I feel like that's an uncharitable take.

Even if you take a very nihilistic view of company morality... for simple liability reasons, most places don't want someone fired for sexual harassment.

But it's trivial for those fired to not get caught. For example, it's likely some (not a majority, but some) people are leaving Activision Blizzard over what's been uncovered, they could claim to be part of that group. Or they could just lie and say the left earlier.

As pointed out above, other employees may have left because of the misconduct aimed at them in the same time period.

It'd be more than a little ironic to tar all of those with the "suspected offender" brush.

That's exactly what my comment says

Nihilistic? I was pointing out that there is some info one could use to inform their guess about whether someone is one of the harassers or not. And I'm saying I don't think it's a strong enough signal for most companies to use that information to filter applicants. If they did, they could be passing up people who happened to leave around the same time. How crappy would that be if people who left because they hated the awful state of things at ActiBlizz were getting caught up in that filter?

> Do they want to risk being wrong with the guess and passing up a good employee because of it?

Would it be illegal to ask if they were fired in connection with this push? If the candidate answers no, they’re clean or a liar. If they demur or confirm, you have your answer.

"Article says fired or pushed out"

So I presume HR had a chat and offered them a pile of money to resign - or if they didn't accept, indicated there would be an investigation into their behaviour.

Presuming they didn't choose option 2 and lose - when asked, nobody's going to say they left for sexual misconduct.

In my country, you can verbally tender your resignation in the meeting to fire you, and the company will almost always accept.

It saves the company some paperwork, and weakens the employee's case for taking them to court for wrongful firing. In exchange, the employee can truthfully tell future employees they weren't fired.

In the US this would be a bad idea if you wanted to try to claim unemployment wages.

> Would it be illegal to ask if they were fired in connection with this push?

I think so; since they weren't charged with a crime, I guess privacy comes into play.

That said, if someone was sacked for sexual misconduct, nobody would hire them if they end up working with women. (I'm aware I'm gender-stereotyping here, but unless I missed it, all allegations were from women aimed at men. As is often the case.)