by amadeuspzs on 1/31/22, 5:03 PM with 599 comments
by linsomniac on 1/31/22, 6:21 PM
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, uncorrected typos... It got so bad that we had to have someone review all e-mails he sent to customers.
We had regular "improvement plan" meetings with him, but after a year of paying him, we had to let him go. As part of the exit interview we went back and looked at his interview e-mails, and compared them with his current e-mails. So we asked him:
"During the interview, all your e-mails were great! Why was that?"
"My wife wrote all of those."
I guess we should have hired his wife!
by PragmaticPulp on 1/31/22, 6:15 PM
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 long as possible. They might already have a full-time job or other remote jobs, or maybe they're just trying to travel the world and do a "four hour workweek" thing where they answer e-mails once a day and phone in a couple hours of work at key times during the week.
The common theme is that they aren't really interested in fighting too hard for the position. As soon as the interview or job turns out to be something they can't just talk and smile their way through, they're out, just like this:
> I think my last update for a while: as soon as HR got on the call with him, before they could get through their first question, John said the words “I quit” and hung up the calls. He has since been unreachable!!
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.
by simmanian on 1/31/22, 5:42 PM
Right out of college I accepted a job offer at a small consulting company on the east coast. They promised they would give me free housing at their luxury apartment for the first few months and give me all the training I need to excel in areas of my interest. I flew across the country and found out the whole thing is not as advertised. Their luxury apartment had piles of unwashed dishes and flies in the kitchen and piss on the bathroom floor. They had bunk beds in each room and I slept with three other dudes from wildly different backgrounds. My first night, this guy from Turkey assured me that everything is going to be fine, that he was shaking in fear for the first couple nights but he soon learned that if you work with them, they get you what you need. At the same time, another guy from Chicago was telling me how I need to look out for myself because the company likes to steal money from your paychecks.
The next day, I learned that "working with them" meant going through their "resume revision" process. Turns out, there was a network of consulting companies like this one, each creating fake experiences for one another. Fresh grads who clearly have never coded anything of significance became senior engineers with 5 years of experience. The resulting resumes looked real stacked, filled with keywords that recruiters love. Furthermore, during live interviews, they actually placed someone with actual technical knowledge behind the laptop camera to basically write out all the answers on the whiteboard while the candidates read out the answers.
Some of the people there loved talking about how so and so got placed at prestigious companies and became hugely successful in their career. Most of them knew what they were doing wasn't the most ethical thing to do, but not many complained given their visa status. Also, they were actually really grateful to get a developer job that pays ~$40k. They were just regular people.
I personally didn't need visa support, and I had the luxury of being able to fall back on my parents. So about a week after I flew over, I gathered my things and left. It was an interesting experience overall, one I'm glad I could experience.
My 2c for interviewing: always look up key phrases you see on resumes and see if identical copies show up. It's usually a giveaway sign.
by jawns on 1/31/22, 6:28 PM
But on the call, I noticed that whenever I asked him a question, he would turn off his camera, pause for 10-20 seconds, answer the question, then turn his video back on.
Eventually, I cut the call short and messaged the guy from the remote-staffing firm who had set up the interview to ask about this bizarre behavior.
An investigation determined that the man was using a translator and really didn't speak any English whatsoever.
I have no idea how he expected to be able to do the job if he had been hired, but I guess he thought it was worth a shot.
by clueless123 on 1/31/22, 6:00 PM
PS.. To add insult to injury, the "engineers" on the team will update ther CV's to show that they worked for "large company X".
by rootusrootus on 1/31/22, 6:29 PM
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 guy on this call was definitely not the guy she screened on an earlier phone call.
Luckily we didn't get as far as hiring a fraud.
But I have to say, also, that this kind of incident is why I really love a good recruiter, and try to hold onto them if at all possible. We had one guy we worked with who had a nearly 100% success rate placing people with us. He didn't just phone screen randos, he had a pool of people that he cultivated, he interviewed them himself in depth. So when he made a recommendation, he knew it was a good fit, and he was right almost every time.
by bufferoverflow on 2/1/22, 2:42 AM
by spaetzleesser on 1/31/22, 6:59 PM
Problem was that the ghostwriter was not a great dev either and wrote bad code. So we had to let him /them go. The contractor is now a principal developer/ team lead at another company……
by michaelbuckbee on 1/31/22, 6:44 PM
by PeterWhittaker on 1/31/22, 8:36 PM
The best: really strong CV, older candidate, really poor English. Frustrating process, more for him than us, he is struggling so hard. Finally he stands up, grabs my pen and my colleague’s pad, and sketches DB schema. Uses the pen to point back and forth between the CV and the sketch. I’m more of a networking guy, I was lost pretty quick, but my colleague, one of my best hires, started leaning in, eyes widening, slow “wow” escaping his lips.
That guy ended up being another of my best hires. Communication was always a chore, results always through the roof. With the colleague from the interview and one other, he became one of my three developer archetypes in a much longer story.
Worst experience: different colleague (my test lead) and I interviewing another strong CV. We try and lead and shepherd, do everything we can to link the CV to what this person can do. Communication isn’t the issue, the CV is obviously doctored/bumpfed.
We’re running out of steam, trying to get the session to a minimum acceptable length, when I notice blood on my hands. I wonder how I cut myself and I am subtlety looking for the wound.
When I notice the open sore on their hand, the hand they shook. The hand attached to a body with some obvious hygiene issues (trust me).
I settle my hands, wind things up, have my colleague see them out, hop into the nearest coffee station, throw away my pen and notebook and basically scald my hands and mouth (I used to nibble my pen compulsively).
by octobus2021 on 1/31/22, 7:22 PM
I believe there are some unofficial services that provide well spoken/knowledgeable professionals that will help you get hired, it's either directly through headhunting company or they might suggest (wink-wink) one for you.
by hui-zheng on 1/31/22, 6:12 PM
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. but do they just want John to go away and then try that same thing with another company?
It might be too strong to say this, but a failure to confront evil is a evil.
by eric_b on 1/31/22, 9:43 PM
However, years later I was telling this story to a Wipro recruiter who said casually:
"Oh yeah, we call it the Hindu Switcheroo" (I kid you not)
by JoeAltmaier on 1/31/22, 9:16 PM
This guy's performance dropped to zero. He never finished another task. At lunch he often commented he had always enjoyed working with his sister, since he got lots of good ideas when they worked on the same projects.
My son's take: this guy had never had an original idea in his life, his sister had always propped him up since high school. And she had finally cut the apron strings. But the guy was so clueless, he never realized how little he could do and how his sister had essentially done his job his whole life.
by DrBoring on 1/31/22, 6:39 PM
All the pieces of the technology required to do something like that may already exist today.
by bitwize on 1/31/22, 5:56 PM
Gonna name and shame here, there was an outfit that was once called Unbounded Solutions, then BrighterBrain. God knows if they're still around or what they're called now. Anyhoo, their whole deal was this: they offered free IT training and job placement, but there was a catch! Oh, boy, was there ever a catch. They would put you through 2 weeks of iOS programming training, and then have you sign a 2-year contract to be at their disposal to go to client sites. As part of this, they would make up a fake CV for you with fake experience and -- crucially -- a fake telephone number. When companies called to interview you, they would be directed to a call center in India where one of the call center drones would do the interview in your place. Only once they had passed the phone screen for you could you show up at the client site. They may have sent a fake you to the client site for the in-person bit as well, I'm not sure.
As part of the contract you sign, you had to agree to all of this. If you refused to sign, or tried to skip your contract before 2 years was up, you had to pay for the training they gave you which they valued at $20,000.
One of the scummiest things I'd ever seen or heard of in this industry.
by klausjensen on 1/31/22, 7:20 PM
When they need to win the contract, they bring in bright and very qualified people to win the client-org over.
After the contract is won and the work begins, they replace them with completely unqualified staff, managed/whipped by moustache-wielding blue-shirts to read from support-scripts.
by kuboble on 1/31/22, 7:29 PM
by greedo on 1/31/22, 5:47 PM
by donretag on 1/31/22, 6:39 PM
by tflinton on 1/31/22, 7:09 PM
* A candidate who was caught lip syncing to someone talking in the room behind them.
* A candidate who had air pods to listen to someone coaching them.
* Plenty of candidates who just wont turn on the video no matter what.
Remote interviewing has some bizarre drawbacks.
by DoreenMichele on 1/31/22, 7:53 PM
That's a great phrase, though I don't get people who do this kind of thing. But then I was also the killjoy in some college class when other people were like "Yes! Let's just skip more stuff and pass anyway!" and I went "Uh, no. What if you actually need to know that stuff for a future class or a job?!"
Everyone glared at me. They just wanted an easy A (or easy passing grade). Apparently no one but me was actually interested in learning anything when they signed up for the class.
(Smacks head on desk.)
(Context: the professor had announced we were skipping something due to time constraints.)
by dillondoyle on 1/31/22, 7:42 PM
For us it's always been unpredictable and I wouldn't go as far to say intentional fraud.
But there is a trend that the people who put the most experience, list best tech skills, have good buzzword filled interviews often don't live up to it.
Often it's the fresh person with less experience, or the person coming from something different that doesn't even have the baseline skills, that becomes the super talented value adder.
I think a big part of their success is ability to teach themselves. Google it success.
I wish we had a better way to make choices. Still though it's not like it's horrible. out of like 10 we usually only get one we need to let go of or move to a less intense role.
We tried doing some basic tests of like paying people to do 2 hours of work, proof reading, etc. But didn't go well.
by rectang on 1/31/22, 7:58 PM
This seemed to me both unethical and absurdly difficult to do well (how am I supposed to fake dev-level knowledge about systems I didn't create?) so of course I turned it down.
The difference with this article is who is being deceived — in the offer I got it was the external client, while in the article it's the employer. The commonality is that they're both using false identities over remote communication.
Such deceptions are probably more difficult to pull off using video chat as opposed to audio only, but easier in comparison to in-person meetings. I wonder whether they're actually increasing or not.
by ljm on 1/31/22, 5:52 PM
All we had to do was go off script and we'd have a good idea about how genuine the candidate was being.
by 11thEarlOfMar on 1/31/22, 5:45 PM
Perhaps it could be successful for people who are technically competent, but have a severe stage fright when interviewing. At the lease, you'd want the stand in to record the interviews so you could watch and learn who's who and get the context of the job before starting.
by lostcolony on 1/31/22, 8:04 PM
Plus of course the time we were hiring remote, and someone screenshared for something, and didn't end it, and then later questions we had that was broad ("can you tell me a little about (technology)") we got to watch him search for and answer from what he read, which was a unique experience.
by nikcub on 1/31/22, 6:38 PM
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"
by JoeAltmaier on 1/31/22, 9:21 PM
He shows up, the building is empty but for a secretary and one guy on the third floor. A Japanese company had bought them for the customer list, and they were now just to support folks locally. He quit after a week or two, after finding a real job.
Some time later he met the guy who had interviewed him, and asked about it. His response: "I lost my hiring referral bonus when you quit! I'll forgive you for quitting, if you forgive me for hiring you!" See, the guy was already half out the door when he hired my partner, knowing he would report to a nearly empty building.
That was 20 years ago. Stuff like this has been happening forever. I guess now its on a production-line basis.
by noisepunk on 1/31/22, 8:24 PM
by farmerstan on 1/31/22, 5:45 PM
I’m sure this happens and I’ve seen people trying to hilariously cheat on virtual interviews but the fact that people are probably successfully interviewing at FAANGs and getting away with it intrigues me.
by covermydonkey on 1/31/22, 5:53 PM
by kingcharles on 1/31/22, 6:25 PM
I worked at a financial company as a web developer. A co-developer sat at the desk opposite, with the wall behind him. He would sit there playing games on his phone all day. ALL DAY. Yet, his work got done, but it was the barest minimum and really poor code.
So, one day I say "Tomas, I never see you write any code. Yet, your work is always done."
"Oh!", he says with a grin, "I've outsourced my entire job to my friend back in the Czech Republic. I pay him about 30% of what I earn and he writes all my code and sends it back."
by throwaway9191aa on 1/31/22, 5:43 PM
by rickspencer3 on 2/1/22, 2:07 AM
Early in their tenure, they said they had to go to Australia (from the US) due to a death in the family. However, someone saw that he tweeted from a bar in airport somewhere in the US, when he purported to be in Australia.
HR asked him to provide a death certificate "just for our records" and he provided a badly forged certificate, the inauthenticity of which was confirmed by a quick call to the agency that supposedly provided it.
It was all very strange and funny. Of course he was let go, and he just kind of said, "ok."
by friendlydog on 1/31/22, 7:20 PM
One company I worked with checked government issued ids at every stage of the interview process. I'm sure people will find a way around this. This also opens your company to discrimination lawsuits, "everything was going fine in the interview until I turned on the camera, then they didn't hire me."
by defen on 1/31/22, 5:46 PM
> In the meantime, legal approved security to put a trace on John’s computer to review if there have been outside messages or if his work is being completed with outside help or on a different computer altogether.
by lormayna on 1/31/22, 8:05 PM
by drooby on 1/31/22, 5:30 PM
by neycoda on 2/1/22, 1:11 AM
by foobarian on 1/31/22, 5:56 PM
by syngrog66 on 1/31/22, 9:18 PM
its already getting a little nauseating with the number of shops who insist on coding tests -- for people with tons of evidence already that they are legit programmers. This type of incident will be used to justify even more creepy and insulting behaviors on the employer's side. everybody loses
by sudoaza on 1/31/22, 6:06 PM
by bane on 2/1/22, 3:00 AM
They never did figure out what was going on, but did eventually have to terminate the employee.
edit I just asked me friend if they had any ideas what happened. They said they believe that a "recon" person interviewed before them and just recorded the interview questions so they could study and regurgitate answers. But that's the best theory that doesn't involve identical twins, clones or time travel.
by mod_mouse on 1/31/22, 7:05 PM
Their references should work for you.
by imoverclocked on 1/31/22, 10:11 PM
Fraud hurts us all. Even (especially?) the people who think they are benefitting from it.
by tempnow987 on 1/31/22, 7:01 PM
In some cases fine (you'll actually get both of them to eventually show up on calls together with some random excuse). Other times less fine (basically a scam).
by ChrisMarshallNY on 1/31/22, 9:11 PM
That was sort of “the straw that broke the camel’s back.”
I realized that this entire industry, that I fell in love with, as an enthusiastic, idealistic, young man, had turned into a miasma.
At that point, I just gave up, looking.
That company folded, not long after. I feel as if there's a better-than-even chance that I could have made a real difference (but there’s also a better-than-even chance that I’m mistaken, and I just dodged a bullet. Having their internal recruiter deliver such a stunning insult does not speak well for their corporate culture).
by oneepic on 1/31/22, 8:10 PM
> Their security teams are trying to discover what all he downloaded, if they’ll be able to get their equipment back, is John really his real name, etc. !!
If they'll be able to get their equipment back? Incredible.
by rasfincher on 2/1/22, 12:22 AM
by robofanatic on 1/31/22, 7:57 PM
by bambax on 1/31/22, 6:53 PM
by savrajsingh on 1/31/22, 6:34 PM
by mcv on 2/1/22, 12:28 PM
Then again, there's also the reverse of this: employee gets hired for a job that turns out to be different from the one they interviewed for. I'm pretty sure companies are never going to be held accountable for that one.
by LanceH on 1/31/22, 6:40 PM
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).
by rightbyte on 1/31/22, 5:41 PM
Maybe the recruiter called the wrong person. I mean you only say your name once during a call. The person that got the job just made the initial screening interview, and answered the recruiters mail, while they talked to another guy. He then thinks they are scammers , hire to fire or something and bails.
by phreack on 2/1/22, 2:32 PM
The next day we got an email from the apparently competent one, claiming that this time the email was being written by a 'friend' of the candidate we talked to (same address every time), and that if we gave them a chance he'd be the 'perfect candidate with 100% qulaity' (sic).
We politely refused.
by retah on 2/1/22, 12:11 AM
Turned out in 2022, Narendra Modi was a fraud, uneducated and full of ego. He did not know how to do the job at all. He just got the gig by enciting violence in local constituency.
If top posts can be rigged, corporate jobs resume fraud is a child's play.
by enw on 2/1/22, 4:59 AM
There’s a side of “enterprise” software that’s so foreign to me.
I still don’t know what Salesforce is. Or SAP (I see their name in a lot of shitty software though). I wonder how the developers in those companies are like, what their processes and code reviews and technical discussions look like.
by asdff on 1/31/22, 11:41 PM
by ojbyrne on 2/1/22, 1:08 AM
by cryptonector on 2/1/22, 5:22 PM
Another time we hired a guy who seemed enthusiastic and had a portfolio of things he had done, but he turned out to be completely unenthusiastic.
by dhosek on 1/31/22, 8:32 PM
by iafiaf on 1/31/22, 7:13 PM
Fortunately, new hire was sending sexually explicit SMSes to the cute Filipino receptionist. Arab boss threw him out the next day.
by mdavis6890 on 2/1/22, 2:26 AM
And I wonder what "real" John gets out of this. I bet he makes a lot of money. Maybe he gets lots of people jobs this way, he provides all of his own payment information, and then forwards 90% to the people who actually have to "show up" (such as it is) for work.
Man, I want to franchise this! Actually now that I'm at the end of my post I think I just described the consulting industry...
by freyr on 2/1/22, 2:46 AM
We’d interview a candidate over the phone or Skype and he’d be extremely knowledgeable, answering all our questions flawlessly. Then when he arrives to the office, he can barely speak English, has trouble turning the computer on, and can’t answer any of the questions he answered over the phone.
We learned to detect this very promptly and escort them out of the office immediately. They often demanded to be paid for their time and traveling expenses, despite attempting fraud.
by tmule on 1/31/22, 11:11 PM
by theshowmustgo on 1/31/22, 5:55 PM
by supernova87a on 2/1/22, 7:34 AM
by ijustwanttovote on 1/31/22, 5:48 PM
by afinlayson on 1/31/22, 7:45 PM
by Rafuino on 1/31/22, 8:03 PM
by aasasd on 1/31/22, 11:38 PM
HUH?
Apparently this is the state of corporate attitude toward employees now.
by duxup on 2/1/22, 2:58 AM
Sad as this stuff will just be a hassle for everyone else.
by miked85 on 1/31/22, 7:28 PM
by LasEspuelas on 1/31/22, 11:52 PM
by kabes on 1/31/22, 5:43 PM
by chillytoes on 1/31/22, 7:06 PM
by wayanon on 1/31/22, 9:34 PM
by ada1981 on 1/31/22, 11:55 PM
by ncmncm on 1/31/22, 5:35 PM
by rg111 on 2/1/22, 7:33 AM
Wondering how many are managing to fool their companies undetected.
by madmod on 2/1/22, 5:50 AM
by chefkoch on 1/31/22, 9:09 PM
by nickdothutton on 1/31/22, 6:59 PM
by nhoughto on 1/31/22, 11:10 PM
by jzellis on 1/31/22, 5:45 PM
by VLM on 1/31/22, 6:54 PM
This is probably the same thing but remote instead of in person.
by wayanon on 1/31/22, 9:36 PM
by faangiq on 2/1/22, 1:57 AM
by hourislate on 1/31/22, 6:21 PM
by defaultprimate on 2/1/22, 7:11 PM
If it's for a more advanced role, I give them a coding challenge after a non-technical, on camera interview. Then if it's worthy of a technical follow up interview, they must build, execute, and walk me through the code live on camera. I also ask them to make slight alterations or extensions live.
This may sound like a lot but the total time invested by a candidate, including the interviews themselves, should be no more than 4 hours. The challenges are experience and role appropriate and I'm not asking them to build an MVP or anything close. They're also allowed to search and use resources in the live interviews, as they would on the job. I'm not interested in testing your memory-recall abilities, I'm interested in seeing how you approach problem solving using CS.
Lastly, record all your interviews.
by david-cako on 1/31/22, 7:02 PM
by endisneigh on 1/31/22, 5:49 PM
by giantg2 on 1/31/22, 6:28 PM
If John is reading, you now have documentation that marital status has played a part in the decision process (even if not the sole issue) should they decide to let you go.