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The new hire who showed up is not the same person we interviewed

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Re: The new hire who showed up is not the same person we interviewed

#71

I once hired a guy who had no experience, but seemed like a good culture fit for our company and seemed very interested in learning. We interviewed him and made e-mail communication a large part of the interview, because it is a critical part of our business. And his communication was great! After hiring, a recurring problem we had was his e-mail to us and to customers were terrible. Bad grammar, bad spelling, uncorr…

That sounds to me like it would meet the legal definition of fraud. A lawsuit to recuperate the wages and damage to the business might even be worth looking into.

Re: The new hire who showed up is not the same person we interviewed

#72
post #59

I once hired a guy who had no experience, but seemed like a good culture fit for our company and seemed very interested in learning. We interviewed him and made e-mail communication a large part of the interview, because it is a critical part of our business. And his communication was great! After hiring, a recurring problem we had was his e-mail to us and to customers were terrible. Bad grammar, bad spelling, uncorr…

My (professional) written communication is a strong point for me. What kind of job has mostly sending emails as the work?

[deleted]

Re: The new hire who showed up is not the same person we interviewed

#73

We had this happen, but it did not get all the way to being hired thankfully. I got on a call to interview a candidate, and he didn't know anything . Like, hilariously unqualified, his knowledge level on software engineering was effectively zero. Fairly short call once we realized what the score was. Immediately the recruiter calls me back (she was on the call as well) and started apologizing profusely. She said the…

Haha, I really appreciate that kind of recruiter. Did his name happen to be John Keenan?

Re: The new hire who showed up is not the same person we interviewed

#74

I've been a hiring manager for remote positions for a long time. If your recruiting channels are good, most of your candidates are going to be honest and good intentioned. But interview enough people, and you'll start encountering people trying to abuse remote work. They're not interested in contributing to your company. They're only interested in collecting paychecks while they do as little work as possible for as l…

> Always makes me wonder how many dysfunctional companies are out there letting deadbeat remote employees collect paychecks and do as little work as possible because nobody cares enough to press the issue.

I'll take a stab at it, and predict... all of them. Or nearly so. There seems to be an ever-present fraction of employees at any large corporation that are essentially worthless. Just along for the ride, raking in a paycheck while someone else does the meaningful work.

We've had stories here on HN about people exploiting it. There's a moment, I think, in many developers' careers where it occurs to them that there is almost never any reward for hard work. And when you're a wage slave for a large corporation, it's easy to blur the morality until it feels okay to take advantage of the situation.

When I find myself starting to think such thoughts, I know that it's time for me to move on to another opportunity. And a smaller company, even though it pays less, because it's better for your soul.

Re: The new hire who showed up is not the same person we interviewed

#75
Reminds me of the lip syncing interview candidate that went viral a little while ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47mfohGyeBg

This is why remote exams have all of those strict requirements like "show us your room" and "don't leave sight of the webcam"

Re: The new hire who showed up is not the same person we interviewed

#77

But... is the interviewee proxy doing this as a side gig? If they are good enough to get paid (presumably) for taking interviews, how can that be more valuable than just taking one of the jobs they successfully interview for?

Who wouldn’t pay $10,000-50,000 for a guaranteed FAANG job? There are some people out there that can absolutely pass every single interview. And if they look like you, especially over zoom, then how would they know?

I would hope plenty of people won't commit fraud to get a tech job.

>how would they know

Maybe someone could get off with it if they're early in their careers. But if you're more senior, lots of people probably know you.

Re: The new hire who showed up is not the same person we interviewed

#79
One place I worked, we hired someone into a senior developer position. A whole section of the interview is about what is expected of a senior (making juniors better, talking to clients, etc...)

He gets there day one and says he will only write code. Everyone in the interview process had good notes and positive recollection of him.

The two working theories were that either someone else interviewed for him, or that he expected to show up and export his work to someone else (all remote).

Re: The new hire who showed up is not the same person we interviewed

#80

> HR is going to send up a quick red flag and John is likely to resign claiming a poor fit rather than get caught committing or admitting fraud. Though at this point they all know John is committing fraud, they still decided only to approach this guy claiming a poor fit for his resignation. I don't know why they do that. They have discussed a lot and considered many things. I am sure there are many reasons to do so.…

Large organizations are generally risk adverse, and extremely process oriented. If they approach "John" wrong, there might create additional problems for the company.
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