Right now there is MASSIVE information asymmetry and companies are absolutely leveraging that during their hiring processes. In many cases, they have to in order to stand a chance at being competitive when hiring (which is a statement in and of itself).
Given the complexity of these sorts of things for the average employee who has never looked at a term sheet before, has no clue about the tax implications of options, etc. what can be done to even the odds?
My personal rule of thumb right now is that the odds of getting equity that's worth a damn if I'm not a co-founder would typically not be worth it, so I make decisions based on the rest of the compensation package. It is simply the safest way to play it when I know I'm not the smartest one at the table in an equity-based discussion because of said information asymmetry.