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I Got Catfished by a Candidate

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Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#301

Post by learc83 »

philwelch wrote: post #240
ironjunkie wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what you are really saying is that you will fire people for lies bigger than a specific "threshold", which I understand and agree with. What I'm saying is that in the social work environment everyone lies to some level and it is actually widely accepted so. I googled exactly for 5 seconds and found this article to give you a couple examples: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/11652018/10-que...

I find that people who work really hard to convince people that "everyone lies" are usually the biggest liars. So my advice: Stop lying, and stop trying to normalize lying. To address the examples in the link given: 1. "Where do you see yourself in five years’ time?". There are honest ways of answering this question, or at least not-dishonest answers, that don't entail volunteering information that won't help you. 2.…

>That's not lying; that's just normal social etiquette.

That's the argument. Some amount of dishonesty is required to follow normal social etiquette. Saying I'm fine is expected even if you're not actually fine. We have cultural norms for what kind of dishonesty is acceptable. When you exceed those norms, you're lying.

Politely laughing at an unfunny joke, and telling someone that their food is "interesting", fall well within the realm of socially acceptable polite dishonesty. But skipping work to see a ballgame by inventing a fake funeral is considered lying by many (most?) people.

Like most things in life there is a gray area along that spectrum.

I also second what my sibling comment says about lying by omission. I think morally, both are equal.

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#302

Post by lovich »

lovich wrote: post #183
incognitoz wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to tell us which company you hire for, so that we can avoid it?

Why you want to avoid it? His response seems reasonable to me. When you have companies posting obvious lies like requiring 5 years in a 1 year old techonology, the whole process just becomes a lot of surreptitious winking as both sides knowingly lie to each other

as an aside to the conversation. I am continuing to get up an down votes on this comment, long after the comment I replied to was flagged. 'dang, are votes queued up in the hacker news system or is there another reason for this behavior?

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#303

Post by anonnel »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #172
ironjunkie wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone is lying at work to some degree. That's what office politics is all about, even though it is not straight lying. How many times did my managers not "lie" to me by telling me that it is impossible for the company to give a raise or anything as a policy right now, while my colleague gets one one week later (sharing salary information is beautiful!)

This is really a reductio ad absurdum. But if you think your boss is dishonest with you, then go find a new boss. Dishonesty instantly destroys trust, and unless it’s about something entirely trivial, it’s almost impossible to restore it. A trustless workplace cannot be functional. You can point to examples of workplaces that are dysfunctional if you like, but it’s something I refuse to contribute to, or even tolerat…

> If you think your boss is lying to you, go find a new boss.

That statement seems completely disconnected from reality. Not the part about going to find something better, because that is (usually) possible. But managers regularly and transparently lie.

It sounds like you’re a boss, so I think you haven’t had to experience this for too long and have probably forgotten it.

Also, try not to be so gung ho on declaring who you fire and how little remorse you have / whatever the situation. It does not come off well.

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#304

Post by AmericanChopper »

lovich wrote: post #290
AmericanChopper wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lying is NOT withholding information that people aren’t entitled to. You’re trying to win an argument by changing what the words mean. If somebody confides in me with a secret, am I a liar if I don’t immediately rush off and tell it to all concerned parties? No, I’m not. You’re trying to confuse honesty with openness, and specifically in this case, as an obligation to disclose privileged information.

I think your definition of lieing allows for an unlimited amount of misdirection based on a literal interpretation of lieing. If you are a manager, you heard the CEO say they are going to lay off the bottom 20% of the engineers next month, you know you rated employee A as your worst employee during evaluations, and you then assign Employee A to a new project that's estimated to be 8 months of work, you have not lied…

You're constructing a fantasy reality for yourself where words mean whatever you want them to, and where I personally did a series of things that you literally just made up.

The real process for how something like happened is that the management spend some time assessing the viability of a project > decide it's not worth continuing > make a plan for how to shut it down > inform staff and help them find new roles inside or outside the company. Now, until the plan had been finalised and approved, there is no news to tell anybody, we (intentionally) didn't have any new major pieces of work kicking off during the review period. At no time in this process did anybody lie to anybody else, by omission or otherwise. If my superiors had asked me to help them do this in a way that was morally questionable or dishonest, I would have refused.

Your argument that everybody must lie by omission simply because there are always things that you can't tell certain people is complete nonsense. A lie by omission is to construct the information you present to somebody intentionally in such as way as to misrepresent the facts and mislead them. By itself, not revealing confidential or private information to somebody is not lying by omission.

I'm not going to reply to any more of your comments, because your entire argument is predicated on reinventing the meaning of words, and creating fantasy straw-man scenarios to apply them to.

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#305

Post by stickfigure »

cascom wrote: post #43
gumby wrote: post #31

> backdoor reference checks aren’t always considered kosher by everyone ?? These are the most important references. Many excellent candidates won't have a back connection but when they are possible they can make an important difference two ways: One is the way described here (or, "this person was OK but doesn't sound like they would work out for the kind of thing you want -- that was where they failed with us too.").…

It is generally understood that candidates must consent to have their references checked. In what part of the application process did the candidate consent to you letting anyone you choose know they are looking for a job?

It is generally understood that candidates must consent to have their references checked.

That's rubbish. It's generally understood that all parties are expected to perform due diligence. What do you think people do with the connection graph linkedin displays?

I've interviewed people who were clear that they didn't want their current employer to know that they were looking - that's fine, and easy to respect. But the article describes a former job on a resume; there's no risk you're going to interfere with their current employment by reaching out to mutual contacts.

Personally, I hope people look me up through the social network... hell, that's how I find all of my employment.

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#306

Post by learc83 »

extra88 wrote: post #93
noobermin wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about you, but I couldn't finish the article. From the beginning, something irked me and it didn't feel like the author is completely innocent here. One thing that irked me a little is seeing the candidate worked at her previous company made her instantly like him. Once I got to the unnecessary admission the manager uses what even they consider as "unkosher" tactics to learn about the background of poten…

There is nothing wrong with considering a shared previous employer a "plus"; the hiring manager knows the employer so if a candidate was good enough for them, there's some reason to think they're good enough for you. If the work environments are similar it could also mean getting them up to speed more quickly. There's nothing wrong with asking the opinions of people other than those a candidate directs you to. With b…

Asking people who weren't listed as references can cause all kinds of trouble.

In this case the candidate said they left on good terms, but given the author's willingness to go beyond what is "considered kosher" says to me that they likely do this all the time.

Even if you're not asking people at a candidate's current employer, if you start poking around asking all of your contacts about someone and it gets back to their current boss, there can be serious consequences for that candidate.

The author even said that one of their contacts said he would discretely ask around about the candidate. Are all of the people the contact talked to going to keep discretely asking their coworkers as well?

In America it is incredibly easy to fire someone--stop being so paranoid.

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#307

Post by megamindbrian2 »

mrbill wrote: post #253
megamindbrian2 wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should freemasons do foundations for zero cost?

I've heard a story about an older lady who was confused and needed work done on her porch.. she contacted the local Masonic lodge for help.. and in a few days, a bunch of the guys showed up at her house and rebuilt her porch for her. Stuff like that is what we do. My Lodge takes donated bicycles from local stores (Wal-Mart, etc, where they were display models and can't be sold as new), fixes them up, and we donate th…

I know only a few. One installs floors when they need an extra hand. One drives a Maserati. I am thinking about applying. You have to write three letters, the first two are ignored.

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#308

Post by AlexCoventry »

mindcrime wrote: post #140
AlexCoventry wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a sign of massive disrespect. Do you want a close relationship with someone who doesn't respect you?

Do you think management at this company respects their employees? Or maybe they refer to them as "resources", treat them as disposable, fungible, commodities, and deserve no more respect in turn? Not saying that is the case, but the question deserves asking. Respect is a two way street.

Yeah, I am fortunate that I don't need to work for that kind of place, I guess.

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#309

Post by cabaalis »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #120
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?

>someone who apparently otherwise would have been a great candidate Dishonesty is an intolerable trait. This person clearly wasn't a great candidate. Lying at work is just about the only thing I'll always fire somebody for.

> Lying at work is just about the only thing I'll always fire somebody for.

I'd like to say I second this, but I have to weigh the value of the employee and the size of the lie. For instance, calling in "sick" the Monday after the super bowl. Is 8 hours of PTO so this person can recover from an obviously self-inflicted hangover and not a random "sickness" worth losing a team lead on a project? (Yes, I consider calling a hangover a "sickness" as dishonest.)

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#310

Post by AlexCoventry »

CoolAndComposed wrote: post #132
AlexCoventry wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a sign of massive disrespect. Do you want a close relationship with someone who doesn't respect you?

I don't know a potential employer. Why would I respect them to start? I have expectations, they have expectations and we try to meet in the middle. That's society.

If you think that honesty isn't a fundamental expectation for someone who's hoping to work closely with you, that's a massive sign of disrespect.
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