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

531–540 of 662 posts

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#531

Post by emodendroket »

mrbill wrote: post #338
megamindbrian2 wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I've never heard that! But then I've only experienced Texas Masonry. Here, we tell you to come on down and hang out on our unofficial "study nights", where we sit around, have pizza, and guys go off in small groups to study the ritual memorization work. The "new guys" or people who are interested hang out in our cafeteria, get a tour of the building, etc, and just ask questions, get to know the guys, and so forth. We…

The voting method sounds inspired by ancient Greece.

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#532

Post by [deleted] »

pjc50 wrote: post #398
mrbill wrote: 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…

Next time someone says technical hiring is not hiring quite so many women or minorities because it's purely meritocratic, I'm going to point them at this post.

[deleted]

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#533

Post by gumby »

mfringel wrote: post #61
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.").…

If they're discreetly seeking other employment, you have now blown their cover. A couple of things about that: 1. "If they're looking for another job, they can have no guarantee of secrecy." -- Sure, but is it your job to out someone? 2. "I need a second opinion on their references, just in case they're giving me bad ones." -- So.... what exactly is your threat model, here? "Catfished by a candidate" stories are inte…

> If they're discreetly seeking other employment, you have now blown their cover.

That's a good point, and I took these as a given: the people you call should be people you know very well, and, typically, don't do this until the candidate has advanced to the reference checking phase anyway (why would you waste your friend's time either?)

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#534

Post by watwut »

mkirklions wrote: post #480
watwut wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking about meritocracy. 1.) We laughed, shook hands and they headhunted me away The headhunt started on very little information - basically on how he laugh and shakes of hand. Had likely proved himself later, but it was all was on instant first impression - where biases matter most. 2.) Freemason How is that related to merit in tech? Yes, similar "we have thing in common" bias happen everywhere (and may advantage…

>no matter how much tech people like to pretend real world is meritocracy. We are talking highly technical people, what merit did OP not have? It sounded like OP had 2 decades of experience in his niche. I really dont care if I hire men, women, or any race. I really dont. As long as you show up and get the job done, wonderful. Many people disappoint and my current contractor is a white male, and I dont care.

1.) Meritocracy is much stronger claim then just lack of sexism or racism.

2.) I am saying that non-meritoratio properties gives an individual advantage over other individuals with the same merit. That does not mean that former is stupid or incapable. It just means that real world if more messy then we like to pretend.

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#535

Post by logfromblammo »

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.

That door swings both ways. I'm mostly honest as a personal principle, but I don't believe my employers are all that worthy of receiving the benefit from that. They have lied to me in one way or another far more often, and with far greater magnitude, than I have ever lied to them.

Yeah, I wasn't all that sick when I took that sick day that one time, suspiciously close to a AAA video game release, but then the company told us that it was doing great, and a month later we all got laid off, and our satellite office got shuttered. Yeah, I said my subcontracted position wasn't renewed at my last job, when I was actually pushed out by office politics, but then the company told us it just had a great year, and nobody got more than a 2.5% raise, and no bonuses anywhere.

As such, I'll lie to my company whenever the benefit to me would outweigh the amount I'd feel bad about the lying, and if there were a negligible chance of getting caught, because I trust management about as far as I could kick it. I have to do a motive analysis on every official statement, and if the reasonable alternatives might result in damage to the company, such as by loss of critical employees or short selling of the stock, I can't rely on the statement in any way.

I don't have the luxury of "firing my employer" for lying to me, because all of them have done it. If I kept that policy, I couldn't work for anybody [who is likely to be hiring].

So I certainly hope you have been scrupulously honest to all those folks that you fired for lying to you, and that you never passed along the obvious bullshit from your boss to your underlings. You have to give honesty and respect it, in order to expect honesty and receive it.

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#536

Post by ControlledBurn »

emodendroket wrote: post #529
jmspring wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The path to becoming a mason is first by reaching out to your local lodge. The person who responds can help you with the process. Beyond masons, there are the elks, the moose, and in parts of the West Clampers. Each have their lodges, their rituals, and focus. I started the mason path, but life got busy. I’m a Moose member and a Clamper. In all cases, the focus is community. In most cases, and this is what I apprecia…

That sounds like a secular version of a church or something. Am I in the right ballpark?

Eh, kind of. There's a no atheists allowed rule last I checked (A belief in a supreme being and scripture is a condition of membership), but they're not picky about what god(s) you might worship.

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#537

Post by mercer »

emodendroket wrote: post #527

I'm not going to defend lying on your resume, but the contours of this story are interesting -- they talked to this guy because of the fraudulent history, and then were champing at the bit to hire him, which suggests that in every other way he was a good candidate. Perhaps we're putting an excessive emphasis on the previous companies someone's worked at.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say. Based on the story itself, I have no reason to believe that they'd have dismissed him if he had been honest and competent.

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#538

Post by aje403 »

emodendroket wrote: post #528
aje403 wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you even talking about? His opinion is not remotely controversial. Every populist hivemind drone on this site contends some form of this argument. Not a single person is (at least, getting upvoted) DEFENDING high or reasonable hiring bars - that is a controversial opinion.

That seems like a misreading of the question. The bar is high, and he cleared it, but was invited to try because of his fraudulent credential.

I'm not misreading it at all.

The two parent comments fall under the general umbrella of complaining about job listings requiring too much experience which is a standard point of contention against employers on HN. Leaving "20 years required low latency python experience with executive level leadership experience to manage our old undocumented report writing application" listings written by incompetent HR people out of the picture, there is plenty of valid monetary reasoning why a company would try to minimize its Type I error (that is hard to do, and nobody complaining seems to have any cogent solution). There are more than plenty of jobs an overconfident new grad who is good at interviewing and fibbing on his resume will fail at where a developer with several years of experience bringing projects into production is a much safer option. That is not disproved by singular anecdotal evidence of "I lied on my resume but I did do a good job so their hiring bar filtered out most of the good candidates and it isn't fair!".

However, most people reading this are employees, not employers, and have been burned by this in some way or another, so I'm going to get downvoted.

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#539

Post by [deleted] »

mrbill wrote: post #338
megamindbrian2 wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I've never heard that! But then I've only experienced Texas Masonry. Here, we tell you to come on down and hang out on our unofficial "study nights", where we sit around, have pizza, and guys go off in small groups to study the ritual memorization work. The "new guys" or people who are interested hang out in our cafeteria, get a tour of the building, etc, and just ask questions, get to know the guys, and so forth. We…

[deleted]

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#540

Post by [deleted] »

hvidgaard wrote: post #379
cookiecaper wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 "…

> They don't have a mission other than to be good citizens, help their communities, and help each other. At least in Denmark, they're founded in Christianity, so while I've known a fair few Masons, some family even. I've turned down all invitations to join. I'm not even fulfilling all requirements because I'm not a member of the church.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN