Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

>> Buy me a beer and I can tell you the story of when I intentionally got myself fired to dispute illegal work contracts.

I question the wisdom of posting this publicly. Should she ever need a job, fact is employers read this stuff but she’ll never find out that posts like this influenced their decision. It may not be right, but it’s what happens.




I have a hard enough time getting potential employers to read my resume let alone look at my github work. In theory you may be correct, but my experience has been the vast majority of employers don’t bother.


Employers use automated tools that crawl known social media keeping track of key words.

It wouldn't be hard to include some sentiment analysis and not hire people that discuss labor or worker rights.


If it can be demonstrated that a not-insignificant amount of employers actually do this, then sure.

But considering the amount of "We think you're perfect for this Java job" (as a Javascript dev) from even legitimate companies, then I doubt that any employer is running anything more complicated than a Nigerian Prince-style spam bot.


I know for a fact they read your personal internet posts once they get close to employing you.

And you’ll never know that they did.


I've been on the hiring side of the process at multiple companies, big and small, ranging from being interviewer to hiring manager.

At smaller companies on tighter teams you may occasionally google candidates but you typically don't have time to dig into the details of anything they've written.

For all of the larger "day of white boarding interviews" type places they absolutely don't bother to read up on you. The people interviewing you are annoyed enough that they have to take a break from work to interview, and depending on the location the hiring manager might not even get to meet you before the offer is made.

And if someone does read deep enough in your work to come across this then they're just as likely to have this tip the scales in your favor as not. I've certainty had candidates that I've wanted to hire more after seeing controversial posts, and have been hired by many people who feel the same.


How do they find out your online usernames aside from Facebook and LinkedIn? I've never been asked to supply them as part of a job interview.


You most likely gave them your e-mail. Also often (in this industry, at least) online username can be gleaned from Facebook or LinkedIn URLs.

Having that, it's trivial to discover your wider on-line presence if you have one (and never bothered hiding your identity).

As for who would bother doing that? I guess it depends on company hiring practices (particularly on the amount of interviews), but in every company I've worked in so far, someone would bother doing a little research on a prospective interviewee.


This person has posted with her real name.


Here's the thing: If you have a background like that, you don't want to work for a company that goes deep reading on your background, and then gets upset that you fought illegal work contracts.

It's an excellent sign they're both invasive and disrespect the law.


I don't think she wants to work for a company which wouldn't hire her because of that anyway, so it'd be automated bullet dodging.


> I question the wisdom of posting this publicly

Ultimately, every employer has a different set of things they look for and red flags. There's a time and place to hire someone who will shut up and do as they're told; and there's a time and place to hire someone who will manage up and push you to do your best.


She's from Norway. We still have a culture of keeping workplaces ethical. Trust me, this is not a black mark in any employment situation apart from really really terrible ones.


Sounds like a good filter to keep employers she wouldn't want to work with from wasting her time.


It's also a signal that might help bad employers avoid her, and she avoid them.


I agree, but the cost/benefit analysis on that involves asking what percentage of employers would qualify as bad.

If it's 1% or even 50%, you may come out ahead by eliminating them. If it's 99%, it might present practical problems.





Consider applying for YC's Spring batch! Applications are open till Feb 11.

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: