
Ask HN: Meeting with a company seeking to recruit you but unlikely to accept - BananaPelican
Curious what others thoughts on this are. It&#x27;s common to receive messages along the lines of &quot;Hey, why don&#x27;t you come check out what we&#x27;re doing at &lt;company&gt;?&quot;. Is it unethical to accept such an invitation if you know that you&#x27;re not likely to join?<p>In my case, I work for a big company doing work that I really enjoy, but have a bit of golden handcuffs going on. A smaller company working on something that I&#x27;m really excited about invited me to come visit, mentioning that they&#x27;re wanting to grow their team. It&#x27;s possible that this company could make such a compelling case that I want to join, but at the moment it&#x27;s hard for me to imagine leaving the security of my current position with a brand-new mortgage hanging over my head. Trying to decide if accepting the invitation to visit but declining to interview afterwards would burn bridges or close the door should I later want to apply.
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liquidcool
There is a very big difference between going to an info session/mixer with no
intentions to join, and going on an interview. Companies I know want as many
engineers going to network and learn about what they are doing. Things can
change in the future, and these are casual events.

Going on a "practice" interview is a bad practice because everyone's time is
wasted. There are lots of resources for practicing your interview skills
without misleading someone.

So go, have some free food, ask questions and make friends.

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minsight
There's always the possibility that they will make you an offer you can't
refuse. There may be inside information which changes the game. And it might
be that the only way to know this is to meet with them.

