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Comment by cglee | Hacker News Reader

This breaks the golden rule of relationships: don't kiss and tell. Interviewing is the first step in forming a relationship, and it looks like Airbnb dodged a huge bullet by not engaging further.

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"Don't kiss and tell" is male code for "yes, yes I did in fact have sex with her".

I think it's important to share interviewing stories. Both for other startups to learn from, and for future employees to know what they're heading into.

Or is it not every manager's wet dream to have good guys right out of university who won't hide their true skills by being incompetent/nervous at interviewing?

Conversely, is it not every young guy's wet dream to be able to display their true skill in an interview, rather than mess it up by being bad at interviewing?

Where are they to learn if nobody shares the stories?

I agree with you, and would never do something like that myself - however, AirBnB is not without fault here either. They've conducted an interview in such a way to piss this guy off enough so he goes ahead and blogs about it. Usually we only see posts like that about interviewing at Google, Microsoft, Amazon, etc - so if I was AirBnB, I would definitely look into their hiring process.

I see no problem with this, how are interview processes going to change unless we talk about them? There's a real problem with companies joining the Google interview process cargo cult.

Also the job == relationship metaphor breaks down fairly quickly. What applies to one doesn't apply to the other just because you say it does.

I don't know; it's certainly given an unknown candidate a lot of press. Perhaps AirBnB has dodged a bullet, but if you take his statements at face value (e.g. he doesn't want to work at such companies) then he's lost nothing and potentially gained several offers from better fits.

That's much nicer for the ones with all the money and power than for the one person looking for work. Or a landlord. Or a client. Or a partnership. Or an acquisition. Etc.

Yes, it did seem a bit out of line. He could have sent the entire post as an email to one of the founders instead.

Forgive me for being a little naive here, but I have a genuine question. Is there any actual harm that could come of this, aside from people looking down on the author for writing and publicly posting it?

I don't know. It's probably in a gray area zone.

What conclusions would you draw yourself, if you were about to hire this person and that post came to your attention?

If I was hiring and I googled the persons name and found this, I would perhaps be slightly concerned. Not alarmed enough that it on its own would sway me either way, but I would probably pay a bit more attention to the persons attitude in general. To me it suggest either a lack of courtesy or an overblown ego.

Is there an unspoken understanding that job interviews are some secret process that we shouldn't openly discuss? I'm honestly mystified by all of this--I understand that it's considered a faux pas by some, and would never post something like this myself, but this just seems like something that's bad judgment only because everyone thinks it's bad judgment.

I think it's kind of like discussing your salary. It's considered wrong because in general management doesn't want everyone to know just how arbitrary compensation is.

If you really dig into it, you'll find huge variations in pay for similar skilled, experienced, and hard working employees just based on who did the hiring, how much was asked for, and when they were hired.

When I was in college I had a job where I made about 50% more than most people I was working with--I didn't really work harder (everyone worked hard) nor was I much more skilled. I just negotiated a bit better, and was hired by the right manager.

I suppose there is an element of trust, the moment you engage in what is basically the start of an employment. Just like you don't bad-mouth a former employer, you don't do so with an almost-former-employer. Try to turn it on its head - Wouldn't it clearly be out of line if a potential employer discussed a candidate openly?

On a scale of misbehaviors, this is probably far on the "good" end, but still. Who should gain from this post? If Airbnb, why not mail them directly? If he is "warning" potential hires, aren't he in effect hurting Airbnb? If he wanted to discuss hiring practises in general, why not anonymise them?

No, no harm (except maybe to himself, but I doubt too much).

And a substantial benefit to anyone else who reads this and can make a more informed decision before deciding to interview at airbnb.

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