Are 'Career Catfishers' Justified In Not Showing Up for Work? (fortune.com) 132
Fortune reports 18% of workers have engaged in "career catfishing" — getting a job offer, but then refusing to show up on the first day of work.
And when someone posted Fortune's article to Reddit's antiwork subreddit, it drew 2,100 upvotes -- and another 84 comments. ("I love doing this...! This feels really great to do after a company has jerked you around, and basically said that several other people were in line ahead of you... after five interviews.")
But Fortune reports there's other sources of frustration: At the moment, Gen Z is contending with an onerous battle to land an entry-level, full-time role. The class of 2025 is set to apply to more jobs than the graduating class prior, already submitting 24% more applications on average this past summer than seniors did last year. Furthermore, the class of 2024 applied to 64% more jobs than the cohort before them, according to job platform Handshake. To make matters all the more bleak, the number of job listings has dwindled from 2023 levels, generating deeper frenzy and more intense competition for the roles listed.
That adds up to a hiring managers' market and senior executives are playing hardball; only 12% of mid-level executives think entry-level workers are prepared to join the workforce, per a report from technology education provider General Assembly. About one in four say they wouldn't hire today's entry-level employees. Yet, that's not really the point of entry-level roles, points out Jourdan Hathaway, General Assembly's chief business officer. By definition, it's a position that requires investment in a young adult, she explained. "The entry-level employee pipeline is broken," Hathaway wrote in a statement. "Companies must rethink how they source, train, and onboard employees."
The especially competitive hiring landscape could be forcing Gen Zers to accept the first gig they can get because the job market is so dire — only to later regret it and not show up the first day.
The article also acknowledges that "employers themselves have a role in the two-way communication — or lack thereof — between hire and hirer." Almost 80% of hiring managers admitted they've stopped responding to candidates during the application process, according to a survey of 625 hiring managers from Resume Genius.
Gen Zers say that their ghosting is in reaction to the company's behavior. More than a third of applicants who have purposefully dropped the ball say it was because a recruiter was rude to them or misled them about a position, according to Monster... In part, it's likely AI that's fueling said ghosting. AI has become more integrated into the hiring process, becoming a screener that rejects resumes without ever reaching a human person's eyes. That phenomenon possibly fuels both sides' tendency to be non-responsive...
And when someone posted Fortune's article to Reddit's antiwork subreddit, it drew 2,100 upvotes -- and another 84 comments. ("I love doing this...! This feels really great to do after a company has jerked you around, and basically said that several other people were in line ahead of you... after five interviews.")
But Fortune reports there's other sources of frustration: At the moment, Gen Z is contending with an onerous battle to land an entry-level, full-time role. The class of 2025 is set to apply to more jobs than the graduating class prior, already submitting 24% more applications on average this past summer than seniors did last year. Furthermore, the class of 2024 applied to 64% more jobs than the cohort before them, according to job platform Handshake. To make matters all the more bleak, the number of job listings has dwindled from 2023 levels, generating deeper frenzy and more intense competition for the roles listed.
That adds up to a hiring managers' market and senior executives are playing hardball; only 12% of mid-level executives think entry-level workers are prepared to join the workforce, per a report from technology education provider General Assembly. About one in four say they wouldn't hire today's entry-level employees. Yet, that's not really the point of entry-level roles, points out Jourdan Hathaway, General Assembly's chief business officer. By definition, it's a position that requires investment in a young adult, she explained. "The entry-level employee pipeline is broken," Hathaway wrote in a statement. "Companies must rethink how they source, train, and onboard employees."
The especially competitive hiring landscape could be forcing Gen Zers to accept the first gig they can get because the job market is so dire — only to later regret it and not show up the first day.
The article also acknowledges that "employers themselves have a role in the two-way communication — or lack thereof — between hire and hirer." Almost 80% of hiring managers admitted they've stopped responding to candidates during the application process, according to a survey of 625 hiring managers from Resume Genius.
Gen Zers say that their ghosting is in reaction to the company's behavior. More than a third of applicants who have purposefully dropped the ball say it was because a recruiter was rude to them or misled them about a position, according to Monster... In part, it's likely AI that's fueling said ghosting. AI has become more integrated into the hiring process, becoming a screener that rejects resumes without ever reaching a human person's eyes. That phenomenon possibly fuels both sides' tendency to be non-responsive...
Why not link to the near Dupe? (Score:3)
This story has a lot in common with Career Catfishing' - 34% of Gen Z Workers Didn't Show Up for a New Job [slashdot.org] 21 hours ago, although that one claimed 34% and this one just 18%.
Re:Why not link to the near Dupe? (Score:5, Funny)
The new employee who's supposed to link to dupes didn't show up for work today.
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The other post is even still on the main page of Slashdot!
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...although that one claimed 34% and this one just 18%
Yes, 34% of Gen Z versus 18% of the general public. It might have been nice to have gotten the two stories together but what's being presented isn't contradictory as you imply.
2 Wrongs (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't hard.
No. Wasting an employer's time like this is wrong.
Additionally, trying to 'weed out' potential hires in ways that basically *force* job hunters to apply to hundreds of openings to have even just the 'statistically guaranteed' prospect of a callback, because of how paranoid you are that 'a bad one might slip through!', is ALSO wrong.
(So is creating job postings for openings that dont actually exist, or that you have precisely 0% interest in actually seponding to applicants about, ever, because you either want to hire a very specific person internally, want to play fast and loose witu Equal Opportunity law, or, just to justify telling congress you 'neeeeeeed' more H1B visa placements, to avoid paying SS and pals on them.)
Given there are like, 5 different reasons employers ghost applicants, and usually only 1 actual reason applicants ghost employers, I would suggest that maybe the phenomenon is a natural consequence to the employer's behavior, and NOT the other way around, but this is STILL a '2 wrongs' situation.
The CORRECT behavior, is for none of this shit to be happening in the first place.
Re:2 Wrongs (Score:5, Informative)
While the correct behavior is that I shouldn't get mugged, I'll keep carrying my pepper spray. Thanks anyway.
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That's what I don't get about 'career catfishing.' If you got another job in the meantime and don't bother responding to solicitations afterwards, that's one thing.
But doing all the work of landing an interview just to jerk somebody around by not showing up for it seems like a lot of work for no benefit. Is that really what people are doing?
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While the correct behavior is that I shouldn't get mugged, I'll keep carrying my pepper spray. Thanks anyway.
Just be sure that you don't pepperspray someone for calling you a nasty name. Because that's the correct analogy here. Employers don't ghost you after you signed a contract.
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mental gymnastics champion 2025
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May be, but they are not wrong. Not at all.
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That's what my 9mm is for.
What are you, a petite woman? Real men carry .50cal Desert Eagles.
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Real men carry .50cal Desert Eagles.
I can fire the entire 14-round magazine of my 9mm in the time you fire one round from your .50cal and go to the ER to set your dislocated wrist.
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consider that the rich people don't really have that much stuff in their wallet or their house.
30% of people carry no cash.
Another 20% carry $20 or less.
Low-income people are the most likely to carry cash and are the most likely to be robbed.
Thieves are after money, not "social justice".
There's not a pile of food or gold or money that the crowd can take.
One reason burglaries have fallen is that there's less worth stealing in most homes.
Most people don't keep much cash. Few have silverware that is actually silver. Mink coats are out of fashion. Electronic devices have little resale value.
Another reason is that security cameras are much more common.
Disclaimer: I carry
Re:2 Wrongs (Score:4, Insightful)
No. Wasting an employer's time like this is wrong.
The correct moral thing is to do to others as they do to you and to start with treating them correctly if they haven't treated you badly.
I don't see that if an employer has already been misleading or has a reputation for ghosting people you have any duty whatsoever to behave better to them. Sure, there's a "bridge burning" fear, but actually bad employers can be really damaging, are normally pretty visible in the hiring process and are able to suck people in so getting it clear you won't ever go there might not be nearly as bad a thing as some people will tell you it is.
Re:2 Wrongs (Score:4, Insightful)
The correct moral thing is to do to others as they do to you and to start with treating them correctly if they haven't treated you badly.
Um, no, the correct moral thing is to treat others as you want to be treated.
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Of course, we start with Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. But certain people progress to Do unto others lest they do unto yourself or others. Vengeance is a form of altruism (self-sacrifice for the greater good, without which society might not exist, the eg it's the reason humans do well at the Ultimatum Game). For some reason Americans love throwing decades in jail levels of vengeance against people who grew the wrong plant or whatever, but we shouldn't even be upset at the assholes who v
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That isn't happening so here we are.
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We are expecting that they are keeping such blacklists. But there a lot of employers.
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got cut off ...... I'm saying that it is morally defensible.
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No. Wasting an employer's time like this is wrong.
The correct moral thing is to do to others as they do to you and to start with treating them correctly if they haven't treated you badly.
The opposite of treat others like you wish to be treated? If one employer treats you badly, that you are morally obligated to treat others badly? Indeed, the best thing about a person who ghosts an employer is that it shows that the employer dodged a bullet.
I don't see that if an employer has already been misleading or has a reputation for ghosting people you have any duty whatsoever to behave better to them. Sure, there's a "bridge burning" fear, but actually bad employers can be really damaging, are no
Re:2 Wrongs (Score:4, Insightful)
If I were told there were five people in front of me and then got a call back with the job offer, I'd ask what happened to the other five. Doesn't seem like I job I would take unless I was desperate. But if I were that desperate I would show up and collect a paycheck until I found something better.
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The problem with "ghosting an employer" is that you are really ghosting the hiring manager and the team that you would have worked on.
Very good point.
Those might be connections that you want in the future. This is much less about a moral right or wrong than a practicality. Taking a job and then not showing up is definitely going to cause you harm. It might cause harm to the people who would have been your future teammates. It's unlikely to cause enough harm to the employer overall to change behavior.
Also 100 percent correct.
It turns out to be not much more than virtue signaling.
This whole post gets me to thinking. What kind of person would do this? I'm very welded to the team concept, and would never do something to harm my team, other than normal actions like retirement or leaving for a new job. A person who would accept a job, then simply not show up for it has no other outlook than themselves, and has no concern for others.
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What kind of person would do this? I'm very welded to the team concept
Just playing devil's advocate but even myself in my old age have grown up in the world where a job is just a job and loyalty doesn't mean anything in these modern times. Also we are talking about new hires, team loyalty is built by the team and culture of the company.
Employers played a large part in the perception nd many ways reality of "if you want a pay raise find a new employer every two years, your existing one more than likely will not reward you in kind for sticking around" so if that's the percepti
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A younger me would have agreed 100% and even now I'm at like 50%.
But I'd say more than half of my onboarding experiences even with jobs I've taken have been unpleasant due to HR being incompetent or just by default applying obnoxious practices.
in my company currently, on the hiring side, I'm in a long conflict to get HR to stop delivering 3 or 4 day exploding offers as the default.
Not to mention that we've been on again off again "hiring" a principal dev type, but at basically 2/3rds market rate AND w/ hig
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The problem with "ghosting an employer" is that you are really ghosting the hiring manager and the team that you would have worked on. Maybe it's a bad company. But that doesn't mean they are bad people.
Hopefully the message goes up the chain. But I doubt it. Literally this meme. https://knowyourmeme.com/photo... [knowyourmeme.com]
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The problem with "ghosting an employer" is that you are really ghosting the hiring manager and the team that you would have worked on. Maybe it's a bad company. But that doesn't mean they are bad people.
Came to say exactly this.
When you apply for a job, you're applying to a company, but the company isn't the one making the hiring decisions. There's a recruiter who handles the interview process, and may screw up and lose track of candidates, may get laid off, may get sick at exactly the right time, etc. There's a hiring manager who may do the same. There's sometimes a hiring committee that makes the decision. And any part of that process can get gummed up.
But all of those people involved in that process
Don't understand (Score:2)
No. Wasting an employer's time like this is wrong.
The correct moral thing is to do to others as they do to you and to start with treating them correctly if they haven't treated you badly.
I don't see that if an employer has already been misleading or has a reputation for ghosting people you have any duty whatsoever to behave better to them. Sure, there's a "bridge burning" fear, but actually bad employers can be really damaging, are normally pretty visible in the hiring process and are able to suck people in so getting it clear you won't ever go there might not be nearly as bad a thing as some people will tell you it is.
I don't understand the actual article, maybe someone can explain it to me?
When I'm offered a job (I'm retired now, but whatever), I send back an E-mail accepting the job.
Do these people simply not respond to the E-mail job offer? That is somewhat believable, it might happen, although I'd consider it unprofessional. A response saying "thank you very much for considering me, I have accepted a job offer at a different company, but I'll keep you in mind if for some reason that doesn't work out, and I'll certain
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I don't understand the actual article, maybe someone can explain it to me?
You haven't applied for a job lately so I'll break it down.
Employers get hundreds or even thousands of people applying for jobs. Employers know this and put ridiculous requirements in place or advertise a pay scale between poverty and top tier.
You apply for the job. You might get a canned response or maybe not. If you're very lucky you'll get a response maybe a month later and asking for a phone interview.
You pick one of the allotted times and then never get an acknowledgement. You'll most likely get the ca
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If you know an employer has a history of yanking people's chains.. why even bother with them? If you felt mistreated or mislead during the process, just ignore their calls or turn down any offers. If you wanted to "stick it to them", counter-offer something significantly higher.
I know my company is incredibly slow on hiring people, even when it's an internal transfer/promotion. Doesn't me
From the opposite viewpoint... (Score:5, Interesting)
Gen Z doesn't look at this as reciprocating one wrong for another. They see themselves as facing an all-out assault of wrongdoings from corporate America from the moment they were born, so if that's the game being played, they're just following the rules.
It took me a while to get it myself. (FWIW, I'm an older Millennial, not a Gen Z.) But after reading this article [bbc.com] and watching this Ted Talk [youtube.com], I realized Gen Z behavior can be summed up in just one word: Nihilism. They know the deck is stacked against them. They've tried to play by the rules, but they can't afford a car, they can't afford a house, they can't afford insurance, they can't afford health care, and that damned minimum wage hasn't been increased in over 20 years. They simply can't win; Gen X has taken that away from them. All they can do now is say "fuck it", and enjoy watching the forest burn.
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I am GenX; we had the same attitude early in our careers too. Millenials were also the same; like GenX they blamed the generations before them for the shit world they inherited.
I couldn't afford a house until I was 40. I retired at 47. Life is what you make of it, but starting out having already given up only makes things harder.
Sounds like you didn't watch that Ted Talk... (Score:2)
...So here's that link again. [youtube.com] Watch it, please. I know it's easy to dismiss the argument I made above as, "Yea, we all went through that attitude when we're young." But that's not what's happening. The statistics clearly show that today's youth are not in the same financial position as the youth of my generation, or of yours. The country's wealth has been mined from our youth to create a rich and powerful "elderly class". Gen X has an unprecedented amount of wealth. Seriously, watch the video. Those
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Also, the image of Gen Z as the corpo-hating nihilist with poor prospects is silly. For every Gen Z crying on TikTok about how life is unfair and the world sucks and why even
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Given there are like, 5 different reasons employers ghost applicants
Employers don't ghost applicants on day one of work. At that point the contracts are signed. If we were talking about applicants not showing up to interviews then we'd be having a very different discussion, but the the two are not remotely the same. It's like saying you're justified to punch someone because they called you a name.
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Employers will bait and switch, and that is found out either when the contract is presented or on day one of the work. If companies were honest about their requirements and salaries and presented them up front we'd be having a very different discussion.
Re: 2 Wrongs (Score:2)
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Of course there are. And since we have no data on which employers get this treatment, why are you making the assumption that this is done to those who do not deserve it?
Is it because of collectivist tribalism?
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In all the time I've been in the IT industry, the scoreboard of when employers ghost applicants versus the other way around is quite lopsided. In fact, when I did project manager duties and watched people get hired at MSP jobs, I only remember one FTE ghosting, and that was because the person (who, ironically, had a clean record from background checks), knocked back one too many, hit the road, and got arrested for DWI. The actual number of people who just don't show up are exceedingly overhyped, even in t
Employers can share facts (Score:3)
Gen Zers say that their ghosting is in reaction to the company's behavior. More than a third of applicants who have purposefully dropped the ball say it was because a recruiter was rude to them or misled them about a position, according to Monster...
Is it deserved? Sure. Is it a good plan? Nope. When queried employers can share facts as long as they don't come with judgement, like "they didn't show up for their first day". What they cannot say is anything wrongful, inaccurate, and/or malicious, what they can say is anything that is factual and accurate. A lot of employers won't share details beyond dates of employment because they fear lawsuits which are expensive even when they win, but that doesn't prevent them from doing so. And it's probably safe to assume that the incoming administration will do whatever it can to protect them more when they do than prior administrations, especially if they are large.
You can take the job or not, but don't take the job and then not do it. That's a real bad plan for your future. If the job is the kind of trivial bullshit that lots of people flake on, it's probably not a big deal. If it's a large employer, don't. They will never forget and they will tell other large employers.
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"Do not do anything that may anger the Corporate Machine, or else".
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"Do not do anything that may anger the Corporate Machine, or else".
Do you want to know why that's a stupid take, or do you already know and you're just trolling? I'm not familiar enough with your work... ...Oh, I see, you're fucking delusional [slashdot.org].
wait, I can fix that
Your comments only make sense if you believe the published unemployment rate, which is and always has been a deliberate and willful lie, and it gets to be more of a lie by design the longer people are out of work — the worse things get, the more it undercounts.
The corporate deciders are not going to decide t
Re: Employers can share facts (Score:2)
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oh yes, working for the corporate machine is the only line of work out there.
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The proper response to inquiries about a job seeker from other employers is either:
'They are eligible for rehire'
or
'They are not eligible for rehire'
Any more detail is unnecessary and risks complications.
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Gen Zers say that their ghosting is in reaction to the company's behavior. More than a third of applicants who have purposefully dropped the ball say it was because a recruiter was rude to them or misled them about a position, according to Monster...
Is it deserved? Sure. Is it a good plan? Nope. When queried employers can share facts as long as they don't come with judgement, like "they didn't show up for their first day". What they cannot say is anything wrongful, inaccurate, and/or malicious, what they can say is anything that is factual and accurate. A lot of employers won't share details beyond dates of employment because they fear lawsuits which are expensive even when they win, but that doesn't prevent them from doing so.
Agreed about the not good plan. Not showing up for the first day of a job is a career killer. Like you note, it is a fact that will follow the person.
Getting references from previous employers is tricky. There are some questions you are legally not allowed to ask. So many times, we ask a simple question, "Would you hire this person back?"
side-note Off-record conversations are often held, as a part of networking. If Joe has a habit of harassing the staff assistants, we probably want to know about that. I
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How does it work, finding employers that people didn't start at? Is there some kind of database in the US?
There isn't in the UK or anywhere else I know of in Europe, and it would almost certainly be illegal anyway due to data privacy rules.
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How does it work, finding employers that people didn't start at? Is there some kind of database in the US?
There isn't in the UK or anywhere else I know of in Europe, and it would almost certainly be illegal anyway due to data privacy rules.
Yup, you are correct.
Networking. It is how my present employer found me. The "official" channels have been hamstrung to uselessness, and there are some jobs that a poor employee would create an actual disaster.
In illustration, I have a number of questions I am forbidden to ask, especially in matters of female candidates. Like childbearing plans. That said, I've had several lady candidates who have outright said a version of this "I know you aren't allowed to ask or discuss this, but I have no plans to
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How does it work, finding employers that people didn't start at? Is there some kind of database in the US?
There isn't in the UK or anywhere else I know of in Europe, and it would almost certainly be illegal anyway due to data privacy rules.
Sorry - I didn't answer your question in my other reply.
We can do preliminary background checks on people, open source stuff, social media, Sex offenders registry.
And like I noted in the other post, networking. Now it is possible that employers in Europe aren't allowed to talk with each other anytime ever, but here we very often know other employers hiring people personally, and the conversation at the pub might go like this:
Me: "A guy who used to work for you made a job application to us. What do y
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My daughter, for reason I won't go into, is not a very good employee. So she's a good barometer of how easy it is to land a job. I have felt very lucky for her timing, because during the last few years it was relatively easy. It didn't seem to get any harder no matter how many times she quit or was fired.
The only bridge she did burn was starbucks. That was a pretty cu
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Its only "deserved" if they know that the particular company has behaved in an unethical fashion, and in that case why did they apply there in the firs place.
Its self destructive because an employee's reputation goes far beyond formal references. Having lots of people know that you are a good, honest worker will open doors - you will hear about job opportunities, and jobs will hear about you. OTOH if people know that you do not behave ethically, that you are not reliable, those contacts will never happen.
I am skeptical this is a real thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Here is what I think is happening. This is manufactured story, where media is colluding with big tech to justify H1B visa increases. If they can discredit US applicants (i.e., push the narrative that they don't show up even when hired) then you can hire more cheap migrants. More so, it is trivially easy to organize no-shows by maliciously sending acceptance letters to a wrong address or wrong email.
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>Such behavior from applicant's point of view is illogical - you spend time and effort interviewing to not follow up on this
In today's market, job seekers have to spam their resumes out just to get a response or two. Long gone are the days where someone would actually respond with a 'thanks but no thanks' letter.
So you get a couple of interviews. That's already 'lucky'. They still don't bother to call you unless they want you, so when one does... well, it's not your dream job but you have bills to pay
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I'd say it can be (and likely is) a combination of these things:
1) employers dont want to accept the actual consequences of discarding 99.9% of the labor pool, because 'they only want the creamiest cream', at 'bargain, wholesale prices', resulting in billions of gallons of 'skim milk' looking for a place to go in the market.
2) even with the despressed wages caused by desparation of all that milk in the economy, if they feel they *must* have to begrudgingly accept that milk, it wont be at market prices, so t
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Th dehumanized hiring process has a lot to do with how both parties choose to go about it. For my small company we only put up ads for real positions, but we get spammed by both recruiters and unqualified applicants. Don't apply for an architectural engineering job saying how much you love biotechnical engineering. We had >95% spam rate; on some postings it was 100%.
My advice for someone looking is to focus on smaller companies for entry level positions, and when you get a job make sure you stick around
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Are you saying we should be sceptical of a small online survey from some no-name foreign company held in some foreign country?
What are you going to ask for next? Journalistic standards?
I can sort of buy that young people skip out on simple jobs like dishwasher or even one time event jobs, and then you asked them 'did you ever skip out of a job' some answer yes. That has absolutely no bearing on real world jobs that they'd care about.
Reasons (Score:3, Informative)
I worked at a video store and we had people apply and get accepted for jobs all the time. At the time, to continue to get unemployment benefits after a certain length of time, you had to prove you were applying for new jobs. People would apply for a new job, interview, we'd send out an acceptance letter and never hear from them again. It happened a lot.
When they changed it so you had to actually work to reset the benefits clock, people would work for the minimum amount of time (one or two months) then stop
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I'd forgotten about that. I've been pretty lucky to never have a period of unemployment long enough to worry about benefits, but that's certainly the way it works here - at some point, those benefits continuing depends on proving to a case worker that you're actually trying. So of course people game the system to extend their benefits period.
I assume the case workers know and are also just going through the motions most of the time. Another of life's great farces.
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It's how it works everywhere since Clinton signed a welfare reform act [wikipedia.org] in 1996, except when there are temporary waivers for widespread emergency or high unemployment (which apply to SNAP, or sometimes Medicaid.) Without a waiver or an exemption, you have to perform work or specific work related activities to get food aid for more than a brief time. You're also not allowed to quit a job without a good reason.
Eligibility workers are not permitted to dissuade applicants from completing an application.
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Young graduates (some I know) apply to jobs they don't intend to take, just to get experienced in interviews.
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Here is what I think is happening. This is manufactured story
It is not. I've seen it happen first hand. In fact the wife experiences at at school literally every school year, some teacher will not show up on day 1 of work, or will show up on day 1 and quit halfway through. I've seen it happen from an engineering graduate position as well (see the reality is people apply in multiple places and then pick the best result afterwards).
One of the underlying problems is GenZ is too timid to negotiate a timetable with a future employer (that comes with experience, and they h
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"thanks, as I am awaiting another offer I will let you know in x weeks whether or not I accept."
This is true but on the same hand employers should do better to actually send rejection letters to anyone who sent in a resume, applied online or didn't make the cut on the interview. Most resumes submitted get zero response and many times in my limited experience less than half of interviews actually received a followup to check how the interview went in the first place, "Oh we already hired that last week".
IME and observations employers love ghosting potential hires throughout the process.
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There's a difference between ghosting someone throughout a process and ghosting someone after a process. If this was a story about not showing up for the interview you'd have the correct analogy. But not showing up for day one of work, employers don't do that. They don't lock you out after you've signed your employment contract.
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Such behavior from applicant's point of view is illogical - you spend time and effort interviewing to not follow up on this. More so, you have to take time off work for in-person interviews, so this isn't zero-cost endeavor. Yes, spite is one possible explanation, but would that be widespread?
Here is what I think is happening. This is manufactured story, where media is colluding with big tech to justify H1B visa increases. If they can discredit US applicants (i.e., push the narrative that they don't show up even when hired) then you can hire more cheap migrants. More so, it is trivially easy to organize no-shows by maliciously sending acceptance letters to a wrong address or wrong email.
In tech, you don't hire cheaper, you hire better.
There are plenty of cheap boot-campers out there.
It's not that migrant are cheaper, it's that they are better.
Re: (Score:2)
Er no.
Companies only want minimum competence to do the job and that's exactly what they get typically or sadly, worse because they assumed boot camp is enough to gain competence. Source: I worked in IT for 40 years, much of that in a management capacity. I saw way too many incompetent H1-B workers who went to boot camp, far more than among the group of university trained US programmers. It's the reason we fired entire Indian based contractor companies.
Re: (Score:3)
a) TIL that ADP has a talent management system
b) If ADP's talent management system can actually connect my application to company A to my application at company B it would be infinitely more capable than any talent management system I have encountered. I often find that I even have to create different usernames for different companies that use the same provider. Every last bit of information has to be entered de novo, including the part where I upload a PDF of my resume and correct its parsing just to re-en
If you're going to do it... (Score:2)
I would recommend that you instead do it like the assistant manager that got hired back in the 90s at a university that I worked at:
He showed up, worked two weeks, then announced that he didn't really like the job, and wouldn't be coming back.
He had taken vacation from his other job, to see if he liked this one before actually committing to it.
Re: (Score:2)
Use your vacation time for something like this. What a waste! If he was getting paid, I'd use unpaid leave and keep the vacation time for something more worthwhile.
Sauce for the goose... (Score:2)
I've seen a consistent position across employers that it's acceptable to tell a candidate when they show up on their first day to complete paperwork that the job offer has been revoked and they don't have a job waiting. The justification is that nothing is final until the paperwork is signed, and until it's final the employer is free to decide they don't want to fill that position.
As long as employers take that position, then employees have the same freedom to decide they don't want to accept the offer unti
Re: (Score:2)
This. It goes both ways. A couple years ago I took a contract temp position in a mostly rural state. It was arranged as an emergency fill with only a couple days notice. So the agency pays $1150 (I shit you not) for a plane ticket to Santa Fe. From there I have to get a rental car and drive about 90 minutes to the site.
When I get there, there's no hotel arranged. So here I am calling the emergency help line for the agency, and finally get something arranged at some cheap motel on the edge of town. The next
It's Wrong HOWEVER (Score:2)
The way companies hire now is also completely screwed up. They post phantom jobs to 'Gage Interest' then ask for a pile of credentials that are not necessary. I worked some where a few years ago, they hired this individual with a whole list of Java certifications. They couldn't even write basic simple code, let alone work through production code ( On a dev env) with a debugger to figure out what was broken. Not sure how they got all the certifications. Stuff like that. You force someone to apply for
They must be lying (Score:2)
The companies MUST be lying that there is a shortage of skilled labor.
The facts are: companies hassle and jerk candidates around and make them jump thru countless hoops and they filter out countless candidates then even tell you so.
Wages have not increased significantly.
Everyone is complaining about not finding a job.
They have got to be lying just to get those sweet, sweet defacto migrant slaves⦠no evidence can back up the claim there is a labor shortage. It is a job MARKET, and it is currently
seems to me (Score:2)
Seems to me that if you have to apply for 100 positions in the hopes that you will for sure get at least one offer, and you get 5 offers, you may as well accept them all and see what other bullshit they want to put you through like NDAs, non-competes, drug tests, skin-color tests, etc. If you don't like the bullshit, don't show up. Why waste time and energy telling robots that don't give a shit about you that you aina comin' to their hoedown.
No way!?!?! (Score:2)
A post about not going to work getting thousands of upvotes on the....checks notes......antiwork sub? Will wonders never cease?
Oh that... (Score:2)
Oh that...not showing up for a job after you applied, interviewed, and accepted.
I would like to see that when people do that with an army recruiter after signing up.
JoshK.
One problem is commiserating. (Score:2)
Every generation has felt like the deck is stacked against them. And to some extent it's always been true. What's different now is that they get to sit in their homes, reach out, and connect to each other en masse. Then they wind themselves up into cathartic rage about it and reinforce each other's bleak opinion until all nuance is lost.
Then it's not that jobs are limited, it's that somehow they don't exist. It's not that they can't afford to buy a home, nobody can, and nobody will. It's fatalism on a grand
Go ahead (Score:2)
If you don't show up when you get a job offer, don't be upset later when you don't get any.
No. It's a stupid question. (Score:2)
Anyone that argues that the employers can do the same shit - well more people need jobs than employers need employees.
I am not siding with corporations here, I am siding with respecting your fellow people. All I can hope is that karma is a thing.
Justified? That doesn't matter (Score:2)
In almost all the states in the US, there is at will employment. That is, a company can fire you for whatever reason.
So, you can think you're justified in catfishing your company all you want.
They'll still fire your ass and you'll have nothing to say about it.
Re: Mutual respect (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Let's rephrase this problem: Job seekers don't trust or respect potential employers. Also potential employers don't trust or respect job seekers.
You believe that is universally true it appears. Good luck with that.
I've worked for employers who were bad, and I've worked for employers who were really good. Trying to have a universal statement is a part of the problem.
The solution to this is a mutually trustworthy entity that can vet candidates and employers. It can be a website. Candidates would not be vetted for being good employees but for being honest and responsive candidates. Employers would not be vetted for being good employers, but for being honest and responsive hirers.
Won't work, because many prospective employees will simply say it is yet another tool of the employers who don't trust or respect job seekers. Too many people simply hate employers, and have no intentions of ever changing their minds.
To me, if an applicant has ever ghosted an emplo
Re: (Score:2)
... and posted a dupe?
Would they get the sack the first time?
Bit early to say. Will they do this repeatedly in future or is this just a one off? I'd not overreact the first time
How about the hundredth?
Does it get lots of people moaning about and posting comments about dupes? Does it appear to drive advertising revenue? I'd say that once it's clear it's something that sustained and repeatable that's good for a pretty big bonus really.
Re: (Score:3)
"(For minimum wage where a full day of work barely pays for dinner)"
In Arizona the minimum wage is 14.70. Maybe $70 a day net after taxes.
If you need dinner better than that, you should be able to work at something that's worth more than minimum wage. Like maybe as clerk at Home Depot? Average pay $19+/hr, you get cab fare home
Actually, why not do what was done 50 years ago and eat cheap at home. But hey, Gen Z expects it all now, entry level wage for them seems to be expected to cover a mortgage, nice car,
Re: At will (Score:2)
When I made minimum wage I did not expect to eat out at all. I ate cheaply, lived cheaply. I developed skills to earn more. That's not easy for many, I know, it never was. Minimum wage isn't par.
Re: (Score:2)
Employment is at will
At-will employment is not a thing in most of the world, and not even a thing in most of the United States.
Re: (Score:2)
*developed world. Obvious in some African forest you're unlikely to find employee protection or contract law has any meaningful impact on employer-employee relations.
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At will employment: A United States thing. Not practiced in any other first world country.
It cuts both ways, but it benefits the employer more than the employee.
The only advantage for the employee is that you can quit at any time and with no notice and there's nothing the employer can do about it.
The rest of the first world countries use employment contracts, and you get more job security because the conditions for breach are spelled out in the contract.
Re: (Score:2)
Just a thought here. Do you frequently say out loud (to your wife or directly to your son) that he is/will be a failure, doesn't have the skills to succeed, is weak, doesn't have what it takes, etc., etc.? Because it sounds like maybe you do. Have you considered that your son's fear of failure may have as much to do with your attitude towards him as making life too easy for him has? Because when he hears that coming from you (and he almost certainly hears it when you think you're just talking to your wife a
Re: (Score:2)
"Minimum wage in the US is $7.25 and assuming a 20% tax rate that leaves you with $50 for the day.... You must have some fine dining habits if $50 'barely pays for dinner'."
I can tell you're an idiot that doesn't go out to eat. Two combo meals and two chicken sandwiches at Carl's, Jr./Hardees would take that $50 and laugh at it once the taxes got added.
Re: (Score:2)
WTF kind of dining habits do you have that you are eating TWO COMBO MEALS plus TWO MORE SANDWICHES?!?!!?!? That's food for a family of 4 to 6!!
Yes, I do eat out, but not all that often. Maybe once a week on average? Why? Because it's freaking expensive!! And I make $400k a year and my wife makes $300k a year. Also it's incredibly unhealthy. I just went to the Hardees website and two large monster burger combos plus two chicken sandwiches are $45.33 after tax. But that's 5,270 calories!!! T
$7.25 minimum wage (Score:2)
Depends on if it's a state or city which doesn't have its own minimum wage laws.
The minimum wage can be close to $20 in some cities within some states.
Blue states tend to have their own minimum wage laws, red states mostly don't.
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry, I already commented, but I had to add this regarding the $50 per day:
"barely pays for dinner" was clearly a bit hyperbolic. Still, even cooked at home, a nutritious dinner is probably going to cost in the range of $5. Let's assume a 2000 Calorie diet with a 50%/25%/25% mix of carbohydrates, protein and fats with 800 of those 2000 Calories for dinner, that's 400 carbohydrate Calories, 200 protein Calories, and 200 fat Calories. So, to get 200 Calories of protein, you need about 50 grams of protein. Fo
Re: (Score:2)
We need indentured servants, err..H1-B because American workers are ghosting us. Someone familiar to me has literally dropped close to 800 resumes and got 3 interviews, and no jobs. We need to crack down on the ghost job listings by these "sad" employers. And if a recruiter is not getting back to an applicant, that recruiter should be fired. We have no standards in the job application market anymore.
Typical mentality. In other fields where H1B isn't prevalent, it's the diversity quotas.
It's always some random foreigner who is stealing your job.
Foreigner wants your cookie [ifunny.co] - replace with H1b wants your cookie.