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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

#561

> 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…

My dad had a recruiter delete his PhD from the education section. During the interview a topic related to his thesis came up, he mentioned his thesis and the interview was over because "we don't hire people with PhDs"

What a bizzare disqualification criteria!

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

#562
post #553
post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone currently working on a new language should grab that name. Not bad to from the get go to be able to put a name like Facebook as a heavy user of your technology on the landing page ... Edit: and then go to an interview at Facebook and claim not just that you are an expert in this language but the creator

The post is not by Facebook.

Argh, somehow I completely missed that skimming it on the phone during lunch :/

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

#563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> No one should bother to apply since they don't qualify instantly. I never assume the "requirements" are actually hard requirements to an application, and I encourage others in the job market to do the same. Sure, if you miss 3 out of the 5 requirements listed you might pass on that application. But if you've got 4 out of the 5 requirements, and think you could accomplish the job as described, you should still stron…

Be aware when you do this that there are a minority of companies for whom the requirements are actually requirements, and you may get yelled at by an interviewer for "wasting everybody's time." Yes, this has happened to me. On the up side I now have a list of a few companies I know I won't work for unless I'm desperate.

The advice is still good; the requirements are really more of "strong desire" than actual requirements, and if you look at the typical requirements listing, its' unlikely that they will find enough people at the salary they offer to fit all of them anyways.

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

#565

> 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…

I had a similar experience when I decided to move on from my first job. I naively accepted a recruiter's request to help and ended up going on a couple interviews where I was completely out of my depth.

5 minutes into the second such interview I asked the interviewer to see the job requirements and handed them a copy of my resume. I then explained that I didn't have any of the qualifications they were looking for, not even relevant experience, and noped my way out the door.

I received a nice email from the interviewer thanking me for not wasting their time and saying they'd keep my real resume on file if they had anything come up.

I fired the recruiter that day.

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

#566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I've been to plenty of interviews where my CV hasn't been given more than a glance. I have a fake programming language on my resume, has been there for years. To top it off, I used a well known video game cheat code. I've been hired several times with that on my resume, so far no one has ever mentioned it.

I also have years of experience in Konami Code.

Thirty lives worth of years?

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

#568

There's something Kafka-esque about the largest distributor of fake news creating a fake programming language.

It was a posting on Facebook not FB itself that made up the fake language.

I'm a dolt, sorry. Please downvote my comment.

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

#569

> 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…

Really, the breakdown was with the recruiter doing that without telling you.

Flip side: I helped interview someone to replace me for an old position. He was put forward by a recruiting company as having had .NET and Ruby on Rails experience. I asked if he had done any Rails projects. "Oh yes, 2 or 3." Because of time, I didn't press further. We knew we were hiring a junior guy, and I didn't want to tangle with specifics, or trying to smoke out how much he knew through technical questions. I'm a brutally honest person, and I can never quite catch myself being naive at the wrong moment...

When the time came to hand off the Rails project to him, I told him it was written in Rails, and he literally opened a browser, went to Google, and typed in "Ruby on Rails" in front of me. And that's when I knew the recruiter had lied FOR him, and coached him to just go along with the lie. At least THIS guy had THAT going for him.

When I told my new management about the lie, knowing what was coming, I just got a stupid look, and a "Well, this can be an opportunity to learn something new."

It took him 3 years to rewrite my 3-month Rails app in .NET, and I've heard it doesn't work.

Yes, recruitment is broken. In this example, it was an utter lack of care to follow up on malfeasance from a recruiting firm. They got what they ultimately wanted -- a warm body on an H1-B visa -- and that's what they'll continue to get with their process.

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

#570

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…

The recruiter was in idiot but not to consider c# dev for Java job is quite silly too.

I think the biggest hurdle going from Java to C# is how you think about asynchronous code, more so for desktop software. My last role was C# with me coming from Java and I got a few rude awakenings.
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