I was contemplating the process of finding work one day, thinking about how people give references and resumes. I thought about who gets chosen as a reference, and it’s overwhelmingly peers and people you are subordinate to (i.e. co-workers and bosses). To the best of my knowledge, people provide references who consider the “hire” in positive terms.
The point I am trying to make is the interview process is a trial for how effective you are at being subordinate, and as such is inherently weak at weeding out people who treat their subordinates poorly.
I have no ideas on how to address this issue, but it helped me rationalize how tyrants get as far as they do on a regular basis.
