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Comment by ttr2021 | Hacker News Reader

ttr2021

I applied for a role at ThoughtWorks once and their form was an interesting one. They as all the usual details but they an an option in leui of uploading your CV and other details 'or enter manually'.

It's the most bizarro thing I've ever seen, a single line text field.

Feeling kinda leet at the time I decided to take the plunge and cut and paste cover letter, CV, LinkedIn profile etc into this small field and let it burn.

Unsurprisingly I never got contact or received any confirmation or anything....

Why the hell would they even have that as an option?

(I am the %8 !!)

Example: https://www.thoughtworks.com/en-au/careers/jobs/4526889

Scroll down to 'Apply for this job' and click to activate JavaScript expanding form....bleaugh

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Thoughtworks asked me talk about a time I've been discriminated against in their culture fit interview. One of the worst interviewing experiences I've had.

Totally weird! Tell me more!

Is it a trap?

That question is illegal in the US. There is no way to honestly answer it without revealing information that they cannot legally ask, and thus they cannot legally ask it. You should stop the interview right there, if they are willing to violate the law then they are not the type of company you want to work with.

You may want to contact a lawyer about suing them for asking, but I'm not sure how that works.

The above applies to the US. If you are in a different country then you need to check your local laws.

Haha, omfg a classic...

One of the "questions" on their apply for job form is

TL;DR

Optional field is REQUIRED and only option is "Yes"

"At Thoughtworks, we are intentional about making technology a better place for all. We know that the more diverse our backgrounds are, the more impactful solutions we build for our clients. We foster an inclusive community and focus on creating a balanced workforce reflective of the society we live in.To help us achieve this balance, we encourage you to answer these demographic questions. We collect this data to understand who we are reaching (and who we’re not) so we can do better at connecting with a truly diverse group of potential Thoughtworkers. Our recruiting teams will only see the data collected here on an aggregated level, consistent with our Data Privacy Policy. Responding to the questions is completely voluntary and anonymous. Declining to respond will not impact your standing in the recruiting process."

The field is REQUIRED and the only option is "Yes"

It seems like they only wanted to include a block of informational text but the software only supported fields, so they had to make it a dummy required field. This smells more like terrible tech than malice.

But why would you enter it manually? Why not click "attach"?

Because it was there?

I mean it's really common, I've seen it on at least 20 tech jobs in the past week, but I don't know who would actually use it.

I am the %8!!!

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