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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

#81

Post by invalidOrTaken »

lsh123 wrote: post #40
mssundaram wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's really lousy, I wouldn't have even bothered applying to that because I'd assume you had unrealistic expectations or no idea what you are talking about.

I was (and still am) interested in hiring people who would challenge manager, TL, ... and speak up if they think something is not right. That was just one of the filters.

You're depending on being very lucky,

People go through three phases: 1. they are too scared to challenge authority 2. they are not scared of challenging authority 3. they realize they can just go somewhere else

Mature, intelligent Phase 3 people will only challenge authority if they know they're secure in doing so---if they trust you. But why should they trust you? They've never met you, you're just a job ad.

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

#83

Post by arethuza »

brigandish wrote: post #77

> 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 get as angry with recruiters as everyone else, but then I remember then time where I worked for a company that shared a floor of a serviced office building with a recruitment company. They were brutal in their treatment of staff - they were too cheap to get rooms for staff appraisals so they would do them in the coffee area we shared with them so we could hear how they were treated by their management - seeing people (men and women) in tears was pretty much a daily event.

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

#84

Post by dmje »

fergie wrote: post #37

I find it particularly ironic that it has fallen to a Facebook group of Cold Fusion programmers to call out poor choices. Those of us who actually worked at 1st generation dotcoms know that absolutely nobody had any idea what they were doing, even at the "proper" ones, and things were moving so fast that you absolutely _had_ to fake it until you made it.

Ha, so true. Man, there were a few months back then when I was being phoned about 5 times a day with job offers. None of them were even vaguely related to the skillset I had (doing a bit of ropy HTML) but I could have tripled my salary without even breaking a sweat. I worked for Waterstone's Online at the time, glad I stayed put, we had fun.

Cold Fusion though - I loved that. It was my first scripting language (apart from a brief foray into Perl), and it seemed like magic.

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

#85

Post by jdhzzz »

dmje wrote: post #82

Somewhat orthogonal but reminds me of the old map makers who used to insert made up islands / villages on their maps in order to prevent plagiarism. More here: [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictitious_entry ]

A relative has a business publishing information about high school athletics. They created a fictitious school and used it to prove a company had infringed their copyright.

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

#87

Post by onion2k »

neolog wrote: post #60
JimmyAustin wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A mate of mine's consulting company offers a 10% discount on any work if the client buys them a plant, any plant, for the office. Apparently they've only had two clients take them up on the offer.

Why do they offer that?

It demonstrates that the client actually read the contract.

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

#88

Post by PhillyG »

codeflo wrote: post #44
bpodgursky wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I wouldn't personally do it, and I'd expect the candidate to crash-study before the interview enough to make it a plausible story. I just wouldn't consider it a * hard * disqualifier, if the truth came out.

I had a situation like this recently at a smaller company. Candidate claims years of expertise in X and Y. We have great X people, but would like to hire someone with deep Y knowledge. So we (more out of routine than any particular strategy) probe X in the interview. Turns out the candidate is beginner level at best, and also a bit arrogant about it. Would you in that situation believe the Y claims, that you can’t ev…

Unfortunately it often takes quite a bit of experience in a skill to truly assess your own skill level. Many programming courses teach just the basics of coding in a language, without making it clear that it's not really enough to professionally start working on production code. It also requires more knowledge of a language, to work with other people's code than your own - and there really isn't enough recognition of that fact (at least in people I've come across)

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

#89

Post by DocTomoe »

ALittleLight wrote: post #10

This reminds me of an anecdote I read once, maybe in Liars Poker, about how lots of people applying to this hedge fund put "Chess" on their resume somewhere thinking it made them seem like a deep or strategic thinker. As it happened, at this hedge fund there worked a former Soviet master or grandmaster ranked player. And so, whenever interviewing any candidate who claimed great proficiency with chess on their resume,…

I'd file an application just for that. And yes, (s)he would run circles around me.

A Strategy that would backfire quickly.

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