job screening question

Fri Jul 6 23:16:01 UTC 2012

On Fri, Jul 6, 2012 at 4:07 PM, Nick Hilliard <nick at foobar.org> wrote:
> On 06/07/2012 23:25, valdis.kletnieks at vt.edu wrote:
>> The Friday afternoon cynic in me says it's because it's a move with positive
>> paybacks.  There's 3 basic possibilities:
>>
>> 1) You send the puffed resume to a company with clue, it gets recognized
>> as puffed, and you don't get the job.  Zero loss, you weren't going to get
>> that job anyhow.
>>
>> 2) You send a boring unpuffed resume to a company sans clue.  They recognize it
>> as boring because there's only 3 buzzwords on 2 pages, and you don't get the
>> job.  Loss.
>>
>> 3) You send a puffed resume, and the guy doing the hiring doesn't know what
>> the 3-packet mating call of the Internet is *either*.  Win.
>
> or:
>
> 4) you get caught out in the interview as being puffed up, but the company
> hires you anyway despite strongly worded objections from the interviewer,
> causing the interviewer's eyes to spin in their sockets at the inanity of
> the decision.  You then spend your entire employment at the company proving
> your ineptitude beyond all possible doubt.
>
> I think this is a win, is it?

There's also

5) Didn't have enough clue about the real world to know you were
puffing your resume up.

6) Puffed it up a little (worked with Cisco routers, but in the 7200
era, and hasn't categorized skills as recent / older), but hasn't
outright lied.

I get resumes all the time that are off in some direction.  Usually 5)
- inflated due to lack of industry scope understanding, some 6).
Neither of these is a disqualifier per se.  The question is what do
they do when you start asking questions and putting it into context.
If they put old skills down and admit it, that's fine, just ask them
how recent all the various things are and note it down.  If they don't
have a clue ("But we had IPv6 coursework in university last
semester!") they may be an OK beginner.  If you're hiring for a junior
position that's fine.  If you're hiring for a more senior one, I
usually let them down gently and explain the scope and breadth of the
things they put down and help them aim their resume more accurately in
the future.

I've had people try to BS me in the interview or outright lie on the
resume beforehand.  A couple of each out of the last... 325 or so
people I've interviewed?  Something like that.  Not very many.  Easy
to spot.  They were not hired.

-- 
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com