[polynox]

What a disgusting but revealing story. By saying "being laid off is a red flag" they are loudly signaling that actually they have no way of measuring interview performance and are just trusting the former employer's judgement? So why even bother with the interview then?

It would be like if someone is selling me their car and I run the car history report and see it was in a minor collision but was repaired. I look over the car and see the repairs were done fine. In fact I bring out a mechanic I trust and they tell me that yes the repairs were completed with high quality and everything is great with the car, am I really justified in calling myself rational if I reject the car anyway because of some metaphysical spookiness I think inhabits cars that were in collisions before?

[postexitus]

If my selection criteria for an employee was their ability to come up with good analogies to certain situations, you would be eliminated pretty early on.

[polynox]

He who pays the piper calls the tune.

[olivermuty]

Not sure if this is the best analogy because if I had a choice of cars I would almost always pick the one that has not been in a collision :p

[polynox]

That's fair. A car that is in a collision is always at best as good as a car that has not been in a collision, whereas that's not the case with an employee who was terminated.

I was trying to get at where you don't need to trust someone else's judgement of something, you can just ... go look yourself. Or hire your own expert. Because why do those other things if they don't actually change the outcome?

[3np]

Maybe closer one: You stop dating a prospective partner when you find out it was their ex who instigated their breakup.

[mcv]

A lot depends on the why. I may have different tastes than their ex.

[mcv]

Maybe the car that has been in a collision has learned something valuable from the experience.

[larsrc]

More like the car had gotten stolen and recovered.