I dealt with a number of people who weren't who they said they were in my last bout of hiring.
There's typical ones where an engineer will stack their resume with buzzwords that they don't understand at a basic level. An example of this is putting Kubernetes on ones resume but not being able to explain the different workloads. People don't often call this fraud, but I do when it crosses some magical threshold. The reason I call it fraud is that fraud, to me, generally implies intent to deceive. About a year ago I discovered on Reddit there were people coaching others through lying on their resumes and in interviews with the reasoning that "everyone does it" and "you'll learn on the job".
The second kind I've encountered is more analogous to what you experienced, though we never hired any of these folks. Retrospectively I think one of the things that helped us avoid hiring these folks is that we don't refer to an engineers provenance. Early on I took the stance that just because you say you're from Google, or any other large engineering firm, doesn't mean you're the right fit for the team. We had candidates invest in a 2-3 hour take home exercise that was pretty easy, it mostly tested your API design skills but because it involved code we got some good peeks into what that would look like in a contrived scenario. Second, we ask that candidates bring an example of projects they've worked on, starting with ones they led. This one is a little harder to fake the funk on, especially if the candidate is Senior+.
The problem is the flip side: companies that demand 10+ years of experience in technologies that have been around for 5, and similar absurdities.
More simply and commonly, the amount of experience required for supposedly "junior" positions has gone up without commensurate increases in pay.
And far, far, far too many companies demand that a candidate be able to hit the ground running instantly—that they have exactly the experience and skills required for this position, rather than being someone who may not know every possible way to configure Kubernetes, but who's flexible and both willing and able to learn quickly.
I would never do it personally (both out of a sense of honesty, and a deep-seated fear that I'd be found out), but I can certainly see why lots of people lie on their resumes.
I agree with you, allowing managers and recruiters to use contrived requirements creates perverse incentives. That said, while it may contribute to an uptick people have been doing this for a long time. I think they're both problems, and I don't think one is causal of the other. If a person lies on a resume to match a search engine that's one thing. If a person is coaching others on how to lie, conceal, and deceive then that's another.
>Second, we ask that candidates bring an example of projects they've worked on, starting with ones they led.
Just curious what kind of "example" you'd expect someone to bring? Surely not code samples, since most people will not be legally allowed to show you code from their previous employer.
The way I've done this before is to have them talk you through what they did and why, with some questions probing at an appropriate level of detail. But that's not exactly "bring[ing] an example".
Generally speaking to what they did, they're generally encouraged to produce diagrams that could help explain the problem and solution, and that's all usually part of a slide deck (but doesn't have to be). Having an enumerated list of outcomes is also nice. None of what they need to bring needs to be original. We're obviously not encouraging developers to steal from their former employers.
I agree and it drives me insane. Imagine in any other industry, like civil engineering, someone claims to have experience constructing a pedestrian bridge, despite never being near a construction site. Or having credentials that actually belong to someone else. It is fraud. If it was the medical industry they would be sent to prison.
"progeny" dictionary definition is "a descendant or the descendants of a person, animal, or plant; offspring." I'm not sure if you used the wrong word, or what you mean? I don't think you are talking about literal children?
There's typical ones where an engineer will stack their resume with buzzwords that they don't understand at a basic level. An example of this is putting Kubernetes on ones resume but not being able to explain the different workloads. People don't often call this fraud, but I do when it crosses some magical threshold. The reason I call it fraud is that fraud, to me, generally implies intent to deceive. About a year ago I discovered on Reddit there were people coaching others through lying on their resumes and in interviews with the reasoning that "everyone does it" and "you'll learn on the job".
The second kind I've encountered is more analogous to what you experienced, though we never hired any of these folks. Retrospectively I think one of the things that helped us avoid hiring these folks is that we don't refer to an engineers provenance. Early on I took the stance that just because you say you're from Google, or any other large engineering firm, doesn't mean you're the right fit for the team. We had candidates invest in a 2-3 hour take home exercise that was pretty easy, it mostly tested your API design skills but because it involved code we got some good peeks into what that would look like in a contrived scenario. Second, we ask that candidates bring an example of projects they've worked on, starting with ones they led. This one is a little harder to fake the funk on, especially if the candidate is Senior+.