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We created a fake language to root out resume liars

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Re: We created a fake language to root out resume liars

#51

Post by JimmyAustin »

josephg wrote: post #24
ALittleLight wrote: post #10

This reminds me of an anecdote I read once, maybe in Liars Poker, about how lots of people applying to this hedge fund put "Chess" on their resume somewhere thinking it made them seem like a deep or strategic thinker. As it happened, at this hedge fund there worked a former Soviet master or grandmaster ranked player. And so, whenever interviewing any candidate who claimed great proficiency with chess on their resume,…

I used to do some work with a software consulting firm. There was a ping pong table in the office, and while talking about rates, our CEO liked to offer clients a 15% discount on our services if they could beat Joe from accounting at ping pong. He did it as a bit of a running joke, and to see how people reacted to the offer. What our clients didn't know was that Joe was terrible at ping pong. But that didn't matter -…

A mate of mine's consulting company offers a 10% discount on any work if the client buys them a plant, any plant, for the office. Apparently they've only had two clients take them up on the offer.

Re: We created a fake language to root out resume liars

#52

Post by irjustin »

karlding wrote: post #33
sdoering wrote: post #26

This reminded me of a talk [1] at pyData Berlin some years ago. Vincent demonstrated how he used some ML techniques to create fake pokemon sounding names to put into his LinkedIn resume. So that he could filter out headhunters without any real knowledge. To quote from my notes [2] of the conference: > There is a striking phonetic similarity between big data technology and pokemon names. Can you create a service that…

There's also a Pokemon or Big Data quiz [0]. [0] http://pixelastic.github.io/pokemonorbigdata/

this was hilarious! if you're like me and don't know pokemon that well (only the most famous ones), this is pretty tough.

Re: We created a fake language to root out resume liars

#53

Post by colechristensen »

Puts wrote: post #38

I would say any one using external recruiters are setting themself up to employing liars. Searching for jobs it's incredibly frustrating talking to a person who for once can't answer any technical questions of what the job is about, but also just crossing of a bucket list to see if you are qualified to talk to another recruiter with a bucket list. Instead of competing with liars I've just stopped applying for jobs go…

I have never had this problem either being hired by external recruiters or working for places that utilized them. I know that the recruiter is a recruiter, and don’t expect them to be an engineer.

I have never been hired by a recruiter, they were just the first step. A company that requires engineers to filter applicants on the first pass probably isn’t very fun.

Re: We created a fake language to root out resume liars

#54

Post by grogenaut »

lsh123 wrote: post #20

Long long time ago in a galaxy far far away I used requirement in job postings “10 years of Java experience” (when Java was about 7 years old) as a filter: people who wrote me complaining about unrealistic requirement got interviews; people who sent resumes with 15 years of Java went into /dev/null

I would have immediately sorted your posting into a bin with "doesn't know enough about the tech they are hiring for". I saw many resumes at the time that had impossible requirements like that. Unlike you were say James Gosling. And I know you weren't hiring him with a post like this.

Re: We created a fake language to root out resume liars

#55

Post by alexf95 »

selcuka wrote: post #39
ALittleLight wrote: post #10

This reminds me of an anecdote I read once, maybe in Liars Poker, about how lots of people applying to this hedge fund put "Chess" on their resume somewhere thinking it made them seem like a deep or strategic thinker. As it happened, at this hedge fund there worked a former Soviet master or grandmaster ranked player. And so, whenever interviewing any candidate who claimed great proficiency with chess on their resume,…

That's a bit unfair though. I wouldn't take "great proficiency with chess" on a resume as grandmaster level.

The GM would easily figure out at what chess level he is though. No one expecting him to beat the GM of course.

Re: We created a fake language to root out resume liars

#56

Post by goatinaboat »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #48
vagrantJin wrote: post #35

It baffles me why anyone would lie about the languages they know. Why. Always tell half truths, never whole lies. I live in a country where companies distrust former startup founders regardless of exit. So when a good opportunity cones around - people pretend to have been merely working for said startup instead of the guy running it. Thats a good lie.

Why does South Africa mistrust startup founders? Denmark mistrusts people who've been consultants applying for full time employment, in my experience.

Denmark mistrusts people who've been consultants applying for full time employment, in my experience

That is because of Janteloven

Re: We created a fake language to root out resume liars

#57

Post by MauranKilom »

8ytecoder wrote: post #45
lsh123 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was (and still am) interested in hiring people who would challenge manager, TL, ... and speak up if they think something is not right. That was just one of the filters.

I wouldn’t waste my time if I thought the hiring manager/recruiter is so incompetent. I’d have read that and bucketed the company as one of those looking to tick the boxes in years of experience.

As long as not every good candidate thinks this, it could still work quite well. Doubt it's a good tactic in general, but if you have enough applicants otherwise and only need to fill few positions, this might be an effective way to filter them.

Re: We created a fake language to root out resume liars

#58

Post by NalNezumi »

lsh123 wrote: post #40
mssundaram wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's really lousy, I wouldn't have even bothered applying to that because I'd assume you had unrealistic expectations or no idea what you are talking about.

I was (and still am) interested in hiring people who would challenge manager, TL, ... and speak up if they think something is not right. That was just one of the filters.

If the company you worked at was big/popular enough that you needed a strong filter then I can see the merit of this.

But otherwise, I can't fathom how anyone that is willing to "speak up their mind, challenge manager" would ever consider to apply for a position that radiate manager/HR/recruiter incompetence (and no tech team feedback on the posting?)

People who challenge manager, TL, speaks up because it's their business(or they see it that way) and affects them. Can't see how those kind of people would waste their time voicing their content to a company they spent <10min checking the job postings for.

Re: We created a fake language to root out resume liars

#59

Post by harel »

The actual story became irrelevant when I saw it's a ColdFusion developers group. I used to work on that platform in the 90s. That was the Django/Rails/Next/etc. of the day. It even packaged in some ExtJS components at some point (another java script relic). I'm surprised it's still a thing.

Re: We created a fake language to root out resume liars

#60

Post by neolog »

JimmyAustin wrote: post #51
josephg wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to do some work with a software consulting firm. There was a ping pong table in the office, and while talking about rates, our CEO liked to offer clients a 15% discount on our services if they could beat Joe from accounting at ping pong. He did it as a bit of a running joke, and to see how people reacted to the offer. What our clients didn't know was that Joe was terrible at ping pong. But that didn't matter -…

A mate of mine's consulting company offers a 10% discount on any work if the client buys them a plant, any plant, for the office. Apparently they've only had two clients take them up on the offer.

Why do they offer that?
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