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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

If a company asks you about stuff that isn't any of their business you have my permission (not that you need it) to lie your ass off if you think it will help you. The power asymmetry is such that unless the counterparty is extremely careful about abusing that power that you will end up being cornered and taken advantage of. If you present yourself as more desirable than you are based on your current situation and it lands you a job at a higher salary than you otherwise would have: more power to you. But don't overdo it and realize that there is some risk involved.

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I think it's healthier to instead develop the social skills and confidence needed to answer any questions confidently while enforcing boundaries about what you will and won't answer. Outright lying can come from a place of weakness and fear which isn't good to encourage.

Let me give you an example: you're gay and your employer has a thing about gay people. They will not ask you outright 'are you gay?' because that, while legal might result in an anti discrimination suit upon rejection of the candidate which they could very well lose.

Lots of other situations and questions like that which are strictly speaking none of the employer's business. When given the option between telling the truth, evading the question, enforcing your boundaries or lying the only one that might result in you getting the job (assuming you need a job and wouldn't mind working for a bigot because a paycheck is better than no paycheck) I'd be fine with you lying. That is still problematic, but you don't have any moral responsibility towards your employer if they transgress themselves.

The same goes for questions about unionizing, wanting children, having chronic diseases and so on.

You’ve drastically shifted the goal posts from the topic of “are you looking at other companies?” to discrimination. It’s hard to have any meaningful insight with those in the same bucket.

The former is completely standard procedural (do we need to accelerate the process to compete) and competitive (who are we up against).

From the first comment in this thread that I made my position has been consistent, I have no idea what you are on about.

Maybe you picked being gay as a hypothetical out of a hat but it's a terrible example. Unless we're talking about extremely repressive societies where there are literally no professional options available for LGBT people, almost no LGBT person would recommend going back into the closet to find work with a bigoted employer. LGBT people regularly run away from home as teenagers and become homeless to avoid bigotry, that's how serious it can be for LGBT people to live authentically. A key part of the emotional growth involved, what a lot of it goes back to is, as I said, having confidence in yourself and being willing to enforce boundaries.

Leaving aside this particularly bad hypothetical, lying about yourself to get a job probably won't set you up for long-term success. What's the end game of claiming you don't want kids when you really do, after you get the job and then become pregnant? Now you need the job even more and your employer both resents you being pregnant and for having lied to them.

If you're really saying it's okay to lie to employers if you're truly desperate, then sure, why not. If you're actually starving then a lot of things become options, but this isn't really good long-term career advice.

There’s a difference between going into the closet and not wanting to share personal information

Lying is always risky, though. If the truth comes to light, you are screwed. Even if it doesn't, you have to remember and internalize your lie, and make sure anything you say in the future is consistent with it. That requires extra work and can be stressful. (And if you mess it up: again, you are screwed.)

I don't buy the "you don't want to work for a company that would ask you XYZ anyway" line. Sure, in some cases that may be true, but sometimes someone (that is, a random person on the interview loop, not a "professional interviewer" like a recruiter) will ask or say something they shouldn't, and that doesn't need to reflect poorly on the company (or even on the person; who hasn't said something dumb on occasion?).

If you think a question is inappropriate, politely decline to answer, using whatever verbal finesse you have available to yourself. It takes practice and confidence to do so, but it's the right thing to do.

"Are you married?"

"What is the name of your spouse?"

"Have you ever been a member of a union?"

"Do you have children?"

"Do you want to have children?"

"Do you have a chronic illness?"

"Have you ever been arrested?"

"Which bathroom would you like to use?"

"How large is your household?"

"Are you the sole breadwinner?"

"What are your hobbies?"

"Do you have pets?"

"What is your current salary?"

And on and on...

The right answer to those questions is: Sorry but that’s quite a direct question, why do you ask? (And how is it relevant to this interview?)

Those are bad questions to ask as an employer, and you should probably move on to the next opportunity anyways. Still, faking to have children when you don’t, or the other way around, is worse.

Gosh, no - strongly recommending not doing this. (The lying part)

Lying is one of the worst things you can do, it usually speaks to an issue with integrity, a concern that comes before almost all of them even intelligence, education, aptitude, skills.

Learn the skill of polite deferral, of saying things without saying them, diverting or embellishing a bit - and then only if it's an issue not relevant to the job.

If someone in an interview asks you your 'political orientation' (which obviously they shouldn't do and it would raise a big red flag anyhow - but just as an example) you do not have to be candid, but don't lie. You can say "I have a variety of opinions, I try to keep an open mind" - so long as you are comfortable with it and it's true. You have not lied, but not fully answered the question because it's none of their business.

I also think the OP here has misinterpreted 'transparency and candor'.

Engineers who 'over share' are a bit annoying but then again, you don't have to read their posts - but this is not the issue.

The 'issue' here is the absolutely truthful information that is 'just too much' for an interview setting.

Everyone needs to be honest and candid but not transparent like you're talking to the IRS or your accountant.

Suppose they ask you why you might want to work at the company, and you don't really feel hugely inspired, well, instead of saying literally that, you can find at least something interesting about the situation and allude to it. There's something interesting about every situation. And of course, if it's truly a bad situation just say that politely and assume you won't be working there.

It's ok to ask 'Elephant in the Room' questions especially if they are asked politely, if they can't handle that you don't want to work there.

It's ok to be turned away for something arbitrary or mundane (or any other reason) there will be other opportunities.

Getting turned down can make you very cynical and brings out our worst, even conspiratorial tendencies so try to stay grounded and keep your head on straight, don't be sucked into the vortex of weirdness and 'ultra competitive civility' of getting job shenanigans, it's not real, it's a big of a game, recognise it a such.

Kind of like telling people to 'don't be nervous' on a date, what I'm about to write is super glib but I think it's true: stay true to your basic values and identity and I think it will be easier to be more relaxed and authentic in interviews. The 'game' will pull you towards negative behaviours I have found it's a lot easier not to do them if you literally just decide that you are not going to do so for reasons of morality or values or whatever.

> And of course, if it's truly a bad situation just say that politely and assume you won't be working there

Or "this situation sucks, that's why I'm excited. I want to lead the charge out of the darkness and into the light" or some such self-aggrandizing metaphor. Assuming, of course, you are willing to take a job whose primary function is fixing a broken team.

Companies lie to their prospective employees all the time. About how much runway they have, about the work that you'll be doing, about what it is like to work there.

I wish companies lying to users (in terms of service), shareholders, public announcements, employee announcements were all illegal and criminally prosecuted.

It is not because it is morally wrong that you should not lie. It is because it is very bad for you. Lies beget lies and no one trusts a liar.

It is morally wrong to lie. You should not do it

The fact that they do it, when they face different incentives, is not a reason for you to

You are generalizing a lot. I outlined a very specific situation: A company inquires into aspects of your life that are none of their business.

In that particular situation as far as I'm concerned - and not as far as you are concerned - you are free to lie. Because the alternative is going to end with you not getting the job, no matter how qualified you are.

Lying about being arrested is a quick way to get fired when the background check comes through. Your antisocial suggestion has now escalated from something you could have preemptively explained into termination of employment. Nicely done.

If a background check is done there is no point in asking. And arrest records are confidential unless they resulted in a conviction.

Of course there is a point in asking, to find out. The background check is verification.

Did you know that employers frequently ask for your employment history in the form of a resume, but then they’ll contact one or two recent employers to confirm you were employed?

Trust, but verify. It’s a leaky but effective check against con artists.

The moral issue is definitely a factor.

Mmm objectively (black and white) lying is a stupid but man taking a moral high ground is even stupider. If you're caught into a position where you either need to lie or divert it's likely a bad situation. The right people, the right job, the right opportunities won't put you in a situation where your boundaries will be tested or you need to lie.

It shows to me that some people have never been in the situation where they really needed to eat and/or feed their families. The moral high ground is a fantastic place to be but the wrong hill to die on when it comes to employers prying into your private affairs as a means of possibly discriminating against you.

I always lie (through omission) in job interviews, because there's no federal protection against discrimination on basis of sexual orientation.

Has Bostock been overturned?

https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/guidance/protections-against-emplo...

A ruling by a court isn't the same thing as federal law.

There is no federal law establishing my rights, so if a company tries to ask about my personal life (wife, kids, etc.) I politely decline to answer, or I answer vague enough that doesn't give them any useful information.

How often does that happen though? I'm straight and I don't recall ever being asked about my family or love life in a job interview. Not that I'd keep it secret if asked, but why the hell would they be asking?

Yeah I'm also curious. When I was at Google there were a list of things you were never supposed to ask a candidate because that's Super Illegal(TM) and could expose the company to lawsuits. That included sexual orientation and marriage status. That was more than ten years ago, I'd expect most IT companies would do the same by now, at least in the US.

There are ways to ask those without being illegal and these are employed quite frequently. Essentially any kind of probing into someone's private life should be off-limits.

> There are ways to ask those without being illegal

Strictly speaking, its not illegal to ask the question. However, because it is illegal to base hiring decisions on it, asking the question is legally dangerous in two ways:

(1) Asking the question in an employment interview is evidence which can tend to support that you intended to use it in a hiring decision, and

(2) The interviewee answering the question is evidence that you had the information, and thus the opportunity to use it in a hiring decision.

As a result, the usual legal advice is to strictly avoid asking the question: you can’t legally use the response, and by asking it you make yourself unnecessarily vulnerable. The idea that it is illegal to ask the question is probably a consequence of this.

I guess it might not be fraud for the employee to lie about it, too, since it can't be material, riiight?

I've never been asked this sort of question at a large company. Mostly "startups" (scare quotes because they're not Silicon Valley startups; think Orlando or Chicago instead).

They also tend to ask a lot about things that might sound innocuous, like hobbies.

If I was being stupidly honest, I could talk about my involvement in the furry community. Most furries (~80%) are LGBTQ (versus ~3% to 5% of the base population).

Instead, I make vague allusions to being a gamer. (I play video games less than anyone I know, but it's not zero, so that's still technically true.)

The annoying part is that you are essentially cornered, being either LGBTQ and/or furry is a large part of your identity and it is hard to have to divorce yourself from that for the purpose of getting hired. Companies really need to get over this desire to know more about the private lives of their employees during the run-up to being hired than they are willing to disclose about their own affairs (such as: financial health of the company, maturity of leadership, attitude to quality of life issues, health care and so on).

That's exactly the sort of exchange that I had in mind. Likewise for work at a previous company, your current salary, whether or not you plan to have kids and so on. Depending on where you live some of those may be illegal but still, you need that job...

> A ruling by a court isn’t the same thing as federal law.

A ruling by the Supreme Court applying a federal statute is binding federal law nationally, it can be overturned either by the Supreme Court itself, or by changing the law that the Court applied, but that’s actually stronger than federal statute law that superficially seems to more directly protect a right but which does not have such a confirming opinion.

Even when applying to companies that are LGBTQ friendly? I sometimes self identify on applications if the company has a good reputation with that kind of thing because I’d expect It would give me some diversity points. But maybe that’s not the best idea.

I do not trust "LGBTQ friendly" companies, unless their board of directors is predominantly LGBTQ.

Once bitten, twice shy.

> Even when applying to companies that are LGBTQ friendly? I sometimes self identify on applications if the company has a good reputation with that kind of thing because I’d expect It would give me some diversity points. But maybe that’s not the best idea.

Pretending to be LBGTQ friendly is a good PR while changing actual company culture is hard, expensive and takes time. So don't get fooled by PR stunts and changed policies because they will always be eaten by real company culture.

> Even when applying to companies that are LGBTQ friendly?

Ah, so sorry, we found a candidate who had more relevant experience than you, but please do keep applying.

> there's no federal protection against discrimination on basis of sexual orientation.

The agency that enforces federal anti-discriminatiom law disagrees.

https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/guidance/protections-against-emplo....

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