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Ask HN: How did Soham Parekh get so many jobs?

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Re: Ask HN: How did Soham Parekh get so many jobs?

#61

Post by gk1 »

deepsun wrote: post #20
robswc wrote: post #3

This is my question too. I'm no longer job searching but every interview involved multiple steps and "background checks." I'm seeing the dude's resume has him working half a dozen jobs in a year which even to me is a huge red flag. Then he has a github with automated commits... I don't want to be disparaging to start ups because its brutal out there but how does someone like that have such a high success rate? Is he…

Background checks come in different varieties, usually it's criminal and global watchlist checks. Employment and education check is couple $$ extra for the employer, and some employers really don't mind.

It’s also possible to “freeze” your employment history report just like you can freeze your credit report. Which prevents even companies with the wherewithal to do an employment history check from getting that information.

Re: Ask HN: How did Soham Parekh get so many jobs?

#62

Post by gk1 »

dalemhurley wrote: post #42

This is insane, there is a Reddit, of course there is, of almost 500K people, https://www.reddit.com/r/overemployed/ , who discuss all of the strategies to do this. Just imagine being one of the people who legit joins a startup, is passionate, working long hours, earning your vest, to have your coworker pretending to be working.

Every manager and employer should skim through that subreddit. When I stumbled onto it I felt like Bruce Willis at the end of The Sixth Sense, where the truth was revealed and every flashback moment suddenly made sense and lined up. Until then, things just felt “off” but it was hard to put a finger on what was actually going on.

Re: Ask HN: How did Soham Parekh get so many jobs?

#63

Post by anon_2222 »

gargoyle9123 wrote: post #23

We hired Soham. I can tell you it's because he's actually a very skilled engineer. He will blow the interviews completely out of the water. Easily top 1% or top 0.1% of candidates -- other startups will tell you this as well. The problem is when the job (or work-trial in our case) actually starts, it's just excuses upon excuses as to why he's missing a meeting, or why the PR was pushed late. The excuses become more r…

we interviewed him and passed. he was horrible. it blows my mind seeing these reports of him crushing interviews and being a great dev. the bar for programmers is woefully low. on second thought there's got to be more to this story because he came to us through a recruiter who talked him up big time. did he come to you through a recruiter too? if so then either the recruiter is in on it or he has an army of different recruiters getting him in front of yc people. also you say you worked with him in person but other reports say he was in india. something not adding up here. i can verify my story by giving you the Nth character of the quirky email address he uses. can you do the same?

Re: Ask HN: How did Soham Parekh get so many jobs?

#65

Post by NameForComment »

gargoyle9123 wrote: post #23

We hired Soham. I can tell you it's because he's actually a very skilled engineer. He will blow the interviews completely out of the water. Easily top 1% or top 0.1% of candidates -- other startups will tell you this as well. The problem is when the job (or work-trial in our case) actually starts, it's just excuses upon excuses as to why he's missing a meeting, or why the PR was pushed late. The excuses become more r…

> I can tell you it's because he's actually a very skilled engineer. He will blow the interviews completely out of the water. Easily top 1% or top 0.1% of candidates -- other startups will tell you this as well.

It is hilarious that companies that hired a guy who was scamming them are also convinced they are great at assessing the skill level of devs.

Re: Ask HN: How did Soham Parekh get so many jobs?

#66

Post by ReptileMan »

crossroadsguy wrote: post #39
robswc wrote: post #3

This is my question too. I'm no longer job searching but every interview involved multiple steps and "background checks." I'm seeing the dude's resume has him working half a dozen jobs in a year which even to me is a huge red flag. Then he has a github with automated commits... I don't want to be disparaging to start ups because its brutal out there but how does someone like that have such a high success rate? Is he…

For my last job — the guy who was supposed to verify my permanent address called me and asked me to ask someone in my village to take a photo of the house with same day newspaper in the view and send it to him. I forwarded the request to my future employer asking whether it was the normal verification procedure :-)

Unicorns are easier to find than newspapers. If you threaten to shoot me unless I bring newspaper - I am not even sure where they sell them anymore in my city.

Re: Ask HN: How did Soham Parekh get so many jobs?

#67

Post by leovander »

A handful of comments already alluded to it, but maybe YC startups aren’t as smart as they think they are when they are looking for their founding engineers. Especially when it’s just the two founders looking for find their early engineers and the one holding the mba is the one leading/hiring. East to dupe these folks early on?

Re: Ask HN: How did Soham Parekh get so many jobs?

#68

Post by Aurornis »

data_yum_yum wrote: post #58
Aurornis wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The purpose of sharing his name was to warn other companies, not to discuss the story.

That’s an excuse for poor behavior. Relevant people can share it privately and put out a public warning about obviously noticeable behavioral patterns. Couple issues here: 1) Sharing it wide open on the Web for the whole world to see and everyone to poke fun of is a massive intrusion. 2) It's also a gateway to bunch of nonsense and false information all over the Internet. Half the stuff I see about this person under…

> 1) Sharing it wide open on the Web for the whole world to see and everyone to poke fun of is a massive intrusion.

If this person had done a single violation I'd agree. He's a serial manipulator, though, and he's been scamming people throughout the startup community. Once your behavior starts becoming a problem for a community, you shouldn't expect that community to also protect your identity.

The person was targeting a startup community (YC) and had learned how to game their system. The person posting the info didn't even post it immediately. They posted it a year later after hearing multiple stories of the person continuing to do it.

> 3) There are many people with the same name who’s going to get a backlash FYI.

There's a photo of him right in the thread specifically so people can determine if they're talking about the same person. He was also highlighted on a Meta open source developer blog a few years ago.

We all know people can have similar names.

Re: Ask HN: How did Soham Parekh get so many jobs?

#69

Post by FootballBat »

snthpy wrote: post #48
gargoyle9123 wrote: post #23

We hired Soham. I can tell you it's because he's actually a very skilled engineer. He will blow the interviews completely out of the water. Easily top 1% or top 0.1% of candidates -- other startups will tell you this as well. The problem is when the job (or work-trial in our case) actually starts, it's just excuses upon excuses as to why he's missing a meeting, or why the PR was pushed late. The excuses become more r…

Do employment contracts in the US not normally have "sole focus" clauses? We have those in my location.

Employment contracts in the US are rare.

Re: Ask HN: How did Soham Parekh get so many jobs?

#70

Post by FootballBat »

nickip wrote: post #55
dazzeloid wrote: post #10

he's a really talented engineer, crushed our interviews. the funny thing was that he actually had multiple companies on his linkedin at the same time, including ours. we just thought they must have been internships or something and he never updated them (he felt a bit chaotic). but then it turned out he was working at all of them simultaneously. worked for us for almost a year and did a solid job (we also let him go…

How was he talented? All the stories are the same. "Talented" etc. But then it leads to he never did any work. How can you assess his talent?

All I hear is "really good at interviewing."
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