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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?

#361

Post by anonym29 »

SkipperCat wrote: post #336

One thing that is really fascinating after reading many of the comments here is how hard people try to leap over the fence into the job-world of tech. Sure, if you have the experience or education, it's not that hard. But if you never had the opportunity to learn it or work it, a tech job may as far away as Elysium. Conversely, anyone with a laptop and an Internet connection can learn most tech topics. With the right…

Asserting that "anyone can learn moderately complex subject X if they just study enough" differs very little from conservatives saying "anyone can get a good job if they work hard enough".

Some humans have limiting factors beyond a lack of education and/or work ethic. For example, someone who lacks the cognitive ability for abstract thought, or the working memory to chain multiple mental constructs together is probably never going to understand pointers, no matter how hard they try or how long they study them.

They may eventually be able to replicate examples they were shown with enough repetition, but purely as a function of memory recall, not a function of understanding what's actually going on.

These kinds of assertions can come across as very disempowering and dismissive to such people, just a heads up.

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

#362

Post by dcarr178 »

I run software engineering for a 100% remote company with ~35 developers on 5 continents. In April 2022 I interviewed a senior Python developer from Austin Texas - camera on, full pair-programming exercise, etc. 3 interviews, the guy was awesome. We hired him and assigned him to a development team. A month later I hear from the team that the guy sucks, doesn't know how to program, thick accent, and says his camera is broken even though we just shipped him a brand new machine. We set up a sting operation, forced him to present/share his screen over zoom, and recorded the call. It was some random person in India connecting via a VPN in Dallas to mask the origin of his network calls. In the screenshare recording you could see him quickly switch to a chat window and ask someone else how to answer the question. We fired him and only lost 1 month of salary + a very nice laptop we'll never see again. I learned a valuable management lesson from that one. I bet at a larger company this guy could have flown under the radar for a lot longer than 1 month.

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

#363

Post by tomt00001 »

I'm in the situation of apply for jobs and feels like I'm screened out of everything because my resume doesn't have exact matches for every buzzword. I don't really want to buzzword pad but kind of feels like I need to do that.

I got 25 years of varied experience(network admin, server admin, cloud stuff, scripting, etl and actual development) and now feels like being a jack of all trades is screwing me :)

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

#364

Post by iaaan »

mrweasel wrote: post #342
peacemaker wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If you can scam your way into a few jobs at a time, and keep a revolving door of jobs, you might be able to hold upwards of 10 jobs simultaneously and collect paychecks from each of them until they fire you.

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

#365

Post by dennis_jeeves1 »

5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #255

> We've wasted a significant amount of time on comms and interviews with over a dozen of these candidates. this is what happens when you filter people based on keywords. they game the system.

And they never learn...

They just keep adding more keywords, hoping to narrow the search, but end up broadening it.

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

#366

Post by EddySchauHai »

anonymousDan wrote: post #277
EddySchauHai wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No bachelors degree in any field or no cs bachelors? I can imagine someone coming from a numerical field (e.g. EE, physics, maths) could gind such a programme very beneficial.

No degree in any field. Ended up enrolling in an MSc in CS at another university though!

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

#367

Post by kjkjadksj »

anonym29 wrote: post #361
SkipperCat wrote: post #336

One thing that is really fascinating after reading many of the comments here is how hard people try to leap over the fence into the job-world of tech. Sure, if you have the experience or education, it's not that hard. But if you never had the opportunity to learn it or work it, a tech job may as far away as Elysium. Conversely, anyone with a laptop and an Internet connection can learn most tech topics. With the right…

Asserting that "anyone can learn moderately complex subject X if they just study enough" differs very little from conservatives saying "anyone can get a good job if they work hard enough". Some humans have limiting factors beyond a lack of education and/or work ethic. For example, someone who lacks the cognitive ability for abstract thought, or the working memory to chain multiple mental constructs together is probab…

I think they were just getting at the fact most people see programming as a black box, or were scared off from the math requirements to ever consider it in school. Whereas we all know if you can write an email, you can write a script.

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

#368

Post by EddySchauHai »

nivertech wrote: post #321
EddySchauHai wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Nope; definitely an MSc! It’s a bit of a cash cow course, ended up doing an MSc in CS at another university.

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

#369

Post by EddySchauHai »

tomp wrote: post #259
EddySchauHai wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don’t know, I got an MSc in Math/Finance from Oxford and there were tough exams, the selection process was very strict (only 30 people got in), classmates seemed high quality, …

This one was a bit of a cash cow. I lived in Oxford for a few years while my wife worked on her DPhil and agree in general the other courses are much more difficult to get in.

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

#370

Post by EddySchauHai »

sicp-enjoyer wrote: post #209
EddySchauHai wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think that's why the most prestige for top universities is ascribed to those in the undergrad. > MSc in Software Engineering I think "Software engineering" degrees tend to be a strong signal: didn't study CS.

Yeah exactly.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with SE degrees, they can be as rigorous on CS topics while swapping later maths modules for engineering modules. I ended up taking an MSc in CS fwiw.

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