[FrustratedMonky]

He has a point. People that are always calling out nepotism, or good looks, etc... typically also have an axe to grind and have some festering sour grapes.

The situation outlined is true. It can take time to convince outsiders (friends), and time to convince insiders (the company, manager) that X and Y are a good fit.

Hiring is not easy. Getting hired is not easy.

[filoleg]

Agreed, yeah.

I don't want to start a flamewar with this controversial hot-button topic, but imo it is kind of similar to the whole incel culture. The kind of takes where they believe that women aren't interested in them because they are 5'9 or because of them not having a square jawline or because of some perceived "chad" gatekeeping them, and totally not because of their own attitudes and behaviors.

This is just missing forest for the trees. I am not saying that looks don't matter at all. But the sad part is that the heavy majority of those people look totally fine, and it is just their hyperfocus on their perceived deficiencies (and associated behaviors) that drives people away.

Same here. No one denies that nepotism exists. But 9 times out of 10 when I hear someone complaining about it, it boils down to "how dare they hire someone that they had any prior personal experience with and who they know for a fact is a great specialist due to the shared track record".

[gizmo]

People get upset because companies boast about being a meritocracy and then take the (pragmatic?) road of hiring people they already know, and promoting those people they enjoy hanging out with.

The game being somewhat rigged would be a lot easier to accept if you haven’t been told all your life that if you work hard and be a good person everything will automatically fall into place.

The logic of being upset that somebody who got worse grades in school now has a better career and how unfair that feels is the same logic as being mad that somebody with a criminal record who has no house or car can get dates easily but the “nice boy who played by the rules” cannot.

[FrustratedMonky]

Exactly. There are 'kind' and 'un-kind' readings of this situation.

For many years I swallowed the story that companies are a 'meritocracy', and got very upset when they were not (nepotism, hiring people that under-perform).

But then realized, maybe sometimes it is 'pragmatic'. It is more like 'moneyball', they are not hiring the 'best', but maybe they are hiring the 'known quantity'.

Sure, there is some cases where you can be mad at nepotism. But I tend to think people are generally good and trying to do the right thing. Sometimes the story goes "I don't know much about programming, but I'm going to hire my nephew because he seems smart", is innocent.

[citizenpaul]

My experienced is that people whom are hesitant to call out nepotism are usually direct or indirect beneficiaries of it.