Comment by radium_raven | Hacker News Reader

Comment by radium_raven | Hacker News Reader

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> In my email I encouraged the candidate to teach me something unrelated to our work, or programming related if they preferred that.

What if I decide to teach you something about the Quran and you don't hire me?

Perhaps this is just urban legend but from the stories I've heard hiring for FAANG-type companies there are people out there interviewing with their only goal being baiting you into a topic they can sue you over.

Worst instance I have heard of is when an interviewer asked about the books the candidate liked to read (since the candidate said they're an avid reader in their resume) and he just said that he liked to read the Bible. After not getting hired for failing the interviews he accused the company of religious discrimination.

I'm by no means an expert in US law and don't know the people this happened to directly so maybe it's just one big fantasy story but it doesn't seem that far fetched that

- If you are a rich corporation then people will look to bait you into a lawsuit

- If you give software engineers (or any non-lawyers) free rein on how to conduct interviews then some of them can be baited into a situation that the company could be sued over way more easily than a rigid leetcode interview

I think nothing came of the fellow who liked reading the Bible but I would imagine the legal department has a say in what kind of interview process a rich company can and can not use.

I think you may have misunderstood the guidance from your legal team on this.

There is literally no way to prevent a candidate from disclosing a protected characteristic during an interview. Some obvious examples: they might show up to the interview in a wheelchair, they might be wearing a religious garment, they might be visibly pregnant, and so on...

What legal doesn't want, is you asking questions directly intended to elicit that kind information when the candidate didn't volunteer it. Asking the candidate a direct question like "are you planning to have kids?" makes it sound like that information will be used in the hiring decision.

I gave candidates the option to teach me something, if they wanted to.

As you can see from the examples I gave, what they taught me was completely up to them.

It was just a fun exercise that I and every candidate enjoyed.

Forgive me, but I just don't see the problem here.

If you did decide to teach you something about the Quran, that would be great!

I don't know enough about these holy books, and I always welcome a chance to learn more.

> Forgive me, but I just don't see the problem here.

There is no problem. But some people will create problems out of thin air, when there is none.

100% true.

Completely unrelated, but I find that other people will create problems by making an off-colour statement, something mildly offensive, or disrespectful and then when they get a reaction they say "why are you making a problem where none exists".

DARVO/gaslighting behaviour, and I wish it was rarer than it is.

I have found that if you tighten the parameters a bit, you can still get all the benefit of what this question is asking for. For example, teach me the rules of a sport, board game etc. You still get to see if they can present a coherent explanation of something relatively complex, but you can avoid these potentially dangerous topics.

This is outrage bait you have fallen prey to. Now you're spreading it. You're better than this.

Or, you can choose to not live in fear.

This is the way.

Secondly, share that place by example. Radiating non fear can do wonders for the people around us, as can honest and frank conversation.

When all members of a team, or even small companies come to understand not all environments are about blame and shame, magic happens!

People who are poor managers or in positions of power, but not emotionally regulated or unwilling to get therapy, find blaming others easier than self awareness and doing the work of bettering themselves. Couple that with financial success and why should they when all our society values is how big your bank account balance is.

Truth!

Don't have anything else to add, but that I agree with you.

> What if I decide to teach you something about the Quran and you don't hire me?

Simple, don't pick subjects, such as religion, sexuality, etc. It's not that deep.

and like you said it's not that deep. pick something light.

a candidate that pulls the religious thing now is one that's going to drag their crazy shit into the office later. or complete misread the room / culture now, and in the future.

like it's a technical job interview, talk about something vague technical, even if it's just how the convection settings work in your oven.

Companies with armies of attack lawyers riding helicopter gunships don't make great targets for this kind of thing, in general. I shudder to think about trying to take Apple or Disney to court.

It's somewhat overblown - obviously anyone can try to submit a demand letter about anything. My experience with legal in the hiring process is they want to avoid obvious own goals, and document the process so that clear reasoning can be expressed. Then, unless you really do something obviously discriminatory, you can tell people who claim they've been discriminated against to go pound sand.

There are lots of good tactical reasons to settle claims like that, so lawyers may advise you to settle, but if you're of the "we don't negotiate" mindset, in my experience most lawyers are quite happy to gear up for a fight with the right groundwork in place.

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