
Ask HN: Hiring scam? - samstave
A friend of mine was hired on as a graphic designer for a company in San francisco, last friday, after 4 months of employment - she was told that Friday was the last day of her 4-month evaluation period - that the company will hire someone else into the 4-month evaluation now and then let her know if she was selected.<p>This was a total shock to her, and they had never mentioned anything about this prior.<p>This sounds highly suspect to me - that they are using people for 4-months at a time then dropping them prior to giving them any benefits.<p>What do you think? And what do you suggest she do?
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patio11
a) That behavior is grossly unprofessional.

b) Treat it like a firing, in all respects. I'd start looking for new
employment immediately.

(Even if they came back with an offer, you should not work for a company that
has that attitude with regards to FTEs. There is nothing wrong with "OK, now
we're going to subject you to four months of unpaid downtime while we evaluate
another guy for your job" - it is routine if you're a consultant billing
several hundred an hour. If you're not, no, just no.)

c) On the plus side, she dodged a bullet there.

~~~
samstave
I agree to treat it like a firing, and that she should move on. This just
sounded super fishy -- I'll ask her about the contract/agreement.

Some time ago, when my wife got pregnant, she was let go from her job and they
specifically told her it was because she was pregnant. She filed suit against
them (ongoing) because they specifically said it was due to the pregnancy.

Sometimes companies do really shady stuff (like to my wife) and potentially
hiring people for 4-month stints. Other times, they could just be using this
as an "easier" way to fire someone - which is a bit passive aggressive.

I'll have to find out which it is in this case.

~~~
tptacek
An important distinction to make here is that pregnant women are effectively a
protected class. Your wife wasn't able to file suit because the company had
been shady; she was able to file suit because the company violated employment
law. Here it's not so clear what recourse your friend might have.

~~~
iqster
You mention "protected class". Would really appreciate some details.

~~~
geuis
In the US, there are laws specifically protecting people from being fired from
jobs for certain reasons.

These almost universally include race, sex, sexual orientation, age,
disability, becoming pregnant, being required to participate in a mandatory
action like jury duty, and I think being recalled to the military if you are
on inactive status.

If an employer violates these, the ex-employee has grounds to sue.

~~~
gsoltis
Sexual orientation is not universally a protected class. I don't know about
non-US employment law, but at least in the US, I believe it is on a state-by-
state basis.

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DanielStraight
Move on.

What are her alternatives?

Even if they were legally required to keep her on longer, would she _want_ to
work for them?

Even if she could sue, does she want to be involved in a legal battle while
trying to find a new job?

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donohoe
What is the name of the company?

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dennisgorelik
The overhead of learning curve of a new person is significantly higher than
benefits they would save.

Most likely reason for firing is that they did not benefit enough from your
friend work (for example because the work is a mismatch between what they need
and her passion).

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axiom
Sounds like they're just firing her but want to make it less emotionally
"unpleasant" so they're calling it the end of her evaluation period. Kind of a
lame thing to do.

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Banzai10
There is no reason to keep in an company that treats a employee like this, or
at least make you feel so uncomfortable and worried.

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Zolomon
Restaurants do this all the time in Sweden with waitresses, except they say
"You were not what we were looking for." instead.

~~~
rue
Tiny bit of background is useful here:

The US has very lax employment regulation. You can be fired for any reason at
any time.

Most of Europe, the Nordic countries in particular, have stringent regulation.
Continuous employment can only be terminated for cause. In the last decade or
so, it has become relatively common to try to circumvent this by hiring with
back-to-back temporary contracts (usually 6-12 months) which are against the
spirit – and often letter – of the law; they're only supposed to be used when
there is a specific reason for being temporary. This poses all kinds of
problems like vacations, maternity-/paternity leave and a general lack of life
security.

Lately legislation has been discovered that allows “trial periods” to be
abused: the trials are often of excessive length, 4-6 months, and people can
be summarily dismissed without having to give notice (normally at least a
month, often longer), vacation &c. This is obviously much more common in
relatively low-skill jobs where the _actual_ training doesn't take much of an
investment.

~~~
gm
"You can be fired for any reason at any time."

I see what you are trying to say, but it's not entirely true. You can be fired
for any reason, as long as it's not illegal (discriminatory, because of a
disability, a pregnancy, whistleblower, union organizer, etc).

This is why often, when you get fired, the company is better off not telling
you why (cover their asses). At least that's what counsel of some companies
would say.

I've seen the other side of the coin in countries that have employee
protections in place. Where it can be abused (ie, everyone is an independent
contractor), employees lose as they have no benefits. Where it cannot,
employees lose out because it's not worth it to invest in hiring people.
Overall, IMO it is bad overall to give employees too much protection. In this
aspect, I think the American system is as close to perfect as it gets.

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angdis
Wow, that's just mean.

That company deserves to have their name dragged out into public.

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blackboxxx
I agree with much that's been said already, but I'll add this: your friend
needs a hug.

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rezrovs
What did her contract say?

~~~
samstave
I'll find out tomorrow.

~~~
tptacek
It is extraordinarily unlikely that her contract is going to have anything in
it that protects her from (what is in effect) constructive termination.
Boilerplate employment contracts are designed specifically to avoid conferring
obligations on the company.

On the plus side, at-will employment is a huge boon to those of us who start
companies, and is one of the major differences between the US and Europe. So
there's that.

Like everyone else is implying, the best way she can get back at them is to
find a way to make sure the name of this company gets out. I wouldn't do
business of any sort with a firm that employed this tactic.

~~~
knowtheory
It's worth adding however that contracts aren't alway bullet proof either.
Contracts are supposed to be binding, but there are ways to wiggle out of
clauses here and there, when you can argue that things are unreasonable. That
said, knocking out clauses in a contract isn't going to help here. If there is
any additional paper trail (say emails) that indicates they were misleading
your, or that this is regular behavior, that may be a different matter.

But tptacek is likely correct that there probably isn't any recourse in this
case.

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FreshCode
A temporary 6-month employment contract with a permanent employment option by
the end of the probationary period is common practice here in South Africa.

~~~
rprouse
A probationary period is common in Canada too, but it is always mentioned up-
front and I have never heard of a company trying out several potential
employees in a series of probationary periods.

Maybe they weren't happy with her at the end of her probationary period, but
are too weak to outright fire her?

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rorrr
Why would you call this a scam? She got fired, that's all.

