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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

#211

Post by wccrawford »

dmos62 wrote: post #126

Serious question: if you're applying for positions you're not totally confident in your experience and skillset, do you inflate your resume? My thinking goes that if I slip in by being dishonest, I'll be nervous of being found out, feel an intruder. So being honest and taking a longer time looking for match would get more comfort later on.

We recently discovered that someone lied about their one of their skills during the interview.

We fired them. End of story. No other option.

Do not lie on your resume or during the interview. I've never worked at a company that it wasn't grounds for immediate dismissal.

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

#212

Post by jarcane »

practicalpants wrote: post #110
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…

Yep, for my first programming job out of college a recruiter arranged an onsite interview for a Java role, when I was under every impression it was for Ruby/Rails. I don't know Java. The first interviewer laughed and walked out. I explained things to the recruiter, he cursed, said he would "visit the Ruby team upstairs". He actually managed to setup an impromptu on-site interview with the Ruby team on that same day.…

My second ever job was at a startup that put me through three rounds of interviews, all of them in Python. The homework task, the questions, literally nothing else was mentioned through the entire process.

After I got hired, I showed up the first day and one of the managers asks me, "So I heard you know functional programming, right?"

I said "yes" and was immediately whisked off to the backend division that worked entirely in Scala, a language I had literally never spent more than 5 minutes on before dismissing because the online tutorial I was using broke about two chapters in.

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

#215

Post by frobozz »

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.

The trouble is, even people who would challenge things don't want to be forced to do so unnecessarily.

I'm happy to speak up if something isn't right, but if that happens too often, I'll speak up using my feet.

If an ad or interview gives me a vibe that most of my job is going to involve telling people they are wrong, I'll choose a different job.

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

#216

Post by dunefox »

nix23 wrote: post #207
dunefox wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At my last job I wasn't micro- but nano-managed - the "project manager" sometimes sat next to me and looked at me while I was debugging code. The IT sector definitely has its share of morons.

Next time that happens ask him/her to bring you a coffee, works most of the time...and you can have e little "secret" chuckle.

Heh. Fortunately, I don't work there anymore.

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

#217

Post by BlargMcLarg »

that_guy_iain wrote: post #118
austincheney wrote: post #107

Why even bother with a fake language when so often the industry has devolved into some sick level of honest negligence? For example: rarely do candidates need to know JavaScript anymore or even some unnecessary framework. Now people trade in experience of some tool that says nothing of anything: React Flux Capacitor (or some other bullshit like they want to go back in time to make lots of money without any real skill…

Honestly, the thing I hate the most about IT is how bad it is while no one admits to it. These are problems I've encountered at several companies: * No budget for tooling. Be that software outside the ide or be it for hardware. * Cargo cult is so much bigger than anyone will ever admit. * The lack of caring about other departments. We're a team and we need to work as a team so the company can make money to pay our sa…

> The amount of people who don't know what they're doing. So many people seem to have 1-year * x experience. They reach a certain level and they just stop.

Part of the problem is because people only look at years of experience at all, and recruitment often inflates the requirements. I don't need 5 years of work experience in .NET to modify an existing application with very defined and clear boundaries: within a few months, I can easily read what is happening already and mutate the application within the set boundaries. 5 years of work experience is what I'd need to set up an application the size of Stack Overflow from scratch in an acceptable timeframe.

What we have now is a recruitment procedure within the industry which overemphasizes ticking boxes without looking whether they can actually deliver. We have so many quality online sources available, any half-competent person can read, copy what is happening, use it as a foundation and then change it to their specific needs, producing actual applications. You might not cover the edge cases (a specific cryptographic problem here, an suboptimal solution there, etc.), but that really isn't that different from most of the crap software that's getting shoveled out into the open today.

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

#219

Post by dunefox »

arethuza wrote: post #203
dunefox wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At my last job I wasn't micro- but nano-managed - the "project manager" sometimes sat next to me and looked at me while I was debugging code. The IT sector definitely has its share of morons.

In a large company I once worked for I suggested a ticket prioritisation scheme based on assigning a numerical value to each staff member (e.g. CIO = 1000, lower values for lesser deities) and calculating a value for each ticket based on the sum of the values for each person standing behind the person actually fixing the problem. This was based on observing 4 people (CIO and managers from intermediate levels) standin…

That's actually a genius idea. I wonder how much money is wasted on such things.

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

#220

Post by matsemann »

invalidOrTaken wrote: post #81
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.

You're depending on being very lucky, People go through three phases: 1. they are too scared to challenge authority 2. they are not scared of challenging authority 3. they realize they can just go somewhere else Mature, intelligent Phase 3 people will only challenge authority if they know they're secure in doing so---if they trust you. But why should they trust you? They've never met you, you're just a job ad.

Thinking the same thing. It will filter out good candidates with other options, leaving a worse pool to select from. So in effect probably leading to worse hires.
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