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I Got Catfished by a Candidate

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Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#211
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a very thin line between "hustling" and outright fraud. The same behavior can result in a good career or jail time depending on luck and ability.

it all depends whether you roll a 1 or a 20, am I right? ;)

I don't know ow why you were downvoted. It was told on a joking manner but is effectively true. There were many people on here crowing about the greatness of Elizabeth Holmes even though she was a giant fraud. If people are going to ask for ridiculous requirements for well paid jobs then they should expect either A:that people will say what you want to get the position since, as this article implied, reality and what is useful to a company don't seem tied together or B:never complain about a shortage of candidates and the associated highb salaries if you are going to cultivate a list of requirements that exclude 99.99% of humanity

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Would something be wrong with that? Isn't that basically the concept of contracting?

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#213
post #180
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…

Question: What is freemasonry about and why did you join it? I read up on them quite a bit but I just didn't find any good examples of actual goals and activities they are pursuing. Do Masons have a hacker mentality?

I'm not a Freemason, so I'm probably talking out of turn here, but I've always admired Freemasonry and the Masons I know are pretty cool, so I'll give this a shot. Corrections welcome.

Freemasonry is a collection of locally-run fraternities. There is no overarching masonic organization or top-down command structure, it's all done by the local lodge, which may or may not be affiliated with other lodges. They are all "Masonry" because they use the same rough template of traditions and rituals, passed down from earlier inductees (this is a simplification of course; there are different traditions within masonry called "rites", etc., etc.). Because their meetings are closed to the public, and because membership in such organizations is relatively rare these days, wild speculation occurs.

They don't have a mission other than to be good citizens, help their communities, and help each other. A few generations back, belonging to "the lodge" was an expectation for most permanent members of the community, and many community activities and services were effectively brokered by them. The rise of "lodge doctors" in the early 20th century is a good example.

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#214
>backdoor reference check

Anyone know a good place to do one of these on myself? I have an infraction on record (traffic ticket) that apparently shows up as a misdemeanor in at least one database. I found this out during my Global Entry interview. I'd like to begin the long and painful process of unraveling this, but I don't really know where to start. It could be a problem in just one database, or in dozens.

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#215
post #82

You'll never be able to trust a candidate who lies. Blatantly lying to a potential employer will never work out well in the long run. Just don't do it. Programmers are lucky in that they can take code they've written, and say "see, here's my proof that I can do the job".Other types of jobs (like sales), however, are reputation based, and you damn well better make sure the opinion of the person who is vouching for you…

"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.

As soon as an employer starts lying or doing anything remotely wacky with a paycheck, you gotta bounce asap. Happened to me several times, and I find lying companies always keep lying, and honest companies rarely start. That only gets worse, never better, so either learn to live with it or get the hell out of Dodge.

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was the policy when I worked at Rackspace circa 2001-2004, they would only confirm employment. In the bay area, I often can't even confirm employment because the company has gone out of business, my manager was fired after I voluntarily left, etc... Literally everything about this story raises the hairs on the back of my neck except for giving false contact info for a manager the recruiter knew by name - esp the…

There are companies that exist solely to verify employment history, i.e., if you leave Company X, Company Y will confirm your time of employment, titles, etc. to new employer Company Z.

Most companies like that seem like they are just there to provide a plausible cover for legal liability. I've had multiple jobs that had background checks where I gave them my [1...n] addresses over the past 5-10 years and the background check comes back with me only have lived at [n-1] address with no indication that the data I supplied didn't match up with what they verified. If those companies we're doing their job they would at least tell my prospectvie employer, their client, that what they could prove didn't match up with what I said

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#218
post #144

Backdoor references are very unethical in my opinion. Beyond the fact that you are telling a third party about someone’s job search without the searcher’s consent, you can also get a very biased opinion. My wife was fired from a job at a well known University in the area. She had 2 bosses in a year, one of them twice after coming back from prolonged mental health leave. Within a month of coming back my wife’s boss ha…

Backdoor references are very unethical in my opinion. Beyond the fact that you are telling a third party about someone’s job search without the searcher’s consent, you can also get a very biased opinion.

But frontdoor references are guaranteed to be biased no one (well, almost no one) is going to use someone that didn't like them as a reference, they are going to dig up someone that will say something good about them.

We had one DBA hire that was not very good, she lasted 3 months before we had to let her go because she just couldn't do her job. One of her references didn't have much good or bad to say, but her most recent manager (where she worked for 5 years), gave a very glowing reference, outlining all of the projects that she had helped with.

It wasn't until we had let her go that we found that that while the person that gave her a glowing reference actually was her manager, she was also her roomate... and her girlfriend.

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#219

> 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,…

Everyone lies, because the interviewing process itself is a fucking joke, ESPECIALLY in the Bay Area. If the person can answer all my questions and they have a good attitude, I honestly don't give a shit what got them to that point. If someone doesn't work out, you can fire them. Yes it's "exhausting", maybe if it's so difficult to manage or run a business you should find a different role for yourself. I really enjoy…

> Everyone lies

I am clueless about certain things and perhaps this is one of them... but really? Outright lies of pure red-handed snake-oil fiction?

Surely there must be a line between the "HR speak" most must sing along to and reality that does not qualify as pure uncut straight-up lies.

Help me understand what you mean.

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#220
post #91

The author is missing the most obvious rule that they should have taken away from their experience: don't use the number and email provided by the candidate. Jim's email or number is probably readily available on the company website or by calling up the front desk at the company.

Yup, if the company is big, call or email the "front desk" or 411 number of whatever and ask to talk to that specific person. There are about a zillion ways to do this properly and the poster did none of them, sheer amateur hour.
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