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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?

#341

Post by nerdix »

iaaan wrote: post #128

Earlier this year, I interviewed this guy who gave me really strange vibes. He would stall for a good 15-20 seconds after each question I asked... and then spit out a perfectly worded answer. I google'd some specific, peculiar phrases I remembered him saying after the interview and found that the phrases came straight out of places like the Kubernetes documentation, word for word. He was googling my questions and the…

The Google thing is very common now with remote interviews.

I've interviewed several candidates that were clearly googling questions. Some I thought were scammers, others not so much.

The funny thing is that they were all on camera. You can see the pause,you see the slight head turn and the eyes gaze away from the camera, you hear the click clack of typing and then the sudden recitation of a perfectly worded dictionary answer.

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

#342

Post by mrweasel »

peacemaker wrote: post #276
iaaan wrote: post #128

Earlier this year, I interviewed this guy who gave me really strange vibes. He would stall for a good 15-20 seconds after each question I asked... and then spit out a perfectly worded answer. I google'd some specific, peculiar phrases I remembered him saying after the interview and found that the phrases came straight out of places like the Kubernetes documentation, word for word. He was googling my questions and the…

My employer hired a guy from this company! I wasn't involved in the interview process but was tasked with mentoring him. His resume was covered with DevOps buzzwords and he obviously said the right things in the interview, but the guy could barely move a mouse around the screen... He took extremely long to do anything and then when he presented the work, it was very wrong and obviously copied from a bunch of stack ov…

That illustrates perfectly my question regarding people like this: What do these people think is going to happen if they're hired?

In your case, sure he had a salary for two months, but that can not be the plan? Do people just expect that if they are hired, they'll sort of figure it out along the way? If that's the case, then maybe go for a more junior position and hope there is good on the job training.

Years ago, I worked as a test engineer. One issue that repeatedly turned up when trying to get information about one of the tools we used, was that forums, mailing-lists, you name it, would get swamped by Indians who just wanted the answers to some standard hiring quiz. They just wanted to memorize the 150 or so answers, so they could get a job. Knowing those answers wouldn't help me in my day to day work, or at least very little, so what did they expect would happen if they got hired? Sure you can scam your way though a job interview... Then what? Your new colleagues is going to notice your shortcomings rather quickly.

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

#343

Post by starwatch »

sumedh wrote: post #308
starwatch wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The goal of an interview is to let great people through. It's not to see how well people code while you're watching their every keystroke. I used to make people write code in front of me. I've missed out on some excellent candidates that don't perform at their best with that kind of pressure. What I do now is ask people to share some code with me that they're proud of. Before the interview I look through it. Then on…

> What I do now is ask people to share some code with me that they're proud of. What if they dont have code to share?

Good question. That can happen - though it's usually for more junior roles. In that case I give them a take home task. The important thing here is that whether or not the result is good, I commit to talking it through with them (provided it works).

You might ask "why spend your time walking through code for a candidate that won't make it through?" Well, it's important for me that if people aren't a good fit for the role, they would be happy recommend us to people that they think are a good fit. Interviewing with that mindset ensures I (and my team) treat candidates like people, instead of like numbers.

In the spirit of the actual Ask HN though, I have had a small number of candidates that were deceptive, or difficult. In those cases it's just a polite but firm "I'm going to have to draw this call to close because and I don't want to string you along." Fortunately I've not had a person different to the interview show up on day 1 though... that'd be a little more awkward.

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

#344

Post by rjsw »

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.

It used to be possible to do a research MSc at Northern Universities (Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, etc.) with no bachelors degree, just needed enough industry experience to satisfy the department.

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

#345

Post by mrweasel »

2143 wrote: post #236
ericol wrote: post #62

Some time ago (~6 months) my company was looking to hire a programmer. We don't have a established process for this as it was some years since we hired a coder, but then we are in the industry (hiring) so published a couple of adverts here and there and we got the thing rolling. Most of the applicants were seriously under qualified, and my colleagues had to go through a lot of rubbish in the form of CVs in order to f…

Something you want to keep in mind is that stellar coders from India (I don't know if they're a huge majority or minority or whatever, but they do exist) already have stellar jobs and won't be up for hire. The random people who are up for hire from India — there's a good chance they're up for hire because they couldn't get anything else. You get what you pay for. And the best are probably not even in the market.

> Something you want to keep in mind is that stellar coders from India already have stellar jobs and won't be up for hire.

Precisely, and they know what they're worth, so they won't be cheaper anyway.

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

#346

Post by mrweasel »

rufus_foreman wrote: post #332
nlitened wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"What if we train them, and they leave?" — "What if we don't train them, and they stay?"

"What if we only hire them if they are already trained?"

Then you'll create a stagnant environment and you'll never be able to move toward or adapt to change. You'll forever be stuck using VB6 and... Well... You could perhaps make good money that way. Never mind

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

#347

Post by FactualActuals »

s1k3s wrote: post #95

Ask HN: Anyone having issues with job description fraud? The job market is a market. Nobody owes you anything. In most job fields the buyer has the leverage over the seller so the buyers will go out of their way to press that leverage (low pay, low benefits, impossible demands etc). It just happens that in a few fields the seller has the advantage so they're doing the same thing to you. My point is you have to accept…

I'm currently looking for a job and I can't tell you the amount of times the job description or the experience required doesn't match what the team is actually looking for.

Also, I very clearly lay out in my resume and with the initial phone interview that I have 6 years Python experience and 1 year in C++. I've had recruiters reach out to me about positions requiring 5+ years of C++ experience when I am currently looking for Python jobs

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

#348

Post by nerdix »

duxup wrote: post #202
bb88 wrote: post #30

It's a problem here too. Even if they use their camera, it doesn't mean they don't have someone feeding them answers to questions. Phone interviews are even more sketchy since the person who may be answering the questions is a completely different person who shows up on day 1. We had one person we hired as a contractor, but then her voice changed on the phone, and started calling people by their last names in chat. I…

> was trying to do two jobs at the same time Happened at a company I worked at many years ago. Working from home was new, one dude who we all thought was suspect anyway got a call from his bosses boss and answered the phone with the wrong company name and it was over. To make an example of him they made him pay back some of his salary (his contract had him on call and available 24/7). Ran into him a while later and h…

This started to become much more common post-COVID.

/r/overemployed is a sub full of people sharing strategies about how to maintain multiple jobs at once. Some of those folks have 3 or more jobs. Industries of focus seem to be tech and sales.

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

#349

Post by sigmoid10 »

r_hoods_ghost wrote: post #302
sigmoid10 wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This whole problem seems like it would go away with more sophisticated interview questions. Interviews should be precisely about stuff that you can't just google. Googling information is pretty much a required basic competency nowadays, right next to reading and writing.

One would hope so, but as someone who has a support aspect to their role I can guarantee you that this competency is lacking in an astonishing proportion of people. From the lowliest admin to the most senior dev with a PhD in computer science there are people who are entirely incapable of googling for information (or reading the effing manual). Don't even get me started on C suites

From my own perspective (on the other side of support) I can add that often I delegate things merely because I don't have time, not because I can't resolve issues myself. For example, I could always go ahead and spend hours reading a tool's documentation to fix a particular issue that would seem obvious to someone more versed in it, but why not just give it to the guy who can do it in one minute because that's his main job? I don't mean to say that there aren't incompetent people out there, but to me tech support is more of an accelerator for my own work, not some magic holy grail that enables it.

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

#350

Post by UncleMeat »

sigmoid10 wrote: post #278
onion2k wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He would stall for a good 15-20 seconds after each question I asked... and then spit out a perfectly worded answer. He was googling my questions and then reading the documentation aloud to me. If he's just Googling everything then he sounds like a senior developer to me! I'm half-joking. Obviously you want people who understand the problem you're asking, and who have a good knowledge of the domain, and who can answer…

This whole problem seems like it would go away with more sophisticated interview questions. Interviews should be precisely about stuff that you can't just google. Googling information is pretty much a required basic competency nowadays, right next to reading and writing.

Being able to look up stuff is important but there is also a baseline of knowledge that is really important. If I'm working with somebody in a meeting and they need to stop every 30 seconds to look up a term or concept then we aren't going to be able to collaborate effectively.
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