Lying on your resume
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@ACT-Crusader said in Lying on your resume:
@raznomore sounds like a Seinfeld episode
Never recruited someone that flat out lied about having some technical skills and didn’t have it. Plenty have embellished on ‘soft skills’ like work well in teams, only to find out they have no social skills and a stalker...
And yet, here I am, still employed.
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@raznomore said in Lying on your resume:
We all embellish but have any of you put skills in your CV you flat out don't have?? I mean this was a position for a "project manager & estimator - must have high-level computer skills and knowledge of CAD".
Note: this person was much older than usual and had actual real experience as a job site project manager. They just didn't have any office experience at all. All phone and written notes.To be fair to all involved, knowledge of computers in a work setting is pretty much a given. You'd expect anyone who has been in the workforce for the last 30 years to have mastered email and saving documents.
I've certainly presented experience and skill set in the most favourable light if I thought they were transferable. Bullshitting is a sure path to being found out and is unforgivable, whereas being honest about your experience and propensity to master new skills goes a long way.
Unfortunately I work in an industry where actually having qualifications does not in any way related to competence or experience. Carefully constructed questions at interview time sort the wheat from the chaff. And unless I know their referees, I never call them.
And never trust LinkedIn.
On Friday last week, this person bit off more than they could lie about chewing and attempted to scan plans into the custom program. They actually got about 4 out of 6 steps correct. Only the last 2 caught them out and majorly. They added the plans to an existing job instead of a new one. It was a large commercial job, national roll-out, way out of my league, and not on the same planet as this person. Months of work, estimates, amended plans, and quotes. When they added their plan they, for whatever reason, overwrote everything that was existing. I don't need to explain what that means.
Unfortunately I've seen this in too many companies and my advice is always the same; if your document system doesn't do versioning, then you aren't interested in keeping your documents.
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I've been caught out like @raznomore 's company. Employed someone in customer service who had zero computer skills.
My interview questions are more like "Sales have promised the customer a horse but we do not supply horses only camels. We cannot manufacture a horse. How do you deal with the irate customer?" not "Do you know how to turn on a computer?" Now everyone has to sit a test.
People will lie about anything. We police vet everyone pre-employment and explain this in advance. To date the "winner" was a guy who had 8 pages of convictions including both multiple violence and theft, fraud and theft as a servant. I mean why did he bother.
This thread has prompted me to add another question to our standard interview - "How many work hours a day do you spend chatting to
Polish chicksfat old geezers on the internet?" -
CVs only work on key word searches by recruitment agencies these days. Then they check the cover letter to see if you look to be on the same page as them or to make a snap judgement on which pile to throw you in. They are only looking for things they can cut and paste in a precis to show a client and let them pick who they want to see.
I have just been through almost a year of job searching and man it is frustrating. JDs that are poorly written or emphasise skills that match you closely only to be told that you don't have the skillset they are after once you have addressed all key requirements. Tyre kicking ads that run you through the whole process only to find out they were using you to justify an internal appointment. Places that never get back to you even though their JD is after a unique combination of skills that you have and know that not many others do. I have even been told that the hassle of getting references from overseas puts you in the 'too hard' pile. The whole process comes down to luck and timing and whether you fit the imagined vision of those that interview you.
I have had interviews where it became obvious that the 'team' was all of a similar (younger) age and although they can't age discriminate, you fall into a 'not a good fit' excuse.
The worst one (and this was the real killer for me given that a lot of work in Welly at the moment is in the public sector) is that you can see the fear in the eyes of those with a cushy job if you demonstrate an ability to improve things in places you work. The fear of change or being shown up as lazy.
The stupid thing is though that when I eventually got work as a contract on nearly twice the rate that others were offering but not giving, I simply had a 20 minute conversation over a coffee in an introduction meeting. No referee checking, no long winded multiple interviews with inane questions.
Rant over. -
@dogmeat said in Lying on your resume:
This thread has prompted me to add another question to our standard interview - "How many work hours a day do you spend chatting to Polish chicks fat old geezers on the internet?"
I don't care what people do during the day as long as their work gets done. For the same reason I don't subscribe to the concept of presenteeism. It's amazing how busy unproductive people can look. I worked with one bloke who everyone thought was a real go-getter. He would walk furiously from one meeting to the next carrying a noteboook. Never did anything productive.
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@antipodean I don't remember working with you?
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@antipodean said in Lying on your resume:
@dogmeat said in Lying on your resume:
This thread has prompted me to add another question to our standard interview - "How many work hours a day do you spend chatting to Polish chicks fat old geezers on the internet?"
I don't care what people do during the day as long as their work gets done. For the same reason I don't subscribe to the concept of presenteeism. It's amazing how busy unproductive people can look. I worked with one bloke who everyone thought was a real go-getter. He would walk furiously from one meeting to the next carrying a noteboook. Never did anything productive.
Did you work with me??
@Crucial That fear thing you speak of is weird. I get excited to hear new ideas from interviewees who really know nothing about the work place I'm interviewing them for. In the past ten years we have had one guy actually do as he said and streamlined a lot of stuff for us. All the rest were all talk, no pork.
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@dogmeat said in Lying on your resume:
@antipodean I don't remember working with you?
Probably because I don't attend meetings.
If I receive an invite and there's no agenda, decline. If it doesn't relate to my area of expertise/ responsibility. Decline.
Going to meetings prevents me from doing meaningful work, like arguing on the internet.
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@dogmeat said in Lying on your resume:
@antipodean I don't remember working with you?
Ahhh snap! Now I just look more like a sheep.
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@Crucial Ms DM works in recruitment basically forced to after being made redundant and unable to find anything in her preferred line.
She sees this every day. Now knows why she couldn't get a job - ageism. So many companies flat out state their bigotry and prejudices. Racial, gender, age (no one over 40)
You can add to the key word searches the Christian names. Debbie, Mary, Elizabeth, John, David etc - Straight into the discard pile...
She hates it
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Haven’t had to rely on a a CV since leaving school, that was back when horses still pulled carriages..
Biggest issue today must be those who share every seedy element in their life via social media without realising their potential future employer will likely do a search via FB, Twitter etc.
Maybe sharing those semi topless pics while smoking from a bong alongside your mate doing the Nazi signal wasn’t such a good idea when you applied to work at some swish Law firm.. or maybe it will help get the job??.. -
@Crucial said in Lying on your resume:
CVs only work on key word searches by recruitment agencies these days. Then they check the cover letter to see if you look to be on the same page as them or to make a snap judgement on which pile to throw you in. They are only looking for things they can cut and paste in a precis to show a client and let them pick who they want to see.
I have just been throw almost a year of job searching and man it is frustrating. JDs that are poorly written or emphasise skills that match you closely only to be told that you don't have the skillset they are after once you have addressed all key requirements. Tyre kicking ads that run you through the whole process only to find out they were using you to justify an internal appointment. Places that never get back to you even though their JD is after a unique combination of skills that you have and know that not many others do. I have even been told that the hassle of getting references from overseas puts you in the 'too hard' pile. The whole process comes down to luck and timing and whether you fit the imagined vision of those that interview you.
I have had interviews where it became obvious that the 'team' was all of a similar (younger) age and although they can't age discriminate, you fall into a 'not a good fit' excuse.
The worst one (and this was the real killer for me given that a lot of work in Welly at the moment is in the public sector) is that you can see the fear in the eyes of those with a cushy job if you demonstrate an ability to improve things in places you work. The fear of change or being shown up as lazy.
The stupid thing is though that when I eventually got work as a contract on nearly twice the rate that others were offering but not giving, I simply had a 20 minute conversation over a coffee in an introduction meeting. No referee checking, no long winded multiple interviews with inane questions.
Rant over.I’m extremely happy where I am in terms of work, pay and multiple perks but it hasn’t come easy. I remember hating how recruiters would place a wanky ad and refer to ‘my client’.....it’s a colossal time waster especially when I found out the client in question was someone I worked for and hated many years back.
I’ve also been through the whole process, multiple interviews etc only to lose out to ‘someone internally’ too. There should be laws against that.
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Interviewed someone once, a graduate with a few years experience.
Interview wasn't going great, but then I started asking questions about the design for a project example listed on the CV. The bloke talked about the basics. Asked about the analysis WRITTEN ON THE CV and got 'oh, sorry I can't remember much about that'. Huh. Dug a bit more 'I wasn't really involved, that was done by someone else'.
Short interview.
But honestly, why the hell would you list a skill example on a CV if you can't even bullshit about it? Just bizarre.
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@Hooroo said in Lying on your resume:
@antipodean said in Lying on your resume:
@dogmeat said in Lying on your resume:
This thread has prompted me to add another question to our standard interview - "How many work hours a day do you spend chatting to Polish chicks fat old geezers on the internet?"
I don't care what people do during the day as long as their work gets done. For the same reason I don't subscribe to the concept of presenteeism. It's amazing how busy unproductive people can look. I worked with one bloke who everyone thought was a real go-getter. He would walk furiously from one meeting to the next carrying a noteboook. Never did anything productive.
Did you work with me??
@Crucial That fear thing you speak of is weird. I get excited to hear new ideas from interviewees who really know nothing about the work place I'm interviewing them for. In the past ten years we have had one guy actually do as he said and streamlined a lot of stuff for us. All the rest were all talk, no pork.
I put it down to public service. If I talk about instilling processes and tools that were my experience gained say 5 years ago in the private sector the interviewers would often see their own inadequacies being potentially shown up.
I have even had a consulting company that was looking to place me actually advise me to dial back on what I can offer due to it being too much for the client to envision. -
@antipodean said in Lying on your resume:
I don't care what people do during the day as long as their work gets done. For the same reason I don't subscribe to the concept of presenteeism. It's amazing how busy unproductive people can look. I worked with one bloke who everyone thought was a real go-getter. He would walk furiously from one meeting to the next carrying a noteboook. Never did anything productive.
@Crucial said in Lying on your resume:
I put it down to public service. If I talk about instilling processes and tools that were my experience gained say 5 years ago in the private sector the interviewers would often see their own inadequacies being potentially shown up.
I have even had a consulting company that was looking to place me actually advise me to dial back on what I can offer due to it being too much for the client to envision.Have seen it happen in corporate but in a reverse sense: a high functioning team requires new leader due to unforeseen circumstances removing old leader from position. New person arrives, wants to "shake things up" because nobody in the history of management* ever gets into the captain's chair and says "This all appears to be working nicely. Carry on"
Nup. Slash and burn, make a bunch of noise, collect your bonuses and fuck off after 2 years. Let the people who actually give a shit clean up the mess.
It particularly shits me when they don't have any technical history and won't listen to the SMEs.
*Acknowledging that management and leadership are two entirely separate beasts.
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@antipodean said in Lying on your resume:
Unfortunately I've seen this in too many companies and my advice is always the same; if your document system doesn't do versioning, then you aren't interested in keeping your documents.
Yeah sorry, I left that a little open-ended. We were lucky and most of it was recoverable.
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@NTA said in Lying on your resume:
@antipodean said in Lying on your resume:
I don't care what people do during the day as long as their work gets done. For the same reason I don't subscribe to the concept of presenteeism. It's amazing how busy unproductive people can look. I worked with one bloke who everyone thought was a real go-getter. He would walk furiously from one meeting to the next carrying a noteboook. Never did anything productive.
@Crucial said in Lying on your resume:
I put it down to public service. If I talk about instilling processes and tools that were my experience gained say 5 years ago in the private sector the interviewers would often see their own inadequacies being potentially shown up.
I have even had a consulting company that was looking to place me actually advise me to dial back on what I can offer due to it being too much for the client to envision.Have seen it happen in corporate but in a reverse sense: a high functioning team requires new leader due to unforeseen circumstances removing old leader from position. New person arrives, wants to "shake things up" because nobody in the history of management* ever gets into the captain's chair and says "This all appears to be working nicely. Carry on"
Nup. Slash and burn, make a bunch of noise, collect your bonuses and fuck off after 2 years. Let the people who actually give a shit clean up the mess.
It particularly shits me when they don't have any technical history and won't listen to the SMEs.
*Acknowledging that management and leadership are two entirely separate beasts.
I've experienced that as well.
In my situation though it was more a case of how I could bring the skills to improve the maturity of what was in place, which was what they were asking for.
The vision/ strategy of the management and that of the middle line doing the interviewing was shown as a massive gap. -
@NTA said in Lying on your resume:
*Acknowledging that management and leadership are two entirely separate beasts.
How to crater a career by antipodean: Large town hall with senior management crapping on about their leadership retreat oblivious to the fact no one cared - I point out they aren't leader's arseholes, company performance is on a clear negative trend in a range of areas and they only call themselves leaders because they can't manage. Because managing is difficult.
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