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Ask HN: Anyone having issues with job applicant fraud?

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Re: Ask HN: Anyone having issues with job applicant fraud?

#321

Post by nivertech »

EddySchauHai wrote: post #193
csa wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It makes me wonder if they are just getting into a completely different program with the "American university" name. Not op, but I can answer this. Short answer: Yes. Longer answer: Most non-terminal Masters degree programs are degree mills, even at well known universities. These are almost always pay-to-play with few opportunities for scholarships, TAships, or whatever. Most “real” students will enter a doctoral p…

I interviewed at Oxford for an MSc in Software Engineering with no bachelors degree lol. There are sneaky gateways into a lot of top universities.

Maybe it was an MEng (Master of Engineering), which is an undergraduate degree in UK?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Engineering#United_K...

Re: Ask HN: Anyone having issues with job applicant fraud?

#322

Post by brailsafe »

gabereiser wrote: post #149
bb88 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly what he did -- charge two companies for 1 hour worked. Even if he wasn't, he was a contractor, and checking code while being on site for another company was sus. Employment is "at will" in the US for the most part -- particularly contractors.

yeah, bogus... proper time keeping is key to being a contractor. If you are going to work multiple (which happens when you're brought on as an expert but there's spirts of work between lapses of down time) then you can't be doing one while on the clock for the other. Wage theft.

Not necessarily. It depends on the requirement. If I've completed or don't have any real work, but am expected to be around, then that's work. It's only if the second contract breaches the first or creates a conflict, and that's not inherent in time.

Edit: Misread your comment. If you're billing for specific and granular blocks of time, and doubling that up, then ya wage theft. But if you're doing that and also expected to be onsite anyway, then no not wage theft imo.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone having issues with job applicant fraud?

#324

Post by nprateem »

Just give them a simple screening coding challenge like copying a file to s3, then if their code looks OK ask them to justify their decisions, eg error handling, testing, etc. Tell them not to spend more than 1 hour on it. Google won't help much.

I've had people use IDEs to auto create empty test cases, hard code file paths etc. No point wasting time on an interview and anyone competent will smash it.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone having issues with job applicant fraud?

#325

Post by SkipperCat »

Beltiras wrote: post #289
newaccount74 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many interview questions aren't about the right answer -- they are just questions that are designed to show how much the applicant knows about whatever is on the CV. If you have Python on your CV, and I ask you how the garbage collector works, I don't want you to read some stack overflow summary to me. I want to hear your own description, so I can make a judgement how deep your knowledge of Python internals goes. Any…

I'm a 10 year Python veteran and I've never had to think about garbage collection. Back in the day I did find out that del didn't actually free up memory (memory footprint could only ever increase for a process, only way to "free" memory would be to restart it). Don't know if it's still the case. If asked today my very terse but immediate answer would be: "Rather poorly when I last checked. Haven't had to check for r…

I think that would meet the definition of a "knowledgeable individual". Python does GC under the hood and most folks who use it extensively never see it at all. The wrong answer would be "what is garbage collection" or "its excellent, better that C++"

Re: Ask HN: Anyone having issues with job applicant fraud?

#326

Post by rexreed »

The increase in remote jobs, remote interviewing, automated interviewing, and use of AI systems for interviewing is directly correlated with people gaming the system. There really is very little good substitute for in-person interviewing. Or at least if you are committed to a fully remote experience, then you'll have to accept a greater likelihood of fraud, deception, and misbehavior as part of the tradeoff between in-person and remote and manage those expectations.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone having issues with job applicant fraud?

#327

Post by vintermann »

zaik wrote: post #313
vintermann wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If money was what Shannon was primarily interested in, he wouldn't be in academia. This is true of almost all types of narrow domain experts. There are more parties than government that can offer them money, too. For most academics (and more, the better they are), not being allowed to talk about what you're working on to the vast majority your peers, would be too high a price for money to make up for. NSA circumvente…

There is no contradiction in being in academia because you want to spend your time doing research and accepting a nice bonus from the government now and then.

The contradiction is that you can't talk about what you worked on, and you need to be careful that what you write in public research doesn't reveal it. It's ten times worse than the corporate equivalent.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone having issues with job applicant fraud?

#328

Post by ghoward »

xupybd wrote: post #211
ghoward wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry. There's no hope for me either; I'm not a "good cultural fit" most of the time. I agree with your last sentence, although I would word it a little differently. :)

From your blog I expect that you'd be a cultural fit for the kind of place I'd like to work in. Unfortunately those places are not the that common.

Unfortunately, you're correct that they are not that common.

In fact, my last job was at a place where the salesman told me to not fix a bug I found until a customer ran into that bug so that "they'll remember why they need us." I was appalled.

I'm glad there are more programmers like me out there though. Thank you. :)

Re: Ask HN: Anyone having issues with job applicant fraud?

#329

Post by brokenodo »

pmccarren wrote: post #183

Shameless plug - I've been building the startup Wedge[0]. In addition to helping prevent application fraud, I deeply believe applicants are _people_ and have more to share beyond a resume. We enable companies to asynchronously collect a short series of video responses from an applicant either at application time or later in the process. [0] https://www.wedgehr.com/product

Under no circumstance would I apply to any job that required me to record videos of myself as part of the application process.

I’m curious how many people feel the same way.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone having issues with job applicant fraud?

#330

Post by strikelaserclaw »

SauciestGNU wrote: post #181
sicp-enjoyer wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> who wrote nested loops What is this supposed to be the connotation here?

This suggests runtime complexity will be O(n^2), which is rarely an optimal solution to a problem.

that says nothing if you don't know the size of the input and the problem at hand. Sometimes the best you can do is N^2.
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