> A little anecdotal but when I was applying for jobs last summer there was a video that was brought up twice during interviews with different organizations.
I find it interesting that a company would do this instead of silently reject you…
My Machiavellian side says that they have dirt on you now and know they can use it at any time. If anything, more dirt is then better, as it creates more leverage for them in the long run.
Still, Hanlon's Razor applies, and you boss is more than likely just telling the truth.
Your Machiavellian side is completely missing the point then - this is(was) a public event (as evidenced by GP's reference to 100k views on IG), thus there is no leverage.
You'd have leverage if there were a reasonable likelihood that you were the only hiring manager to have this information, but if everyone is on a level playing field, the leverage disappears.
Not only is an easily discovered public event poor leverage, it becomes much worse leverage if it comes up in an interview.
When companies (or governments) try to manipulate employees, they frequently rely on some kind of willful ignorance. Wells Fargo is a great example: they set impossible performance targets and turned a blind eye to fraud, then fired and blacklisted whistleblowers - ostensibly for knowing about that same fraud!
If a shady employer wants leverage, even public events can suffice as long as they can claim ignorance. For example, most stock option grants are immediately lost if you're fired, but even at-will employment can't be terminated specifically to deprive someone of their options. So an employer might give a generous options package, then "discover" the IG video and use it for dismissal at just the right time to prevent a profitable exercise. But if that video comes up during hiring, it's no longer a plausible reason for later dismissal, at least without committing perjury regarding the interview.
I can't even work out a scenario where "lots of people know about this including us" is an effective way to manipulate someone.
In any real going business, cost of hiring and training someone of a type who is eligible for compensation with stock options and the subsequent morale dip if discovered doing such manipulation would by far outweigh the benefits of doing this. So this is largely a tin foil hat scenario
For any business with decent size, absolutely. There are a thousand ways to claw back options, and the reason they don't get used is that doing it even once would make hiring practically impossible.
For a small enough company? It falls in the same category as "diluting out of one guy's shares" - bad morals and bad business, but it still happens.
I'm pretty sure that those that DID consider the clip a problem for hiring the OP didn't share any of that with them. But I'm happy to see that others were more rational about it.
Very possible. I didn't apply to many places, I got interviews at 3/5, two mentioned it, could have been that the other two saw it and decided I wasn't worth their time.
I find it interesting that a company would do this instead of silently reject you…