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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

#151

Post by mnd999 »

habosa wrote: post #122
brigandish wrote: post #77

> That way, when candidates were pitched to us with "X years of MOVA experience", we knew that somebody was full of it. I'd put my money on the recruiter. I once had an excruciatingly awkward interview at a company on an industrial estate in the middle of nowhereland with no train station nearby that took me bloody ages to get to… which was actually going well until they asked me about my long experience with Exchang…

This is why some recruiters demand a DOCX of a resume, not just a PDF. They edit them before submitting them to postings. Sometimes they're honest edits to improve your chances, but mostly it's lying to get you in the door.

I’ve been using latex for my CV for years. If they ask for an editable version I just send them the .tex file.

I’ve never come across any edited versions at interview.

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

#152

Post by MaxBarraclough »

arethuza wrote: post #132
MaxBarraclough wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the spirit of Hacker News I'd like to respond to this decidedly human problem with a technical question: which file format did you use for your CV? Was it an easily-edited .docx file, or a PDF? The PDF format is somewhat awkward to edit. I've never put much stock in the idea that this is one of its virtues, but for this specific kind of manipulation I can see it might be effective.

It's trivial to convert PDFs these days to Word documents - Word actually opens PDFs as editable. I suppose you could print out your CV and scan it into a PDF to prevent that - but then there is OCR...

I must be behind the times.

You're right of course that with OCR, and the right typefaces, it's always possible to automate the process of building an editable document from a PDF or printed page.

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

#153

Post by mckirk »

prepend wrote: post #112
antonvs wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something to do with blockchain, I assume.

NFT for physical objects is the new hotness. That way they can just demonstrate ownership of the plant instead of having to move it around.

Transparent OLED screens on window sills cycling through simulations of virtual plants, together with their NFT tags...

I want the future back, we were promised hoverboards!

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

#155

Post by harel »

wahern wrote: post #69
harel wrote: post #59

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.

> I'm surprised it's still a thing. Because it was a good idea? The whole industry came full circle. Here's some ColdFusion that people now call "Mustache JS": {{Subject}} {{#names}} {{name}} {{/names}} The problem with ColdFusion was that it went in the wrong direction. It tried to copy the trends of the industry by inventing and emphasizing CFScript when it should have doubled-down on the templating strategies and…

I had 2 startups in total that were CF based, and still have a business running on ColdFusion (or a legacy version of it that is still in use). And yes, at it's prime, when choice was limited and 1 core was plenty, it was the best way to get a web application going. I actually welcomed the Java days since the original had enough issues that were resolved and having access to the JVM and it's ecosystem was a great thing. At this point ColdFusion became a JSP tag library. However, I cannot compare it to today's tech. It's not apples to apples.

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

#156

Post by harel »

prepend wrote: post #133
wahern wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm surprised it's still a thing. Because it was a good idea? The whole industry came full circle. Here's some ColdFusion that people now call "Mustache JS": {{Subject}} {{#names}} {{name}} {{/names}} The problem with ColdFusion was that it went in the wrong direction. It tried to copy the trends of the industry by inventing and emphasizing CFScript when it should have doubled-down on the templating strategies and…

I don’t think it’s fair to give credit to CF for templating. In that I think we’d have the exact use of templating today if CF never existed, due to the other templating approaches that existed before CF.

As far as I'm aware ColdFusion is a bunch of "firsts" and in particular the first "Application Server".

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

#157

Post by brigandish »

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #128
brigandish wrote: post #77

> That way, when candidates were pitched to us with "X years of MOVA experience", we knew that somebody was full of it. I'd put my money on the recruiter. I once had an excruciatingly awkward interview at a company on an industrial estate in the middle of nowhereland with no train station nearby that took me bloody ages to get to… which was actually going well until they asked me about my long experience with Exchang…

In the spirit of Hacker News I'd like to respond to this decidedly human problem with a technical question: which file format did you use for your CV? Was it an easily-edited .docx file, or a PDF? The PDF format is somewhat awkward to edit. I've never put much stock in the idea that this is one of its virtues, but for this specific kind of manipulation I can see it might be effective.

It was probably Word back then. Nowadays I skip the recruiter and use word of mouth. Even more malleable but somehow far more effective and truthful!

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

#158

Post by ezconnect »

arethuza wrote: post #117
dmos62 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jeez louise, imagine working somewhere where coworkers are regularly abused to tears. I really hope that that's an isolated case.

It was a branch office of one of the big UK recruitment companies - I can't remember their name (it was ~10 years ago). I suspect the management knew that berating people in a semi public area added that extra level of humiliation - their managers were all pretty scary and I didn't even work for them!

I once coded for a recruitment agency and they get paid a recruitment fee equal to a 1 month salary of their recruit.

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

#160

Post by eecc »

slimsag wrote: post #108
dmos62 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jeez louise, imagine working somewhere where coworkers are regularly abused to tears. I really hope that that's an isolated case.

My sister worked at a recruitment company for a while and basically described the same. They set targets for everyone that were basically not achievable ever, and managers were expected to basically personally berate you for not meeting them and place you on warning to get you to work harder and more hours. She wasn't in a position to lose a job at the time, and felt she had no other choice but to begin lying about n…

Outside? I got mobbed an entire year while doing tech support for a what-used-to-be poster child of successful tech.

Manager would randomly chronometer the time it took me to answer tickets and warned me I spent too much time thinking before typing responses... (turned out the rest of the team was just smarter and pretended to work hard: hitting backspace as often as they typed other random words... oh but the display of “intensity” and “customer delight” was glowing hot.)

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