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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

#421

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

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…

Recruiters are very different from “the good ol’ days,” when they acted more like talent agents.

I was a hiring manager for decades, and appreciated recruiters that acted as advocates for their prospects; even when I ended up not hiring the prospect.

Nowadays, it’s all tag searches and fake “personalized” emails. If I have “I once had a cup of coffee” in my CV, I’m a “Java guru.”

I regularly send people interested in working with me to things like my SO Story[0], and they regularly ignore it.

Nowadays, I have the rare luxury of choosing with whom I want to work. If folks don’t want to work with me, then let’s not waste each other’s time.

[0] https://stackoverflow.com/story/chrismarshall

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

#422

Post by wanderingstan »

NoOneNew wrote: post #393
jefftk wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't list it as a requirement; list it as something that would be nice to have.

I was just thinking this. If it's labeled as an optional skill or something like that, I see nothing wrong with it. Applicant has no reason to lie about it. Have confidence in their other skills. At the same time, we have this new thing called search engines. If a language can't be found, they'll probably figure out that it's trap. Even better for the company. A person who won't lie and/or can research out BS for the…

> If a language can't be found, they'll probably figure out that it's trap.

If you're a qualified dev, you'd more likely conclude that it's a mistake on the part of whoever wrote the listing. I've seen skills listed like "Microsoft UML" or "Python, PHD, Nodes", so wouldn't think much of seeing "MOVA".

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

#423

Post by rantwasp »

noneeeed wrote: post #372
DoubleGlazing wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Had the almost exact same experience, but with Java. I'm a C# developer and although I have some experience with Java, I don't have enough to list it as a skill on my CV. Anyways, in this interview I was being asked about Java and I answered every question by saying I don't really know Java. The interviewers were obviously getting annoyed. So I asked "Sorry, I thought this was a C# job?". No, it was a Java job and ma…

I had a recruiter say "XML and UML are basically the same, right?". There's almost a dangerous level of knowledge among some recruiters where they think they know enough to do crap like this.

they’re 66% the same thing. yes /s

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

#424

Post by Ankhers »

DoubleGlazing wrote: post #340
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…

Had the almost exact same experience, but with Java. I'm a C# developer and although I have some experience with Java, I don't have enough to list it as a skill on my CV. Anyways, in this interview I was being asked about Java and I answered every question by saying I don't really know Java. The interviewers were obviously getting annoyed. So I asked "Sorry, I thought this was a C# job?". No, it was a Java job and ma…

> Now that is why if I ever have to send my CV to someone it will only be a PDF version.

This doesn't always help either though. I have only ever sent PDFs to recruiters for this reason. Yet I have still had a recruiter completely rewrite my resume and add false information.

I generally keep a resume on me when I go to an interview just in case an interviewer had not seen it. I'm glad I do that.

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

#425

Post by astura »

devenblake wrote: post #146
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…

Reading all these replies and - what the hell? Are recruiters really that common? Are bad recruiters really that common? I wasn't aware this was even a thing.

Bad (external) recruiters are absolutely the norm. I'm sure a good one exists somewhere but I've never interacted with one. They are shady, they lie to you, they edit resumes, they are rude, they waste your time, they don't listen, they have no attention to detail, and they berate you if you even consider not accepting an offer.

Many small companies use them anyways for some reason.

Recruiters who work for the company they are recruiting for are normally pretty good.

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

#426

Post by dandersh »

DoubleGlazing wrote: post #340
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…

Had the almost exact same experience, but with Java. I'm a C# developer and although I have some experience with Java, I don't have enough to list it as a skill on my CV. Anyways, in this interview I was being asked about Java and I answered every question by saying I don't really know Java. The interviewers were obviously getting annoyed. So I asked "Sorry, I thought this was a C# job?". No, it was a Java job and ma…

Had this happen to me as well, only my background is JavaScript. I've had more than one conversation with a recruiter where they didn't understand the difference between Java and JavaScript, so I'm unsure whether this was done due to malice or incompetence.

+1 to the PDF resume, if for no other reason than you don't have to deal with format issues on windows/mac.

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

#427

Post by Spooky23 »

falcolas wrote: post #332

So, let me get this straight - you lie about your job requirements, but get all bent out of shape when the candidates lie right back at you? Brilliant. I can’t think of a better example of why hiring is broken; of how unequal the power dynamic is between employers and employees.

For an employee, doing this is nuts.

I’ve worked with body shop contracts at big orgs where the subcontractors are pure scum and will send fake people, etc. if you’re forced to deal with something like that, you need controls to detect deceit so you can take action.

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

#428

Post by soperj »

throw1234651234 wrote: post #414
halostatue wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

C# and Java the language are similar enough; the ecosystems are very different. A C# developer would mostly be expecting to develop Windows programs or possibly Windows server / IIS applications. A Java developer could be working on all kinds of different things.

This. I can do programming problems in Java, but I definitely can't lead a team doing a Java project. I don't what Gradle/Maven/etc really are. I don't have years of experience with how libraries, the API request pipeline, middleware, etc work. I don't know little tricks / nuanaces, like the fact that Visual Studio has to be restarted for local code to pick up new environment variables, why String and string are the…

Gradle & Maven are just build tools. They can be used for other stuff, but that's what they're mostly used for in my experience.

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

#429

Post by DoubleGlazing »

Mauricebranagh wrote: post #405
DoubleGlazing wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having been in the software business for nearly 20 years I can state that from my own experiences, recruiters are overwhelmingly bad. The thing is that there are big incentives for the recruiters. Where I live (Dublin) the recruiters finders fee would be around 30% of the candidates salary. In IT that could be a fair whack of money. That sort of incentive can cause some peoples morals to loosen a bit. Here are some o…

Interesting in the UK every agency I have directly dealt with has asked first and got my verbal permission to represent. Sounds like the employer is a shitty as the agency here, if I had had an offer like that withdrawn I would have sent a stiff letter from a lawyer wanting a "compromise agreement"

Prior to the GDPR I was only ever formally asked a few times for permission to represent. Since the GDPR the few recruiter I've dealt with always asked. I think the GDPR scared them a bit.

As for the offer withdrawal, until the contract is signed they had every right to do that. To be fair having seen it from the employers side, when an agency does something like that it can be messy. You may be the best candidate ever, but if the company has to drop a five-figure sum on solicitors and legal stuff then you may be more of a hindrance to them.

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