I hear this a lot but the job market indicates the opposite. Given sufficient skill and availability everyone is hireable. In your world Jacob Applebaum is giving back rubs to Damore under a bridge somewhere pulling on two ends of a food stamp.
It's Damore. And he's working, as far as I know.
As for "bad reputations": at Google, and I assume at most modern companies, if an applicant came in who worked somewhere you worked at the same time, you got an automated email asking you to rate that person. I don't think I'd even call that a "backchannel."
How much influence did that have? Don't know.
I always knew when the bonuses had gone out at Oracle, because I'd get a flood of reference questions for people trying to leave Oracle.
Thanks, fixed
IOW, do you really think that Damore is the exception to the rule?
I additionally think that trying to compare someone rescinding an offer with Damore and co is irrelevant when the actions are nowhere near equal, and therefore the reactions would also not be anywhere near the same.
The point that was being discussed was whether or not "bad reputations are hard to repair". GP argued that this is not the case and did use an example of someone who got a bad reputation and (to my understanding) has not managed to establish himself in a prestigious position as the one he had.
Shrug. I could be wrong, I'm terrible at these things sometimes.