Hacker News Reader

Comment by tpxl | Hacker News Reader

> And because there has been an inflation in how complimentary these letters are, people started suing when their letter wasn't flowery enough, because that somehow could be read as an implicit criticism.

You got a source for this folktale?

View on HN

The reality is that these letters are written in a kind of pseudolegalistic language, where a phrase like “the employee was punctual” means they were usually late. If they were actually punctual, you'd see something more like “the employee consistently demonstrated exceptional punctuality”.

You usually need the reference letter to be reviewed by the works council or by an employment lawyer.

sighs. Seriously?

Good to know though, if true.

German here. Absolutely true, and has been for many years now. Some examples:

- grade D, poor performance: "We were satisfied with his performance" - grade C, meh: "We were entirely satisfied with his performance" - true grade A+: "We were always satisfied to the utmost degree with his performance" plus highly positive and extensive in the rest of the reference letter.

- "was sociable": alcoholic - "was always striving for a good relationship with colleagues": was gossiping instead of working - "sociability was appreciated": had sex with colleague - "was very empathic": had sex with customer

> - "was very empathic": had sex with customer

This would be very funny to see on an Arbeitszeugnis for a prostitute. Remember prostitution is legal in Germany.

I wonder why there is no LLM that can decode this. Tried many times but it seems the models don’t pick up the nuances.

The perfect test for LLMs!

I have no official source but know that this happens a lot. Also the arguments with the employer about the letters afterwards. Some are so fed up and let you write the first or final draft. There is also the hidden code. So instead of writing something negative which is forbidden you just use different words or leave out some intensifications. Like “zur größten Zufriedenheit” vs “zur allergrößten Zufriedenheit”. One means your work was Ok the other it was great. There is also intensification by adding time adjectives like “always” or “often” etc.

This code is known by people in the HR and hiring departments. It’s a very weird praxis. I have to explain this to my non German colleagues because for them even a mark F letter sounds awesome ;)

My question would be: why even bother with any kind of code? What incentive is there for the employer to write anything truthful, to write anything but the blandest most positive things that really don't say anything hidden?

Replaying with a quote from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home: “Whoever said the human race was logical?”

This is a very common practice in Germany. There were a few court cases won by employees whose recommendation letters were not positive enough, so employers now basically just write whatever you ask for.

I have written all my recommendation letters myself. The employers just put their letter head and sign it.

this is common practice in general no? People ask for references, or try to contact former bosses, when hiring critical profiles. Obviously nobody will say anything bad, so HR is trained, and giving trainings to the hiring managers, how to "grade" the level of positivity.

There's a difference in saying "Yes I confirm person X worked here, he did a good job on all the tasks that we have asked him to do" vs "Yes, he was amazing at his job, he was proactive and really drove innovation, we are sad to see him leave"

> this is common practice in general no?

The German situation is especially unhinged. See https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbeitszeugnis (ask Google Translate for help, if necessary).

You can check out https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbeitszeugnis with the help of Google Translate.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com