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Comment by timbuckley | Hacker News Reader

I guess other companies should be wary of persons who leave Uber in the past few weeks or so.

Nah, profiling is no good. Probably a better idea to work on a solid recruiting process that can shake out practitioners of bad behavior from the candidate pool. Then you can handle it and more.

> "Probably a better idea to work on a solid recruiting process that can shake out practitioners of bad behavior from the candidate pool."

I agree in principle - but how do you suggest this be done?

It's not as if harassers are going to cop to it in an interview.

I: "Have you sexually harassed your colleagues at previous jobs?"

C: "Oh yeah, sure, yep, I'll show myself out now."

Nor are companies permitted to answer whether or not someone was terminated for cause, or whether they received harassment-related reprimands.

I think everyone agrees that detecting and filtering out bad actors from your candidate pool is great - but is there actually a practical way to do so?

The "state of the art" around this is back-channeling - calling around to see if you can locate people who have worked with the candidate, and getting the unofficial word on whether or not they're bad actors. This has pretty glaring and obvious issues, and isn't always possible, but we don't really have a better way.

I think profiling people for leaving Uber is highly problematic - but what's the alternative? Ask them if they got canned for harassment, and when they inevitably deny it, just take them at their word?

You are assuming Uber could/would look out for potential sexual harassers, but suddenly starting to care isn't as easy and obvious as you make it; their idea of "bad actors" is likely to be different, including potential complainers, whistleblowers, union leaders, etc.

Not being someone who harasses others at work, I don't know if this would work. But if your company had a reputation of taking that kind of thing seriously, wouldn't it mean that those bad actors would be less likely to apply at your company?

Yes, I think it would - but most companies are small and do not have known cultural reputations, so this kind of strategy likely will only be useful to larger/name-brand companies.

IMO the lack of this reputation harms startups - some larger companies have been known to take harassment and abuse more seriously than others, and they've attracted a greater share of marginalized demographics. This is great for employees - they have greater safety at work - but bad for the ecosystem, as this is an entire talent pool that startups - who comparatively have little reputation - are missing out on.

The other poster also brings up a good point: not all bad actors know they are bad. Generally speaking everyone is the Good Guy in their own head. That said, there are certainly many bad actors who are aware of how their actions are received and will seek easier environs.

In my experience few people think their behaviors are bad, and most people have some justification for it (calling derogatory comments "locker room talk" being a notable recent example)

I don't really like the "bad actor" model of things. You don't just want people who aren't going to engage in that sort of behavior regardless of context. You also want people who are professional enough to figure out what's allowed and work within that box.

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