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I Got Catfished by a Candidate

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Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#541

Post by viridian »

mrbill wrote: post #471
skate22 wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are the membership numbers changing over time? I only ask because of the religous aspect of the organization. I know a lot of the youth are not very religous (compared to previous generations). I really like the community aspect, but the ties to christianity would definitely be a blocker for a lot of people i know age 20-30

Trending downwards, just like any social fraternity (OddFellows, etc). People are more interested in going online these days than having to attend actual meetings and so forth. The Masons' peak membership was in the 1950s.

Do you know if there are any US branches that aren't pushing the religious angle anymore? My mentor tried to encourage me to join when I was younger (I was a carpenter's assistant), but I rejected it out of hand due to the religious angle. I don't particularly care about the ceremony of the thing (I was the president of a fraternity and had to recite a bit of prayer during weekly meetings), but AFAIK the only atheist accepting lodges are in France.

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#542

Post by mistermann »

gjulianm wrote: post #478
rando444 wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(1) Networking and building a reputation for yourself will always have value. (2) Most of the things that he's listed are merits. Being involved in his community, having a strong verifiable previous job history with good references, etc. (3) Having a good job history, making friends, and being involved in online and offline communities are not things limited to white males.

You are completely missing the parent's point. They say that this is one of the examples where hires are not performed 100% based on merit but that existing networks and references are an important aspect, without denying that this person did not have the merits to be hired. Also, yes, good job histories, friends and communities are not limited to white males. But they have a strong component of inertia: if those com…

I'm curious if you believe this comment belongs to both the Freemason association and "mr_bill on efnet #unix IRC in the 90s", or only one of them? I'd 100% agree on the former, but not the latter.

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#543

Post by cookiecaper »

emodendroket wrote: post #529
jmspring wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The path to becoming a mason is first by reaching out to your local lodge. The person who responds can help you with the process. Beyond masons, there are the elks, the moose, and in parts of the West Clampers. Each have their lodges, their rituals, and focus. I started the mason path, but life got busy. I’m a Moose member and a Clamper. In all cases, the focus is community. In most cases, and this is what I apprecia…

That sounds like a secular version of a church or something. Am I in the right ballpark?

Not a Mason, but yes, that's my take. Lodges provide the essential community functions and the recognition of a "universal brotherhood", without requiring any specific theological pronouncements (other than a basic acknowledgement that a "higher power" exists, which is vague enough to allow anyone). This allows virtually everyone in the community the ability to join and work together, more-or-less regardless of individual background or tradition.

Historically, secular fraternities like the Freemasons played a big role in keeping mixed-denomination communities communal, instead of fracturing off into hard, non-fluid segments. I would conjecture that we owe a lot of our cultural religious tolerance to the foundations of trust and community laid in the Masonic lodges of yore.

IMO it's a shame that these groups are not very widely established anymore (at least among "younger" people, who are now becoming "older" people). These fraternities do a great deal to help adults, families, and whole communities.

The only reason I haven't personally seriously inquired into joining such a group is that I'm already in a very active church community that covers most of the Masonic functions, and I have enough trouble just keeping up with that. I'd miss too many lodge meetings, etc.

For anyone who is floating or looking for a consistent community to anchor against, that will be there as an instant community even if you move around, Freemasonry or similar orgs are really worth investigating.

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#544

Post by michaelcampbell »

mrbill wrote: post #87

You just never know who might turn up from your past... 1999: I was a sysadmin at an ISP in Austin. One day we had a tour come through, people looking to see if they wanted to colo in our datacenter. In walks in the former CEO and most of the technical staff from the Oklahoma City-based ISP I'd started my career at and left in '96. We laughed, shook hands.. and they headhunted me away a couple months later with a 200…

Another EFNet #unix veteran from the same time period. Ahoy!

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#545

Post by emodendroket »

mercer wrote: post #537
emodendroket wrote: post #527

I'm not going to defend lying on your resume, but the contours of this story are interesting -- they talked to this guy because of the fraudulent history, and then were champing at the bit to hire him, which suggests that in every other way he was a good candidate. Perhaps we're putting an excessive emphasis on the previous companies someone's worked at.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say. Based on the story itself, I have no reason to believe that they'd have dismissed him if he had been honest and competent.

The story seems to suggest he was "comfortable" with him after he saw his work history, which suggested to me that an honest resume may have ended up in the trash can without any interview.

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#546

Post by cookiecaper »

ebbv wrote: post #509
welly wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To get what he wants? Would that be a job? So are you saying that in all your interviews you've had in the past you've been absolutely, positively 100% truthful about your experience and knowledge? That you've never inflated your abilities whatsoever?

Yes, absolutely. If anything I err on the side of playing things down. I never want to promise something I can't deliver or tell someone I'm more than I am. Besides, that's not even the issue. This guy just flat out lied. Not exaggerated, he told lies and built upon them. There's no excuse for that.

Yes. Exaggeration and puffing yourself up, while tacky, is par for the course, and to be honest, it's likely to get good candidates closer to an accurate representation than not, since better people tend to underplay their abilities, often subconsciously (cf. Dunning-Kruger Effect). But falsifying references with fake phone numbers and email addresses, and then actually operating those numbers and emails and impersonating someone else, that's a whole 'nother ballpark and it likely crosses into fraud.

While one can sympathize if they choose to work from the presupposition that our candidate is in the unlikely-but-not-totally-unrealistic circumstance of being capable but "steal bread to eat" desperate, it's a pretty hard sell to expect someone without a pre-existing relationship to excuse that type of behavior when it gets caught out like this.

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#547

Post by emodendroket »

aje403 wrote: post #538
emodendroket wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems like a misreading of the question. The bar is high, and he cleared it, but was invited to try because of his fraudulent credential.

I'm not misreading it at all. The two parent comments fall under the general umbrella of complaining about job listings requiring too much experience which is a standard point of contention against employers on HN. Leaving "20 years required low latency python experience with executive level leadership experience to manage our old undocumented report writing application" listings written by incompetent HR people out…

And then we also hear entreaties from employers that there is a shortage of programmers and policy changes are needed, a position that looks less sympathetic in light of a tendency to only hire experienced candidates.

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#548

Post by RandallBrown »

rqs wrote: post #249
andrewstuart wrote: post #72

I'm a recruiter. Three anecdotes come to mind for this topic: #1 I once sent out a coding test email to a candidate. Not long after I got an email back from this candidate saying "Hey bro could you do this test for me please." or words to that effect. Obviously mistakenly forwarded it back to me instead of to his bro who he wanted to do his coding test. #2 I definitely got catfished but it was by another recruiter wh…

> Obviously mistakenly forwarded it back to me instead of to his bro who he wanted to do his coding test. Long time ago a guy I knew send me a quiz that apparently from a job interview, I pretend I've never received it ("Oh sorry, it must be filtered as spam"). My opinion, you shouldn't hire someone who can fail on a task that as simple as forwarding an email to someone else on such situation. LOL

Oh come on, people make silly email mistakes all the time. You don't want to hire someone that's going to lie about finishing their coding quiz, but if they screw up an email in an innocent way, it shouldn't be a dealbreaker.

Reminds me of the joke about throwing half of your job applications in the trash because you don't want to hire unlucky people.

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#549

Post by TheCoelacanth »

chatmasta wrote: post #405
jkFeiwi wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a developer, but laughing at this statement: > Public personas are a professional necessity, especially in our industry If I wasn't on hacker news, I would assume you were an actor or a radio talk show host. Maybe you're right, and developers need to have a public persona today. But why does it need to be that way? You aren't performers. You aren't politicians.

> You aren't performers. Aren’t we though? How is a developer on a software project different than an actor on a set? How is a product requirements doc different than a movie script? An actor can make or break a film just as a developer can make or break a software project. I actually think there are far more parallels than differences.

Which performers are in a movie is a major factor in who chooses to view the movie. Which developers created the software is not a major factor in who uses the software for most software. The only exceptions I can think of are software that is used mainly by other software developers.

Re: I Got Catfished by a Candidate

#550

Post by [deleted] »

phyller wrote: post #237
AmericanChopper wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not really what I’m saying at all. Every lie you tell jeopardises the trust you have amongst others. You might not get caught, and if you do, you may not damage the trust irreparably depending on the magnitude of the lie. I’m also saying that a workplace cannot be functional without trust, and that a workplace that tolerates dishonesty will invariably erode it. So unless you want to exist in such a workplace,…

Some people seem to think that people will lie about small things, but not big things. I kind of think that if you are willing to compromise your integrity for something small, you are definitely going to lie on the big things when the stakes are higher.

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