
UBER ATC is disguising research as fake job interviews? - rl3
https://imgur.com/gallery/owJrB25
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teen
I'm pretty sure they did the same thing for their marketing manager position.
You are expected to come up with 2-3 marketing campaigns, and make a deck for
them. Then they use the ideas regardless if you're hired.

~~~
lquist
Unfortunately it's hard to separate this from legitimate requests for work
sample based interviewing tasks.

~~~
eridius
Sure there is. If they ask you to do something that they would legitimately
ask an employee to do, there's a good chance they're looking to get some free
work (or maybe the interview is genuine but they want to get free work out of
the people they decline). As an employer, if you're trying to come up with a
good work sample to request, you need to request something that's obviously
not "real" work. In the case of the marketing manager, you could ask for 2-3
ad campaigns, but have them be campaigns for an obviously fake brand (ideally
one in a different line of work entirely).

~~~
sachingulaya
I request work samples from applicants with the same brief that would be given
to a task currently facing our internal team. It makes it easy to compare
candidates not only to each other but to our internal team. As our internal
team has the project fresh in their mind they're aware of the requirements,
scope, and limitations of the project. It makes them better able to judge the
candidate's work.

Of course we pay them for this work at a predefined rate.

~~~
eridius
If you pay your candidates, then by all means ask whatever real question you
want.

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shalmanese
Anyone who has been on both sides of the hiring table would find this account
of things implausible.

First of all, running someone through a full interview cycle is hideously
expensive. Just by his own account, it seems like some 10 man hours of Uber's
time was spent solely to usher just one person through this cycle.

Secondly, the results of work samples are rarely of much value. Outsiders are
missing key information and perspectives that affect the viability of their
work samples. Even if genuinely good work did come out of one of these
samples, the initial conception of the idea is only a starting point and the
least valuable component. How the idea is executed and refined is far more
important and it's usually far more prudent to hire the person interviewing to
work on it than to save the money of going through with the charade.

What's a far more likely explanation is that Uber learned over the course of
the interviewing process that their requirements had changed and retooled
towards a new approach. This happens all the time and isn't especially
nefarious. Yes, Uber should have been more proactive in notifying prospective
candidates about this but companies seem almost universally bad at
communicating effectively through the hiring loop.

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ben_jones
When I see stories like this trending on Reddit, Twitter, or Hacker news, am I
too paranoid in thinking that just maybe some of them are marketing plays
meant to manipulate the reader into siding with one company or the other? It
would be so easy for them to do this.

~~~
jandysaur
Definitely paranoid - the number of stories about bad things Uber does is a
lot higher than any other company around! To believe this is competitors
trying to throw dirt on Uber, why don't we see more negative press about other
companies?

You'd have to believe that a significant number of parties are out to get Uber
(and not others), which doesn't seem right to me?

~~~
jsprogrammer
Stories like this appear all the time. Uber is certainly not the first company
to issue homework, not respond, or spam out interviews.

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theoapps
Sounds about right. This is the norm based from my experience interviewing
with startups as an engineer. It shouldn't be acceptable to waste candidates
time like this. Yet there is every motivation to since it's basically IP for
free.

~~~
fred_is_fred
What IP are you referring to? How to deal with a 4-way stop sign? There's no
IP produced in this guy's story.

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pat_space
[https://www.uber.com/careers/list/20169/](https://www.uber.com/careers/list/20169/)
here's a link to the career post for the alleged job title

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sslayer
This could be part of a negative campaign, anybody else have any real
knowledge/experience of this happening?

~~~
rl3
Agreed. Imgur is notorious for less than truthful posts, and it's an
especially curious medium for an allegation of this nature.

That said, this was the only source (not to mention the original source), so I
posted it. If it turns out to be bullshit, please flag it into oblivion.

~~~
pat_space
a little bit of internet sleuthing on the username didn't turn up much, but it
has been around for at least 5 months

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paulcole
Something shady and unethical from Uber? That doesn't sound like the Uber I
know.

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gwbas1c
I've been on both sides of job interviews; never confuse malice with
incompetence. I once worked with a manager who screwed up the interview
process so much that he was walked out.

~~~
drauh
> She then tells me that Uber had changed the job from direct hire to Temp to
> Hire and that they now want 500 people. She said she did not know how this
> was even possible and it doesn't seem like they want to hire anyone.

This is not incompetence.

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r00fus
I had this happen to me and some of my friends a long time (10y) ago while
interviewing for different positions and Cisco.

It's why I always offer to present this kind of output only in person now. If
they're scamming at least I don't throw away hours of work or ideas without
first getting an opportunity to interview the hiring manager as well.

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jandysaur
This seems to align quite well with their number 1 value - 'hustle'. With all
the cost-cutting going on in their US offices this seems like a good way for
them to save some cash, and hustle their way to free research. I admire their
guile, but hate the way they treat people.

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napperjabber
Happens all the time to me. I have an interview and they probe for details on
how to solve a problem. It is what it is. Two of the three companies I liked
hired me the second time I interviewed for them. I'm a freelancer, so I move
around a lot.

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eva1984
And what is the significance of this? Seriously, is there going to be some
consequence to Uber by doing this? Is this practice illegal? Or it is just
morally condemnable?

