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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

#541
I got a cold email from someone looking for gig work. He said he had experience with web components, so I made up a JS library and asked him if he was familiar. [0] Thankfully, he already had experience with it!

0. https://twitter.com/claviska/status/1274844995300794371?s=20

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

#542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's something I've noticed over the last 10 years or so as job descriptions get longer. All those new terms like React, Vue, SaaS, Azure, AWS etc. They don't really know what they mean. I was asked if I could code in Azure. This led to a weird conversation where I was trying to explain what Azure was, whilst he wouldn't listen to me and was adamant that it was a programming language.

"But can you code in API? I don't want your life story, just answer me! Do you know API?!" I'm so lucky, I think I found the best recruiter in all Vancouver. He helped me get my ideal role and was generally kind and competent. Just to offset the horror stories.

If you don't mind I'd love to get in touch with that recruiter. I'm in Vancouver and would love to make a change. E-mail's in my profile. Cheers!

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

#543
post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Employment is a trade between two entities. The employee gives labor, the employer compensates them. Ideally, the two negotiate a contract laying out the terms of employment, and move on. However, corporations typically don't offer any form of contract negotiations, at least in the US. An employee is often offered a take-it-or-leave-it contract with lots of non-compete and broad IP assignment riders, and their pa…

The fact that individual employees have little negotiating power with a large business is one of the conditions that give rise to collective bargaining agreements and unions.

Thank you. Other than unions, I don't see any other solution to the fundamental imbalance. It's (group + resources) vs (group + resources) until groups with the most resources decide they want to be nice. Until that becomes a reality, via regulation or epiphany or whatever, any expectation that it's not David vs Goliath is naive.

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

#544
My dotcom 1.0 employer did exactly the same thing, although I think ours was called 'Black Box'.

If a recruiter said they had 'Black Box' candidates ready and waiting to come in for interviews we knew the recruiter would lie, cheat and steal to get candidates placed (and their fat commission cheque).

If a recruiter said they hadn't heard of Black Box but would reach out to their pool of candidates, they'd be considered a bit more trustworthy and perhaps worth doing business with.

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

#545

> 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…

Well, they did mention headhunters specifically, so maybe they knew the dynamic full well.

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

#547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's something I've noticed over the last 10 years or so as job descriptions get longer. All those new terms like React, Vue, SaaS, Azure, AWS etc. They don't really know what they mean. I was asked if I could code in Azure. This led to a weird conversation where I was trying to explain what Azure was, whilst he wouldn't listen to me and was adamant that it was a programming language.

>> I was asked if I could code in Azure.

Sure!

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

#548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

TBF the recruiter likely was parroting what a previous candidate they were repping told them. I frequently find I have to re-educate recruiters who were previously informed incorrectly.

Absolutely, but that was kind of my point. A lot of recruiters I've encountered are like talking to a markov chain trained from some job ads. It sounds right if you don't actually know what the words mean.

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

#549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone can't learn a new ecosystem, I have bad news for them in this industry. Also, rejecting someone because they can't rote memorize ecosystem specific incantations is... a pretty big red flag.

The trick isn't memorizing them. The trick is discovering them. I've been emitting various versions of Wingardium Leviosa at Spring Boot for days now, with no effect. Once I've learned the incantation I'll have it and can repeat it in ten seconds, but until I have it I'm producing no actual work. Arguably, I'm more valuable because I have the capacity to eventually figure this out, rather than having already memorize…

I reach for Spring Boot as my tool of choice for most APIs, but I feel your pain. There’s always a particular corner, the dreaded “configuration” folder, filled with a collection of random annotations, single-purpose beans, filter chain setup, etc.

I find that most of my business logic ends up being really compact and powerful, but the tradeoff is that one chunk of the project is really dense.

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

#550

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.

I do most of my development in a what looks like a watered down version of JAVA. Last year I had to dive into C# and asp.bet for a bit. I felt like at home. The language makes sense,there are hardly any surprises and most of its features are excellent. You are right, however, that the ecosystem itself is different and it will take some time to get used to it. However, unless a company hires a contractor on a short te…

> JAVA

Keyword-happy business HR: "Sorry, we're looking for Java. Case-insensitivity? No, we have to be sensitive to everyone. Being insensitive is not what HR does."

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