Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I Got Catfished by a Candidate

saastr.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 662 posts

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#21

Post by lkrubner »

On the upside, the person who was trying to get a job seems very good at selling. Certainly, they seem good at selling themselves. If this is for a sales job, then the energy they showed should count in their favor, and the work they put in, as well as the easy social graces that charmed everyone.

I've known honest salespeople, but generally sales, as a profession, does not reward complete honesty.

The important thing would be to find out if this guy was lying to hide previous criminal behavior. That would be important to protect the current company from. But if there was no criminal behavior in this guy's past, I'd be interested in seeing if they could hook new customers as well as they hooked the hiring company.

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#22

Post by darrenkopp »

piptastic wrote: post #20

That's odd. The author defends his "backdoor reference checks" by saying he would have never caught the catfish otherwise. Then later on the same person he contacted for his "backdoor reference check" was given to him as a reference, which would have happened regardless.

Yes, but they might have naively used the given number rather than the number they personally had, out of convenience, which would have caused the catfish to succeed.

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#23

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

Out of all of the possible people to choose as your fake manager, this person chose one out of the two people that I knew from Acme Corp

Someone who I had interviewed and who turned out to be a terrible employee (we fired him after 9 months of trying to find something he could do right) listed me as a reference on his resume.

Problem for him was that the hiring manager at the next place where he applied turned out to be a friend of mine.

The world's smaller than you think it is!

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#24

Post by [deleted] »

djhworld wrote: post #15

The thing about checking social profiles for number of connections etc is strange to me, although maybe it makes sense in the sales world. I have a LinkedIn but rarely log into it, most LinkedIn emails get filed into spam. Missing good opportunities? Maybe. I dunno, it's just never been my thing. I hope recruiters, at least for developer roles don't use LinkedIn profiles and connection count as some sort of metric in…

[deleted]

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#25

Post by crispyporkbites »

dewiz wrote: post #12

I was hoping to find out from the story why this catfish lied in the first place. If they passed the interview so well they must be someway good.

Probably because they couldn’t get an interview any other way, the reason this person got so far in the process was not because they were qualified for the job, but because the hiring manager liked the fact that they used to work at the same place together. Which is a crappy reason to hire someone.

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#27

Post by deedubaya »

evrydayhustling wrote: post #16
deedubaya wrote: post #7

Maybe the author should evaluate _why_ they got catfished. Recruiting processes are so convoluted and hard to break through, that someone who apparently otherwise would have been a great candidate, had to lie to get an interview. Was a good candidate really only one that had worked at the managers previous employer? How many great candidates are companies missing out on because of arbitrary filters?

This doesn't hold up. Unless a candidate is single-mindedly targeting the author's company -- like, they get rejected and come back with a fake resume -- then they decided to fake a resume before talking to the author. The author can't fix the societal experience the candidate has been having, and you have no sign that they filtered unfairly. I am sympathetic to candidates who feel they have skills but lack credentia…

> Unless a candidate is single-mindedly targeting the author's company -- like, they get rejected and come back with a fake resume -- then they decided to fake a resume before talking to the author

You think it was just a coincidence that the fake job/reference the catfish had listed was one of the hiring manager's past employers?

> Make the strongest case you can about your true history, and you'll eventually connect with a company that values the actual you instead of a fake that will eventually break down.

This is definitely true and the right advice for candidates who are considering lying to get through the recruiter filter.

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#29

Post by pavlov »

briandear wrote: post #10

I really hate the so-called term “catfished” it’s a completely contrived word that came from a 2010 movie that probably 50 people actually saw. “Ghosting” is another one, but at least you can use context to sort of figure out what people are actually talking about. A bit off topic, but this adulteration of language — from an obscure pop-culture reference, is a bit silly. Obviously the author agrees that most people d…

MTV's "Catfish" series has had seven seasons so far and is shown around the world. It's not obscure at all.

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#30

Post by netsharc »

darrenkopp wrote: post #22
piptastic wrote: post #20

That's odd. The author defends his "backdoor reference checks" by saying he would have never caught the catfish otherwise. Then later on the same person he contacted for his "backdoor reference check" was given to him as a reference, which would have happened regardless.

Yes, but they might have naively used the given number rather than the number they personally had, out of convenience, which would have caused the catfish to succeed.

But no, the author knew Jim, if he had dialed that number and did a bit of small talk he would've known that's not Jim on the phone (unless the fake Jim is quick on his feet about pretending to be someone else).

The catfisher is stupid, he should've looked through the author's LinkedIn profile and saw that the author is connected with Jim, he would have not used Jim as a reference if he had done that.

Post reply on HN