Live data from Hacker News

I Got Catfished by a Candidate

saastr.com

121–130 of 662 posts

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#121
post #13

> Rule #2: Take a long hard look at a candidate’s social profiles. > Rule #4: Google is your friend. That are one of the main reasons I don't post with my real name on the Internet, and I don't have an LinkedIn account. I don't want people to interpret what I put on the Internet in their own way when it comes to the decision if they should hire me or not.

Not having a LI profile will also be interpreted in their own way when it comes to the decision if they should hire you or not.

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> who feel they have skills but lack credentials, but it is no excuse for falsifying info. Why is it no excuse? Because we work in a system where the majority of employees and employers are trying to do the right thing. But that's becoming less and less true - I've interviewed with plenty of companies who have no problem with wasting days of a potential employees time with large take home tests and I've got no qualms…

It's not just unethical, it's impractical, and the same reason applies to your take-home tests: if the first thing your employer asks you to do is something you want to outsource, what makes you think the tenth thing they ask you to do will be better?

It's fair to be annoyed when hiring managers shift costs of filtering over to candidates. If it really bothers you, might be a sign to avoid that company culture entirely.

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#123
> However, I am glad that I caught it early before we hired him. If we had hired him, tough to say what could have happened. Maybe he would have been great and our best performing AE. Maybe he wouldn’t have even known how to log into Salesforce.

When you make it to the top by lying, you're considered a winner:

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-goldman-gary-cohn-got-to-...

> "I lied to him all the way to the airport," Cohn told Gladwell. "When he said, 'Do you know what an option is?' I said, 'Of course I do, I know everything, I can do anything for you.' Basically by the time we got out of the taxi, I had his number. He said, 'Call me Monday.' I called him Monday, flew back to New York Tuesday or Wednesday, had an interview, and started working the next Monday.

I know there are dozens of other examples, because I hear people talk about how they had to lie to get their first break all the damn time, from people who are now very successful.

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#124
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You'll never be able to trust a candidate who lies." This also goes the other way. I have had companies lie to me about salary structure or working conditions and it definitely hurt my loyalty when I found out that I had been lied to.

>> companies lie to me about salary structure or working conditions That is the rule rather than the exception unfortunately. What recruiters need to watch out for is the candidate (like the one described) that can't control their lies as they can do lasting long-term damage. Everyone else is just tuning their risk-reward calculation.

[deleted]

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#125
post #86

sigh > Rule #2: Take a long hard look at a candidate’s social profiles. Is not having a LinkedIn account going to come back to bite me, even when applying for dev roles? I've had even senior devs at popular local dev shops say LinkedIn is a "necessary evil" because it: 1. is easy to grep 2. you can find whether a candidate has similar connections to you 3. recommendations I get New Zealand is small and the social gra…

I think these social networks are really important for candidates like this catfish, but for those of us who know WTF we're doing, I kind of doubt it. It's certainly a trope that developers are antisocial. If you know what you're doing, it won't be hard to manifest people with credentials who will talk about it.

If you're antisocial, how will references know or remember you, and how will you remember who to cite as references?

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#126
post #29

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.

I never even knew this show existed, and was still aware of the word and its meaning. (I mean, not at first. There was a moment when someone had to explain it to me.)

But all of this is irrelevant to the main point: Language is dynamic.

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#127
post #78

I don't think we should use such stories as a reason to make the hiring process even more paranoid. In general people are pretty honest so I wouldn't like to see them having to jump through even more hoops because of a few fraudsters. Advice number 1 is probably best : "Trust your gut". If something doesn't make sense it's worth clearing that up.

Depends on the culture of the people. I have experienced numerous instances where an Indian candidate is not who they claim to be. Person X is hired, person Y shows up. Person X conducts the phone interview for person Y. And so on. And this has happened for not just me.

I just experienced this with a contractor. I have never seen him do anything himself. I strongly suspect he is sending his work somewhere else.

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#128
post #78

I don't think we should use such stories as a reason to make the hiring process even more paranoid. In general people are pretty honest so I wouldn't like to see them having to jump through even more hoops because of a few fraudsters. Advice number 1 is probably best : "Trust your gut". If something doesn't make sense it's worth clearing that up.

"Trust your gut" slides into "culture fit" slides into "I'm not sure someone who looks/talks like that could really do what they say they do" and "This person looks like someone who I'd expect could do the job".

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#129
Am I the only one who was really distracted by the use of the term Catfish in every other sentence?

I've heard the term and I know there was a film called Catfish a few years about someone who created a fake identity online but I didn't realize it was such a common term.

How is a catfish different from a fraud?

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#130
post #87

You just never know who might turn up from your past... 1999: I was a sysadmin at an ISP in Austin. One day we had a tour come through, people looking to see if they wanted to colo in our datacenter. In walks in the former CEO and most of the technical staff from the Oklahoma City-based ISP I'd started my career at and left in '96. We laughed, shook hands.. and they headhunted me away a couple months later with a 200…

And on the flip side bear in mind that some of us were 10-15yo on IRC back in the day. Don't fault those of us too hard.
Post reply on HN