Never assume malice when incompetence will suffice ;)

I believe the thinking is: "This is a great filter to ensure we only get great and passionate people!" when the reality is: "This is a great filter to ensure that only desperate or unimaginative people will apply!"

>Never assume malice when incompetence will suffice ;)

This keeps getting repeated. But honestly these days I can't tell the god damn difference. What is malice, other than incompetent people struggling to survive like anyone else, and paradoxically sticking up for each other through the same repetitive cycle of abuse that prevents them from aspiring to competece?

This and that road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Malice is the conscious identification of that same pathway and the active exploitation of it for the harm of others. It’s a fairly high bar in terms of the behavior of others.

Functionally, though, your experiences may be very similar on the receiving end of incompetence vs malice.

edit: I want to append this to say: The purpose of the original phrase in my opinion was to encourage cooperation and communication as the solution. In a sufficiently structured corporate environment this solution may be impossible for reasons other than malicious behavior, in which case the statement is without practical value.

Exactly.

Malice is a legal, quasi-religious concept. A tiger can also quite actively exploit weaknesses and imbalances for the harm of its prey, yet we don't judge the animal as malicious - because we don't attribute concsiousness to it in the same way we attribute it to humans.

To have "malice", you need "intent", for which you need need "consciousness", in the classical folk understanding of the term: taking "selfhood", "free will", and "adequate theory of mind" as axioms. Whatever the scientific consensus on those, they seem to have little explanatory power in the domain of business. They're also a pretty high bar, so to speak - certainly higher than we give 'em credit for.

If those words really meant what they purported to mean, we'd be functioning in a much more humane economy; but for whatever reason these concepts just don't "stick" to what's really going on in the day-to-day. They're just the wishful thinking of Western humanist authors who were trying to set an example, i.e. mold the world in their own image a little bit.

> Functionally, though, your experiences may be very similar on the receiving end of incompetence vs malice.

Precisely. And since we're just people who just have objectives to accomplish, and our understanding of the consciousness of others takes at best a pragmatic role in pursuing those, our response to others failing us ends up being essentially the same: looking for ways to enforce compliance so that the counterparty delivers.

At the end of the day, "attributing malice" vs. "attributing incompetence" is about saving face - for the counterparty as well as for ourselves. Either way, dedicating effort to saving face detracts from the effort of understanding the problem at hand, which like you said is fundamentally structural.

I'm going to disagree with you.

> A tiger can also quite actively exploit weaknesses and imbalances for the harm of its prey, yet we don't judge the animal as malicious

A tiger is not malicious when it harms prey, because the intent is survival, and it cannot have that without harm. The survival of abusive CEOs and managers does not require harm to be done to anyone, yet they do it (sometimes for no tangible benefit).

> To have "malice", you need "intent"

You need not intend for your actions to be malicious, for them to be. If you are willfully ignorant of malicious consequences of your actions, your actions are still malicious. This is why "I didn't know what I was doing was harming people" defense doesn't fly, not in the legal sense and not in the moral. At some point it is your duty to determine the consequences of your actions, and something being your job is definitely over that threshold.

> You need not intend for your actions to be malicious, for them to be. If you are willfully ignorant of malicious consequences of your actions, your actions are still malicious.

I think this is almost the same point as parent, albeit slightly askew from that one.

The hint is in your use of the word “willfully” — that is, you know what you are doing will result in harm, and you choose to do it anyway.

A difference is that “intending to harm” may be a differently intractable behavior because it is effectively sadism. That is a tighter reward loop than “pretending it doesn’t harm” which can just be avoidance.

Of course whether or not you can ever learn which of those (if it isn’t both) you’re dealing with is an entirely different matter.

> you know what you are doing will result in harm, and you choose to do it anyway

No, you _don't know_ the consequences and you don't bother finding out before doing it.

> The purpose of the original phrase in my opinion was to encourage cooperation and communication as the solution.

I agree that this might have been the original intention, yet the phrase has become a way of virtue signaling and looking down on those who assume malice. IMHO, difference is minuscule, because in many cases consequences are the same.

I don't think it's really different in a metaphysical sense, but one views the object of irritation more as a potential pupil than as an established enemy.

> Never assume malice when incompetence will suffice ;)

While this is true — I would be very surprised if anyone was actively malicious towards their hiring pool — it's not an important distinction when trying to decide which employer to apply for.

> it's not an important distinction when trying to decide which employer to apply for

Oh I completely agree.

The funny thing is I actively enjoy writing - but I look at the long questionnaire for some otherwise quite attractive companies and sigh, and assume that everything internally is just as clueless and so just pass them by for a company who won't waste my time.

If someone is malicious they have a potential victims pool, not a hiring pool.

> Never assume malice when incompetence will suffice ;)

Actually this thought process has been problematic for me. Seeing that everyone is actually incompetent is more dangerous than there being a reason (good, bad or otherwise) for their actions.

folly is the cloak of knavery

The problem is the potential for malice in a place where incompetence reigns. Management incompetence is malice waiting to happen - not necessarily by the incompetent ones which makes it really hard to fight when it does.

>Never assume malice when incompetence will suffice ;)

I no longer subscribe to this line of thought after seeing several borderline sociopaths use this very same mental model in order to try and manipulate people into doing their bidding.

There's probably a term for it, but I'm noticing being "deliberately unsuccessful" is becoming more of a thing with the sketchier members of my family. Seems to be a tactic in the NEET playbook.

As I see it, "intentional failure" is just a euphemism for sabotage.

A term you may be interested in is "weaponized incompetence".

https://www.theskimm.com/wellness/weaponized-incompetence

https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/weaponized-incompeten...

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/weaponized-incompetence-women...

> I believe the thinking is: "This is a great filter to ensure we only get great and passionate people!"

Assume this were true. Even if this were the case, this might backfire: "passionate" easily works against a company.

This means that if you filter for passionate people, but reject such passionate candidates, these candidates might passionately work against your company (e.g. tell every friend what a shithole of a company this is etc.).

So, filtering for passionate people in the hiring process (even if it worked) is in my opinion dangerous idea.

I sincerely doubt that kind of second order thinking is much in evidence in HR departments.

At the interview stage, one doesn't need to decide if they're evil or stupid. Just say 'no' and move on.

I doubt they are looking for talents / very competitive people. It's more in the lines of "competent just enough but very obedient / willing to put up with a lot".

You will not find many passionate people anywhere. There are a lot of great people who will do a good job for 8 hours and then go home. You can find a few passionate people who dream of working for you, but not enough who are also great that you can staff a company on them.

I work for John Deere, one of those companies that (where I live) has a lot of loyal customers who teach their children we are the best. Even still the majority of great people I work with just want to work their job and go home. (to avoid burn out we don't allow the passionate to work more than 8 hours very often, so the difference between great; and great and passionate isn't significant)

>"Never assume malice when incompetence will suffice ;)"

One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

> Never assume malice when incompetence will suffice ;)

Please stop saying this, especially if you have no actual evidence of incompetence. It's the equivalent of clicking your heels together three times because you really, really don't want to live in a world full of casual malice. Wishing doesn't make it so.

When we’re talking about widely observed practices across broad swaths of activity (this case hiring practices) then we can, ought, and need to move from assuming incompetence to assuming malice. That saying was always meant to be tied with another saying “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.” And the other quote about doing the same thing twice and expecting a different result is a good definition of insanity.

Yes, but sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistiguishable from malice

The first time you end up working for a malignant narcissist, you will never ever state that quote ever again. As long as you live. If you ever work for a sociopath, it might take a couple of jobs getting abused by sociopaths to wipe that quote out of your memory.

Was this in tech? That’s wild.

Yes, a tech startup.

I think it's kind of like scam emails with poor grammar...

“Do these people not realize how annoying their process is and how talented people don’t have to put up with crap like this?”

Easy. They select for compliance, not skill.

Then they have no business complaining about how hard it is to find qualified candidates.

"We don't need smart ones. We need loyal." -- from a classic Soviet sci-fi book [0] which wasn't really about a different planet.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_to_Be_a_God

Funny, I think that's great.

It's considerate of an applicants time by saving them the hassle about price conversation up front. That's for your benefit, not theirs (they lose the "grip" they might otherwise have at price negotiation time due to your sunk cost, which is totally to their benefit). Some applicants know to ask about wage this early, but many don't, so it's equalizing to let anyone opt out pre-pipeline, not just the confident men who've done a billion interviews and know to ask asap.

As for video, that feels like a company trying to supplement a prior process that used to lean a lot on in-person networking and associated soft skills assessment, which is lost in online apply processes. Not everyone feels at ease in networking settings, and so many ppl don't show up to those "meet first" spaces. This is giving the introverts and non-urban ppl a way to enter their pipeline while still requiring those applicants to put some of their personality on the table early on in the filter.

I dunno, I don't get the criticisms in this sub-thread, but I assume commenters have a neurotype that this specifically rubs the wrong way?

I think the lack of reciprocity is the issue for people, especially when it comes to uploading a video of yourself talking to an imaginary person.

Regarding price conversation, salary is always negotiable after an offer is made even when an employer says that it isn't, the applicant just needs to be willing to say no.

The video thing is dodgy. Being able to see the multitude of 'legally troublesome factors' of the initial applicants is making my inner lawyer scream. You can easily bias based on race, sex, wedding ring, kids toys in the background, location, religion, etc.

Just post the salary range then?? I'll decide if it sounds right.

A few years back I took a call from a recruiter who wanted me to apply for a role at am investment bank - for less money, less holidays and longer hours than the role I had at the time.

He was genuinely confused as to why I wasn't excited by this "opportunity".

>talented people don’t have to put up with crap like this?

Is this true outside of tech? The only application I ever did in finance/accounting that wasn't one of these annoying forms was an IB interview I got through nepotistic networking, nothing to do with my talent.

Yes, there are lots of jobs, and talented people can switch.

Jobs that pay well can treat their people worse - though worse treatment is weird. There are places that treat their people well, but because the job is considered unethical by many they have to pay more.

> Jobs that pay well can treat their people worse

Technically they can.

But on practice, jobs that treat people badly also tend to pay badly.

Look at it another way - they're letting you know up front it's an awful place to work.

Funny (true) story: In one memorable case, I went the opposite route and stated my salary expectations up front, knowing full well that they were likely above the HR-approved salary scales the company was likely to offer. The point was I was not prepared to work for that particular company (life insurance) unless the money was eye-wateringly good.

Despite their (supposedly) knowing that, they put me through all their HR hoops anyway, all the way to a final interview, when the manager I'd have worked for looked across the table at me and said, "So what sort of salary would you have in mind?"

I looked him in the eye, didn't blink, didn't blush. Repeated the figure I'd given up front. The interview was over.

Why the fuck did they bother with all the palaver when they knew they were never going to pay that much. Did they think I'd blink?

Last laugh: I ended up doing a short consulting stint there several years later and took more off them in a couple of weeks than the annual salary they'd failed to meet.

You might be overestimating their ability to communicate that information internally throughout the process. Even if their process was set up to request that information, it’s likely that many of the interviewers/hiring managers didn’t see it or remember it.

Yep. I was never totally sure who was bullshitting me, the manager/interviewer or the recruiter person who'd started the ball rolling, hence my "supposedly" above.

> Last laugh: I ended up doing a short consulting stint there several years later and took more off them in a couple of weeks than the annual salary they'd failed to meet.

This is still a dream of mine. I'd like to pull this off somehow. The answer is apparently not "Fiverr" or "Upwork".

The answer is

1. having a network of trusted people you've worked with in the past

2. building some sort of public reputation where people seek you out.

They're not mutually exclusive, but #1 is probably easiest for people already in a job. Go to networking events (covid has muted a lot of this, I know, but it's coming back). Tell people you're looking for consulting work. Be nice.

Yes, the answer for most people is not fiverr or upwork. I've known a few folks who've done good there, but they're outliers in my network. And even then, the few businesses I've known that have used platforms like that use it as a test ground, and then go direct with someone they click with.

That said, I've never taken a full year salary in 2 weeks. I have taken my own full year salary matching my early earning days from 30 years ago in 2-3 months now.

>> Recently I wanted to apply to a company. First they had you read some weird document telling you how they can’t pay high salaries, so you should be modest with your expectations.

My favorite one was an employer who low-balled me for a job in NYC. Then he says "I know people who live in Pennsylvania and commute in [read: the wage doesnt have to be sustenance wage in NYC/suburbs, you can just commute to somewhere far away]." suggesting that one can make budgets work if one tries hard enough.

Then they can hire such people. If they can find enough of them. Or better yet they should move to Pennsylvania as that is where they want to hire people from: they can then hire people who would be willing to work for those wages but are not willing for the commute.

>so you should be modest with your expectations; and how talented people don’t have to put up with crap

that kind of sums it up - talented people won't apply there as they won't be compensated and they will leave - waste of time.