates risks unfair discrimination against the unicorn that can thrive in two roles - but companies already discriminate for more absurd reasons.

I agree with most of this, though I don't bother checking degrees. Coding samples have way more signal unless the degree is from a premier university. So for Waterloo, MIT, Stanford, Harvard, etc. I would check if there was any doubt, but for the rest of it I've honestly not seen too much value in specific universities.

As for reference checks: If a reference is on a resume that I've been handed by a candidate or that candidate's agent I check it. Glowing references really highly correlate with job enthusiasm and honestly most developers don't list them anyway, so even having one that's positive without being glowing is a good signal.

Is there evidence that the institutional prestige is a better signal? I thought there was a movement away from that because it wasn’t shown to be a particularly strong predictor.

Only speaking about recent graduates (0-2 years) and making what are obviously pretty broad generalizations...

Anecdotally, there is slight correlation between university prestige and interview performance. But not enough to toss lower tier university graduates - if their resume is otherwise strong, they're worth interviewing regardless of school.

The strongest signal I have as a hiring manager is a successful internship/co-op. If the candidate worked on interesting projects and can discuss the tech stack and business problem being solved, they're likely to be a good hire.

The few collegiate athletes I've hired have also been top-notch. But not enough of them to claim correlation. Would be interesting to see if there's a real correlation there.

My experience is anecdotal as well, but it confirms your hunch about collegiate athletes. The have been the best performers, but it's a small sample size in my case. It would be interesting if there is a different correlation between sports (e.g., individual vs. team sports).

The main complaints I've heard about the prestigious institution hires are:

1) They tend to excel well when given a problem that can be solved with a rather templated approach, but tend to struggle more with poorly defined problems

2) They tend to have higher turnover, with the speculation that they jump ship as soon as a perceived higher status opportunity arises. Meaning, they start a lot of projects but don't see them to completion

I don't know if I've had enough experience with the differing groups to draw strong conclusions one way or another.

My experience with the premier university grads is that they know the details really well. While a bootcamp trained dev can roll out features and tests for line of work crud APIs, they may not be able to handle the 5% of the job that requires deep knowledge of mathematics, internals, or similar type things. I don't think you need many of them on a team, but it's good to have them around to fill in where the technically strong, but less rigorously trained, may struggle.

> I've (literally) employed people who were working 3 jobs without any of the other employers knowing about one another. We were being scammed. This happened not just once, but with 2 people (1 full stack engineer who is a HN regular, and another was an account manager).

We've had several instances of foreign contracting companies forging identities and using paid actors (who sound and act American) in order to get into our company. Not only do these scams seem somewhat common they are also a massive security risk. We usually find out quickly because there is almost always an inconsistency in their employment history.

> I've (literally) employed people who were working 3 jobs without any of the other employers knowing about one another. We were being scammed.

I fail to see how verifying decades-old degrees would have prevented this.

Most dishonest people don't stop at one lie. The smart ones do, but once you get away with one, you are a lot more likely to try just one more. It works until it doesn't.

>I've (literally) employed people who were working 3 jobs without any of the other employers knowing about one another. We were being scammed. This happened not just once, but with 2 people (1 full stack engineer who is a HN regular, and another was an account manager).

If that employee does all of their work for you, why does it matter if they work another job? Are they underperforming? I'm sorry, but I don't see how that is a scam. In retail, people work multiple jobs all the time. Why is it suddenly unethical the moment it turns into an office job?

If you can get the work done, it's not unethical. Sounds like they weren't getting it done though:

>(their downfall was neither of them were meeting productivity expectations, not getting their work done)

> Why is it suddenly unethical the moment it turns into an office job?

It's only unethical if you're not in the ruling class. If you're an executive, it's perfectly fine to sit on the board of multiple companies simultaneously (each one paying you $50,000+ per year).

No, it's unethical to do it without disclosure. You can have as many jobs as you want as long as they are aware of one another.

Why though? What business does one employer have knowing what else you do in your life? Do you tell them what hobbies you’re into or what tv show you watched last?

Legally speaking because it's in your contract. Ethically it's because when you agree to a full time position you are agreeing to make your time available, with reasonable allowances. Again, it's completely fine to make a different arrangement if that's clear up front.

Unless you are somehow working them in totally offset hours, or you have _literally_ zero meetings and work in a completely asynchronous environment, then you need to disclose.

But that's not true for an overwhelmingly large number of people. You aren't just being paid for output, you are also being paid for time.

Legally I have had one employer contract call out that they expect you to work for certain hours, but that was a Canadian startup; none of the American companies have had that I remember.

Ethically though, I don't feel this way at all. They're paying for my output not my time. I don't get paid overtime when I work extra nor do I get credit for working on the weekend.

I don't think I'll convince you but I guess I would say you don't owe your employer your life. They'll cut you off when it's to their benefit and it's best you do what's best for you.

I agree it is not a bad idea to confirm previous employment. It still does not prevent the case you mention, but it might help.

I just wanted to add to anyone: make sure you actually understand who was the employer and give an opportunity to address the potential lie.

Sometimes people (in a rush to read the cv) assume that a contract position, for instance, was a permanent role and similar mistakes (even when clearly specified in the cv) and these checks might make people drop out of the process unfairly, without recourse.

> At the end they were both let go once we discovered the deception (their downfall was neither of them were meeting productivity expectations, not getting their work done)

> After this, we heavily beefed up our pre-employment screening, which is all of what this person is complaining about.

So practices were already in place to detect and correct this.

That makes it quite foolish to distrust all applicants across the board, and make their experience worse, when performance tracking and correction was already a solved problem.

To be fair, the earlier in the process you can disqualify a bad candidate, the less money and time you waste. It's generally positive to re-assess the pre-employment screening when it fails to do it's job.

That said, making the process worse for your good candidates is a horrible solution.

That said, making the process worse for your good candidates is a horrible solution.

I feel for that employer, but making the application process more onerous would be a red flag for me, as a candidate.

They are going to potentially hurt themselves if not careful.

As an advisor for startup CEOs who also worked for a lot of large known brands, I fully agree.

Even just a tiny bit of effort in the application process does miracles to filter out people who do not really want to work for your company. Because sending hundreds or even thousands job applications requires you to optimise your efforts and reject possible employers who would require you to spend total of one day in the process.

On the other hand if found the company you would like to work for, you researched the position, you have realistic demands, spending that time is just an investment in getting the job you really want. For example, when I interview I take a day off so that I am rested, fresh and with my head reasonably empty of the projects I am currently running so that I can present my best on the interview.

I think you've overestimated how many people look for jobs because they "really want to work" for a particular company. Further, you're asking candidates to eat the opportunity cost associated with spending time on one employer's application process.

Job postings trigger a flood of applications. It’s not an efficient use of staff time to trudge through applications from people who couldn’t be bothered to create a login.

Creating a login can be automated. You're not filtering for qualified job applicants by doing that. You're guaranteeing that the only applicants you ever see are bots.

Getting a job these days sans personal collections requires sending out many, many applications. Each job one applies to only has a small chance of getting a callback. Given that, I'm not going to spend 30 minutes filling out pages of redundant information.

If a company has that little respect for my time to make me jump through all of these bureaucratic hoops, seemingly to prove I can tolerate mindless nonsense, I don't want to work for them.

If a company has that little respect for my time to make me jump through all of these bureaucratic hoops, seemingly to prove I can tolerate mindless nonsense, I don't want to work for them.

Yup, all my data is on linkedin, then I click apply, and I get taken to a whole other website? And no way to fill in from linkedin?

Clearly corp x cares little about my time.

And for what? Why? Is 'Apply with linkedin" that bad?!

Here's the truth, top talent? Corps need to do the work. Not us.

> Getting a job these days sans personal collections requires sending out many, many applications.

I am sorry this is the way you see it.

Have you ever tried figuring out where you would like to work, researching the company, be excellently prepared for the interview and working them to get the best terms?

Trust me, it is easier than ever and I have been a long time on the job market. Right now, trying to put ANY effort will immediately put you in front of other candidates because 99% of candidates, frankly, are too lazy for barest effort on their part. Which this entire comment section is an excellent example of.

Found the manager/C-level. a thread with 8 million valid reasons why people are unwilling to do this and Twawaaay's takeaway:

'candidates, frankly, are too lazy for the barest effort'.

You know what they used to call people who would not do something unless they were greeted with red carpet? A diva.

If you join the company, there will be a lot of things that will not work perfectly and yet you will be asked to do things anyway. Everything is in constant flux at any startup because of growth and at large companies things are broken because of entrenched mistakes.

If everything works perfectly it means the company obsesses over its internal processes to the point of ignoring everything else. Which is also a problem.

There exists no company that is in a state of change where everything works perfectly. And every non trivial company is always in a state of change.

If you can't get over one broken form you simply aren't cut for the job.

But that state I will be payed for my efforts.

Unless you do something truly groundbreaking or contributing to a cause I deeply care, which makes me to want to really work there, I will just go to the next company where will be a lot of things that also not work perfectly, but I don't have to jump through these hoops.

If you can't get over one broken form you simply aren't cut for the job.

I guess the good people will just have to go work for one of the 20 other companies who will hire them based on a personal introduction and a couple of reasonable interviews instead then.

Two of the most reliable indicators I have ever found for places I wouldn't want to work are employers who think they're special and only want to hire true believers who agree and employers whose HR and/or legal teams manage to create so much unnecessary friction in the recruitment process alone that it's actively difficult to work with them even if the people doing the useful work there would want to make the hire. These behaviours seem to be quite accurate predictors of poor working environments for those who do get hired in the end.

There's money companies I could work for without this attitude. I shouldn't need to "jump through hoops" to fill out an application. That sort of thing is just a red flag that shows me I wouldn't actually want to work for a company. Why would I want to work at a place that would make me do unnecessary work, especially without getting paid? What makes your company so special anyway?

Have you ever tried figuring out where you would like to work, researching the company, be excellently prepared for the interview and working them to get the best terms?

One of the reasons I got fed up of being someone else's employee and shifted towards B2B and entrepreneurialism was exactly that the above strategy wasn't really working even back then. If it's a direct approach without a personal introduction there's too much randomness to justify jumping through a lot of hoops in a recruitment process even if in fact there would be a great fit and everyone would be happy if they ended up working together.

With the kind of market we've had in the tech industry for at least a decade now it doesn't make sense for good candidates to spend too much time on potential employers who make it too difficult to work with them. Maybe that will change again if the growing economic problems persist for more than a year or two but I'm a long way from placing that bet right now.

And the above comment is how the candidates with the most opportunities will see things, meaning your system to find the best candidate by default filters out valuable candidates that also value and are rational about their time but great for finding 'wage slaves' that will accept unreasonable demands of their time and don't really have other options. Gee, what a funny, totally unexpected result for the company ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Oh wow they have so many opportunities that they need to go on websites and click buttons to apply? The ones with all these opportunities coming out of their ears are getting recruited, not spamming websites.

Setting up a spam magnet just attracts spam, not the “candidates with the most opportunities.”

Some companies are doing interesting things but unless a good worker already has some kind of connection through their network they're still going to make a direct approach to start the process. Particularly for smaller companies this is very common. That doesn't mean a good and genuinely interested applicant won't have several other possibilities they're interested in exploring as well though.

> Getting a job these days sans personal collections requires sending out many, many applications

I think this may be more a consequence of blasting out numerous applications, than the cause of having to do so.

Every job I've gotten in the past 20 years has been a) the company I was targeting to work for, and b) the result of a targeted, careful, and studious effort to get in there.

If they don't perform because they have three jobs, fire them. You're trying to protect against rare circumstances and it is reducing the number of quality candidates that don't have to play that game and will go elsewhere.

Hiring someone, having them under-perform due to having multiple jobs, and then firing them is incredibly costly. Having at tighter application process to prevent that and other similar situations is likely worth the loss in candidates.

>Edit: Also, if anyone requests reference checks from your current employer, you should say no. It's not standard practice to check current employer, only prior employers (at least in the US).

Question for you: One of the previous companies I worked for changed their name after I left. The company is still searchable under the old name. Should I list the new name, or old name on the resume? I feel like it's not really my problem, but also is my problem, you know? It's a weird thing. I'm not sure how common of a problem this is.

NewName (formerly OldName)

Weyland Yutani (formerly Yoyodyne Propulsion) 1980-1984

Vice President of Red Lectroids

I put the name of the company when I worked there, then the current name in parentheses.

For example: EMC (now Dell)

Ditto. It’s a good idea because you don’t want someone in HR thinking there’s a discrepancy.

I don't believe that you are going to do all that screening before talking to the best candidates. It's just not true. You wouldn't invest like that in every candidate to submit a resume.

Your process is like everybody elses:

1. automated resume screen hunting for keywords 2. HR human review 3. HR call 4. 3-4 other calls 5. detailed screening 6. offer

If you are doing detailed screening BEFORE interviews, stop right now. It is wasted effort. Nobody else does it that way.

It's easy for outsiders to point out flaws, but if the system you have in place is allowing you to hire and retain talent, then you've succeeded.

How is it your business if your employee is moonlighting? If they are delivering, what’s the problem?

If they are not delivering, other jobs are irrelevant, they aren’t meeting the bar.

Many of these people aren’t moonlighting, they are working both jobs in the same 40 hour work week. They are just half assing two (or more) jobs and putting in the bare minimum.

Look up the overemployed subreddit.

How is that different from a corporate board member who sits on several different corporate boards, which is a very common practice?

One big difference is that everybody is aware and has agreed to it.

The other obvious difference is they are rich and the rest of us are not.

“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.”

Board members are supervising operations and overseeing executives (or are supposed to - many get ‘captured’ by management depending on the company), not running them.

One thing that is REALLY helpful when supervising highly complex operations like a large corporation is knowledge of how similar operations are run at a large number of other companies

It makes it easier to identify things like pointless ‘not invented here’ syndrome, or where a company is being very inefficient in an area because they don’t know of any alternatives.

It’s common for companies to hire in outside consulting firms or independent contractors who also work for a great many companies in an industry for the exact same reason. It’s a way of keeping on top of what the industry norms are so the company doesn’t fall behind and lose competitiveness.

Plenty of pros and cons there, but that is a big part of why.

The other reason is the board of directors works for the shareholders, and represents their interests.

Institutional shareholders hold shares in a lot of different companies, and if they have someone they know , trust, and are happy with performance wise, most would prefer to have them on the boards of as many companies as they think they have the expertise to oversee.

So you are saying it is GOOD if an employee is working two jobs because they are then exposed to more solutions and actually SAVE the company because they can reuse existing knowledge other companies have taken the time to develope? I like your thinking :)

If that’s what happens, everyone is fully informed, and they mind the NDA? Sure. That’s pretty much the definition of an (actual) software engineering contractor for instance.

That’s pretty much never what happens though if someone does it when applying for a full time salary position, and line managers know it, which is why you see people get worked up about it. People doing it try to convince themselves it’s not a scam, but it almost always is.

The folks doing this on boards, despite any hate and derision they are getting here, are often exceptionally talented, educated, and have a long list of references where they have been doing it before successfully. They were voted in with full visibility to their other board memberships, and while being open about it and any potential conflicts of interest. They’re just not software engineers. I have yet to meet one that didn’t work their asses off either, just not in the way you might recognize.

There can be (and is, of course) nepotism, cronyism, etc. that happens, same as anywhere, and the shareholders who vote that in get what they deserve as well in my experience. Sometimes it’s also as simple as ‘x owns this company, and wants y to takeover when they’re gone, so y sits on the board.’. Rare in public or widely held companies though.

Ownership has it’s privileges, and it’s costs after all.

The upper class have agreed to it. Everyone else has to go along with it. Why would the majority of people with an average middling 5 figure salary agree that it’s cool people can make 5-10x+ the average income to go to a handful of board meetings?

Just because something is the status quo and it is happening without mass protests, doesn’t mean people are agreeing to it.

Whats good for the goose is good for the gander.

Too fucking bad they don't "like it". I don't give one bit of care to the centimillionaire and up club.

A centimillionaire would be on about $10k (hundredth). You want "hectomillionaire".

Oddly, that's the second time I've used that word today: talking about Rishi Sunak earlier.

Corporate boards typically meet at most once a month, and often only a few times a year for 3-4 hours. That is very different from a 40 hour a week job.

Everything you said makes it even worse. They are barely working and making many times more than full time employees.

How much knowledge, wisdom, and value did Hunter Biden add to get $40k a month from Burisma? Goes for most board members really. They are all "quiet quitters".

If that's not "stealing" but regular people actually working multiple jobs with actual deliverables in a way you couldn't even tell is,

then "stealing" is good and I will help as many to do it as possible, especially from the HN poster companies coming out and countersignaling it so hard.

Most companies are okay with it if regular employees sit on a board, too, as long as there isn't a conflict of interest.

I’m on unpaid board member of a non-profit. May not be what people think of as board member but it’s perfectly normal. Obviously being a board member of a company in the same industry makes conflicts of interest potentially trickier

Board members aren't creating IP. That's really the only issue I can side with on the employer's side.

I've worked a full time w/ benefits job and freelanced on the side. The only aspect of that I would feel that would be unethical is if I were to mix IP from the firms that should remain private.

Otherwise, who the hell cares. If I'm doing task work and meeting expectations then I'm holding up my end of the bargain. I'm not a slave and my work does not own me. Standing around the proverbial water cooler wasting company time is acceptable, but doing something productive during my downtime is not?

Because a board member works like 12-15 days a year if your super diligent about it, and way less if you half ass it.

If the "bare minimum" looks no worse than any of the other employees then I think you have a corporate culture problem.

If the people are actually delivering equivalently to other employees then there's no need to worry if they're working one or two extra jobs.

I don't really care, so long as the job's getting done. Underperformance, sure, that's a problem. But if I pay salary it's not about the hours it's about the job. Hours are the wrong input.

It's my job to balance the workload such that they have enough work to make it worth it for me to employ them, and increase that workload where bearable so I can make more profit from their employment. If they are not underperforming and still doing two jobs, then I have failed my task because I have not effectively exploited their abilities for profit.

Just some of the problems I have dealt with undisclosed moonlighters -

Ever had a medical claim by your over employed staff? Which insurance pays?

Do you pay for training?

In case of intellectual property theft from you or the other company, do you know what are your obligations? (Receiving company is can held liable.)

What amount of taxes do you withhold? What are the penalties for withholding significantly wrong taxes in your jurisdiction?

Having coverage with multiple insurance companies is pretty stupid. Typically the employee will only have coverage from the "primary" job.

Of course you pay for training, why wouldn't you?

Working for competing companies is even more stupid than being overinsured, and could potentially be illegal (for the employee). And rightfully so.

Company withholdings don't change so this is not your concern.

None of this is unique to people with multiple jobs.

1. The employee's insurance pays; in the US, they pay at least part of their insurance costs so it is unlikely for them to be covered by two services. If so, they can choose. If they were injured on the job, or in some capacity based on your work, then how is it different? Actually, how is this situation different from them purchasing outside insurance or being covered by their spouse? It's unlikely to be a problem and if it is it's not unique.

2. Sure, why not?

3. What does this have to do with them having multiple jobs? If they steal your intellectual property, that's a problem whether or not they are employed elsewhere. How does double employment compound this? If you hired someone from another job and they brought stolen property with them, is that different?

4. They are responsible for letting you know how much to deduct. You can do standard mandatory deductions based on expected salary and as long as you pay the required employment taxes based on the salary you pay them there isn't a difference in withholding on your end, only on theirs. If they owe more in tax, what do you care?

>If they are not underperforming and still doing two jobs, then I have failed my task because I have not effectively exploited their abilities for profit.

It's not like that. Since work is a market, you exchange a previously agreed amount of money for a previously agreed amount of work and knowledge.

Otherwise, the employees can also say they failed at their task if they wouldn't determine you to part with a large sum while putting in the minimum possible amount of work and working two jobs minimum.

That coin has two sides.

>Otherwise, the employees can also say they failed at their task if they wouldn't determine you to part with a large sum while putting in the minimum possible amount of work and working two jobs minimum.

I have no idea why they would want to work two jobs minimum as a part of their task at my job specifically, but yes, part of being an employee is understanding how much money you can get paid in a negotiation with your employer and getting that amount is a success.

Fire them with cause then. I fail to see the problem. At some point you have to trust people. No amount of screening will fix this.

This logic doesn't make any sense, is it okay if I half ass and put in the bare minimum for just one job?

How does have more than 1 job change this logic?

If you can get the job done then I don't see why it matters, and if you can't I don't see why it matters if you can't and you only have 1 job or you can't and you have 2?

Especially since rescinded offers have suddenly become acceptable, I think most people going forward should at least have the two jobs overlap by 2 weeks.

As long as everyone is happy with the output, I don't see it as a problem.

Working multiple full time W2 jobs without employer consent is not moonlighting. Both employers believe you are working for them full time during business hours, which would be false. This practice is deceptive.

Meeting productivity targets is an important aspect of your job, but so is being available during business hours, meetings/collaborations, etc.

Moonlighting is working another job outside of business hours - which I agree, employers have less of a right to object to.

If you're attending the meetings you're required to attend, are completing the work you're required to complete by the agreed-upon deadlines, and are not working for a competitor, it is no business of my employer's what I'm doing at any given hour of the day.

This paternalistic bullshit will be the downfall of companies who care more about micromanaging and controlling their underpaid employees than they do about actually delivering something to the market. If someone isn't producing, fire them. If someone is only being given 10 hours a week of work, and they have enough free time to get another W2 job and earn another full-time salary, that's 100% a company/management problem.

Except in your example, did the employee turn in the the work that was assigned Monday morning on Tuesday morning, and say “I’m done what’s next”, or did they lie and turn it in Friday and say it took all week?

If you want to get paid by the hour or unit rate, be a consultant.

If it was due by Friday who cares?

This doesn't make any sense. Most people are salaried and their time isn't tracked that way anyway.

To a certain point I agree with you, but how much an employee actually outputs is a constant negotiation between the business and the employee - this is where expectation comes into play.

If you are performing beyond the baseline, you can negotiate to be compensated for exceeding it, or you can take a break.

There is no expectation that an employee should perform more work "for free" just because they can.

I believe in fairness between both sides - there is no free lunch in either direction.

Ultimately it comes down to deception. If an employee can do everything requested without lying, then maybe there is a defense.

This position collapses the first time someone's boss asks about workload and the employee has to lie or admit they have tons of free time.

Im sure there are unicorn cases where employees are never asked how long a task will take, or about their bandwidth for new tasks. However, in reality, the vast majority of situations require constant deception.

Most of the time the lying starts at the beginning with false employment history.

This doesn't make any sense. Most people are salaried and their time isn't tracked that way anyway.

Most employment contracts, even for salaried workers, list things such as "37.5hrs per week".

If this is the understanding, and you aren't working diligently for those hours, you're a thief and fraudster, a scam artist, and should be fired.

If you get done a task early, ask for more work!

The attitude of people in this thread is laughable. People in this field are some of the most privileged, well paid members of our society.

To hear such persons moan and bleet over their lot is laughable. Grow up people. Just disgusting.

You have to dedicate those those 37.5 hours, of course. But personal capability determines how those 37.5 hours play out. If I can hypothetically output three times the amount of work in the same time as one other person, it's a raw deal to output max - you burn out for one. As well, that means you're good and you neogiate.

I don't know if anyone was advocating for going as far as you're suggesting (break doesn't mean paid vacation) - merely pointing out that an employee is granted the right to negotiate their labor at any point. If they get declined, that's fine. But the idea that you are a literal slave for 37.5 hours regardless of your capability is very flawed and you'll never convince the person that actually creates value of that.

The funny part for me is that I have grown up - I used to share your position but time and time again I was proved wrong, so I changed my mind.

This whole thread started, when an employer found someone working two other full time jobs.

There is zero defense for this. None.

There is no way to work 22.5 hrs per day, 5 days a week, and not be a thief, a crook, scum.

This is who you have aligned yourself with. This is the behaviour you have defended.

Into this conversation walked the spoiled, the entitled, the scam artist. People advocated working multiple full time jobs, and equated doing normal work as "slavery".

Above, you do so again. You liken working diligently, to slavery. Good grief.

The point of a salaried position is that you're a professional filling a role for an organization. That role is not "do tasks assigned". It's spend your working time to make stuff better. With "working time" either explicitly laid out or implicitly, for the US, roughly 40 hours a week M-F.

Working beyond explicitly assigned tasks is not "performing more work for free". It's doing your job.

>The point of a salaried position is that you're a professional filling a role for an organization. That role is not "do tasks assigned".

That's funny because if I hire a company to do some work on my house, they do strictly the tasks assigned and even try to charge me more than agreed. They don't try to make my house better.

Wrong analogy - you hired a contractor, with a specified scope of work.

The right analogy is you hire a full-time handyman (whatever go with it), and you come home to find them on your couch in the middle of the day, their excuse is I fixed the dishwasher, and your response is likely to be “I’m not paying you to sit on the couch, go change the ac filters, fix the garage door, and re-seal the deck”

I've never read a contract that outlines job duties as "spend time working to make stuff better." Mostly they have a list and then 'tasks as needed/assigned.'

If you want people to work beyond the bounds of their contract, then renegotiate the contract.

Yep, and part of that as needed/as assigned is to notify your supervisor that you are done with your assigned tasks and are ready for a new one, if they don’t have one for you great, play minesweeper, but if you’re done with your assignments (seriously who is ever in that position), and don’t say so, now you’re acting deceptively.

I don't see 'notify your supervisor when tasks are complete' as part of most contracts either; it wouldn't be there, really, because beyond really basic stuff that actually creates way too much information for the supervisor to go through.

Without it being in the terms, it's not a duty you have to fulfill. It's not deceptive not to do favors for your supervisor.

Are there incentives in place for the employee to turn in work early and ask "what's next?"

Most people won't lie about it when they turn it in on Friday, they'll just turn it in when it is due and not explain. Why turn it in early if there is no reward for doing so other than more work?

As I've said elsewhere, this is a management problem, not an employee problem. As a manager I made sure people knew that there was a path to promotion, to advance within the corporation. I checked and tracked their progress and their work, and worked myself to make an environment where contributions were noted and rewarded. If a company or manager doesn't do that, they won't have people outperforming the base expectations for long, and they don't deserve to.

At most companies, part of what they're paying you for is to be engaged during business hours. You're not just a contracting service who accepts requirements and tosses results back over the wall; you're a human resource, meant to be available for your coworkers as needed.

In a hypothetical case where someone only has 10 hours of stuff to do a week, I'm sympathetic, I'd be pretty bored by that too. But when I see a SWE describe a scenario like that, most of the time they end up meaning that they have 10 hours of coding tasks a week, because they don't consider anything else to be a real part of their job.

It's impossible to manage. Continuously monitoring workers to make sure they are "delivering" is too hard, and doing so tends to create a work environment that drives other workers away. Rules such as "no moonlighting" are just simple heuristics that make management easier, and in turn, make it easier to hire and retain managers.

On the other hand, speaking of "delivering," companies like Amazon and UPS have figured it out. Amazon wouldn't care if you were working a second job, because they know your output down to the nearest Joule at any given moment.

> Continuously monitoring workers to make sure they are "delivering" is too hard

Wow. That's...astounding. If you're such a poor manager that....managing...is too hard. Perhaps you should go back to IC work.

Employees don't have to be continuously monitored to see if they're doing work, that's how you wind up with spyware and butts in seats mentality. Are they checking in their work? Are they completing their stories on time? Are they getting near the average number of story points done in a sprint? If so, leave them the fuck alone.

An environment where your productivity is measured by the amount of code you check in and the number of story points you complete is exactly the "work environment that drives other workers away" analog31 mentioned. Many ICs (and frankly most of the best ones) consider this to be micromanagement.

I'm sorry, why should measuring story points be considered micromanagement?

Story points are supposed to be a proxy for amount of work required, seems reasonable to track that. It's not like I'm saying you should be measured by the lines of code you add or something arbitrary.

Often a task ends up requiring much more work than expected, or some more important task displaces sprint work, or you need to do something like prototyping or design work or customer consultation which can't be expressed well in terms of concrete deliverables. An environment where your boss is going to call you to account for only getting 2 points done last sprint when you were supposed to do 10 creates nasty incentives to avoid these things in favor of small easily-defined tasks.

Story points are fundamentally arbitrary to begin with. If you're doing development work that needs research and problem solving instead of just cranking out boilerplate for some standard type of application you've built 100 times before then often you can't even give a reasonable estimate for new work in terms of story points until you've already done most of it. That's the nature of creative and exploratory work.

So yes the kind of process that plans everything in two week sprints and tracks tasks lasting maybe just a few hours each via daily meetings is micromanagement. That's what it's called when managers are so incapable of setting a clear direction and then trusting their people to get the job done that they have to check up on progress several times every day and constantly meddle with the real work.

Generally the team agrees on the points of the tasks together. Investigative/research work is also pointed/estimated.

It's mostly for planning, though.

This is partially why everyone hates managers.

What the hell else are you even doing that you don’t have time to ensure your employees are doing their job? You’re really not that busy.

Amazon and UPS know the output because it's an easily measurable menial task.

You won't be able to do that for knowledge work, and you'll end up using proxies like butt-in-chair time or jira-tickets-closed which are easy to game and push away the actually competent workers that have outside options.

Just do your job as a manager.

Interesting, thanks

If they were doing their job well enough that you couldn't tell they were employed elsewhere, were you really being scammed?

Or did you get pissy because you didn't have a person's livelihood to hold over them to make dance to your song?

I hope more people double and triple-up on him.

You know, we could get people recruited on a double/triple and take an ongoing %, to monetize his crying.

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