Boston.com article: It's easy to see through resume lies

http://bostonworks.boston.com/globe/articles/051202_padding.html
It's easy to see through resume lies
Fudging, padding resume rarely work, can endanger career
By Tiffini Theisen, The Orlando Sentinel, 5/12/02

OK, let me put it this way.
SCREW THEM.
The dot at the end of this statement suppose to nail the M-er-ker who wrote it to the table. I know this "Tiffini", she's a paper pusher up at HR department that get's 10% comission for recruiting each IT person.
LET ME TRANSLATE. SHE GETS 6 FIGURE SALARY BY HIRING 10 PEOPLE A YEAR.
No wonder. I could hear her saying "sorry, but you are in the wrong line of work".

Anyhow, this lazy arse Tiffini doesn't bother to learn squad about industry she is hiring for, so you overworked and scared IT folks better stop lying on your resumes, because she wants to go on with her Dolche & Gabana happy life.
I can't state this enough. This is a pure B.S. propaganda. Getting your dream job is a worth cause to strech the limits. Unless you are applying for rocket scientist or cosmonaut or spy satellite embedded Java programmer (this doesn't even exists, they are smart enough to know to use C), you are allowed to strech (not flat-out lie), because job advertiser streches the truth too. It is a fair game. Otherwise you get screwed and underpaid and will continue to do maintenance job that you didn't want in the first place.
Some people are comfortable with not seeing the truth the way it is.
Alex
Mark, good article. It is not you I am firing all my guns at. Cheers

A person sent me his resume with basic addition wrong. He claimed having 5 year SW experiences at the summary. However, he only graduated ~2 years ago. Before he entered the univ, he claimed had 6 years VB experiences. How to add those numbers up???

Some colleges have 5 year programs or co-ops, and by the time people graduate they have 2 years of real world experience.
Now, your guy was obviously full of it.
I had interviewed a guy, who had some 3-4 years of experience on his resume, some of it from former Soviet Union. What he didn't know was that I was very familiar with all the places he had on his resume

After talking to him, our HR and a PM weren't sure whether he was a junior or mid level, so I went in. We shook hands, and then I asked him how he was doing. In Russian. The guy was shocked, but then he went on "I knew your company had to have russians to do tech work"

We talked for a while, his experience checked out, although it was more junior than we wanted. I left it up to HR and PM to figure if they wanted him. Eventually, they decided that for technology hires they'd stick to guys from middle-of-nowhere-US-school-that-you-won't-find-on-any-tech-school-list, where our boss came from. For the record, that strategy had about 50% success rate.

Shura
[ May 13, 2002: Message edited by: Shura Balaganov ]

Any person going on an interview needs to be able to discuss every item on their resume thoroughly and comfortably, using specific information and details," Ferruzzi said. "If a person has padded their resume, it will show in the manner in which they answer the questions and their body language; eye contact, posture, tone of voice will all reveal that the person is not comfortable with the information.
It is not true- I have seen people over taking really experienced people just because they are good at lying or confident at what they going to do at position offered.

Years ago I got a resume well matched to a key technical position. I don't remember the details, but her overall qualifications easily put her among the leading candidates to call in for an interview. However, on her resume, she claimed to have designed a system for which I happen to have been the tech lead in my prior job several states away. We talked, and she told me what she did on the project, first before I told her my background, and then after. I think she would have been a strong candidate without mentioning this project, but the discrepancy was too big to overlook, and raised a question about her other claims.
Whether your are basically honest or not, lying on a resume seems like a bad idea, even it you get the job. It is no way to start what you hope will be a continuing relationship.
It may be that advertisers stretch the truth or lie, but I've not seen much of that behavior by potential employers. In contrast, there have many cases in which we discussed aspects of a job that might be undesirable to me. These discussions have been helpful to me in making my decisions, and were probably helpful to the employers in making theirs. A hiring manager does not want to hire an employee that will not like the job.
[ May 14, 2002: Message edited by: John Dale ]

Originally posted by Roseanne Zhang:
A person sent me his resume with basic addition wrong. He claimed having 5 year SW experiences at the summary. However, he only graduated ~2 years ago. Before he entered the univ, he claimed had 6 years VB experiences. How to add those numbers up???

It is possible. When I get my BSc. in Comp Sci in the year 2005, I will have had 6 years of FULL TIME experience under my belt ( 5 years of java ). The reason is that I am going to school part time outside of my regular work ( thanks to flex hours! ) to finish my degree. So it is possible, and this is an attitude that I will have to deal with sometime in the future if I have to find a new job.

Jamie

I cannot stomach the idea of a recruiter whining about applicants' ethics.
I was recently contacted about a Swing/Gui position. The recruiter asked me how many years I worked with the technology, and I told them I has two years' proffessional experience. They replied by saying the job required five years' experience with Swing.
Swing has not been around for five years.
I have seen ads asking for AT LEAST ten years' experience with EJB.
The recuiters are reaping what they sow. They make it impossible to be considered unless you fudge the truth.

Originally posted by Jamie Robertson:
It is possible.

Oh, yeah!!!
2 years expierence after MS degree
2 years in Univ. to get the degree
6 years expierence before that
How to add these numbers to 5???
Finally, I figured out the math

2 + 6/2 = 5
He was so modest and used his graduate school years to discount his experiences!!!

It took a genius to figure out, no kidding!

[ May 14, 2002: Message edited by: Roseanne Zhang ]

A question I would like to ask to other ranchers have you ever padded your Resume ?
I have padded my Resume Once.
and you ?

In my first job I was interviewed on RMI for 1 and 1/2 hours, I am yet to work on it

Most of the times, the employers are not even sure of their own requirements, and often in ur job at junior level (abt 2 years), you are not the one who can choose technologies you'll be working on.
Mostly, job requirement ads look funny, the skillset for a person for abt 2/3 years experience looks like a skillset for a 5+ experience. It is unlikely that you can have exposure to so many diff flavours (core java, adv java, SWING, RMI, corba, JSP, Servlets, EJB, JMS, weblogic, websphere, JINI, XML .... - just quoting from a real ad) of the same technology (Java) in such a short span. That's wierd.
I prefer to state that though I haven't had any exposure to EJB, weblogic, I am willing to learn and implement that if needed; like I have done so many things, which didn't even exit earlier. But this philosophy doesn't seem to go well with potential employers. They want someone who "knows" these things already, so no interview/test call for ppl who do not put these things on their resume. Though after testing you on all those things they might not offer you a single assignment using these technologies, such is life!!!

I have never put anything in my resume that I didn't do, but then I haven't been receiving many calls either.

- Manish

Originally posted by Manish Hatwalne:

Most of the times, the employers are not even sure of their own requirements, and often in ur job at junior level (abt 2 years), you are not the one who can choose technologies you'll be working on.
Mostly, job requirement ads look funny, the skillset for a person for abt 2/3 years experience looks like a skillset for a 5+ experience. It is unlikely that you can have exposure to so many diff flavours (core java, adv java, SWING, RMI, corba, JSP, Servlets, EJB, JMS, weblogic, websphere, JINI, XML .... - just quoting from a real ad) of the same technology (Java) in such a short span. That's wierd.

I agree wholeheartedly with this. And they wonder why so many software projects fail ...

Why do they say the world is hard on honest people?

OK, here it goes.
Most "old technology" companies (and I include chemicals, mining, railroad, banking, whatever under this definition) have hard times attracting young and talented techies, let alone true experts. Most of them don't even use new technologies yet, and the ones that do use them very scarecly. Therefore, they don't usually know exact qualities they are looking for. So they put a lot of technologies on their ads, trying to cast as wide net as possible. The idea is that there's someone out there who's good in some of these technologies, as well as desperate to get a job, or asks for smaller salary. Most of the times they get what they paid for

, and then their bosses cut a deal with a consulting firm to try to fix it (=more money).
Some "old techs" try to position themselves as "cool" companies to attract young people. For instance, pharmaceuticals. On TV they do genetic research and other cool stuff. In reality, they still produce Prozac.

My point is that there's a real deficit of skilled people (payrate is unimportant). On the contrary, it is quiet easy to find people with 2 years of experience or less. Because every other person who owns a computer can qualify.
It used to be a lot easier when small start-ups were in abundance. That's were interesting jobs and smart people went. So now everybody is sort of stuck with "old technology". But don't worry, folks, we'll be back.

Oh, yeah, about resume lies. Did you rather "forgot to plug in your network cable", or "managed network infrastructure"?

Adios
Shura
[ May 16, 2002: Message edited by: Shura Balaganov ]

When my daughter was about to graduate from Univ. in the second half of 2000, the market was so hot, she was invited to stay in a luxury hotel for 2 days to be interviewed twice. Can you just imagine this scenario in 2002???
That kind of hot market might be never back. However, the better days will be back...
Sharp your skills...

Originally posted by Roseanne Zhang:

Oh, yeah!!!
2 years expierence after MS degree
2 years in Univ. to get the degree
6 years expierence before that
How to add these numbers to 5???
Finally, I figured out the math
2 + 6/2 = 5
He was so modest and used his graduate school years to discount his experiences!!!
It took a genius to figure out, no kidding!
[ May 14, 2002: Message edited by: Roseanne Zhang ]

OR
6 yrs of VB experience = 3yrs of real SW experience

Jamie

what the heck are you talking about in this posting? You don't know me, nor do I know you. I was a newspaper reporter covering workplace issues when I wrote this article about resume padding. I have never had anything to do with any Human Resources department nor the IT industry. You're just making yourself look like a moron.

Tiffini Theisen
Desk Editor
National/Foreign Desk
Orlando Sentinel
407-420-5435

Originally posted by Shura Balaganov:
I know this "Tiffini", she's a paper pusher up at HR department that get's 10% comission for recruiting each IT person.
LET ME TRANSLATE. SHE GETS 6 FIGURE SALARY BY HIRING 10 PEOPLE A YEAR.
No wonder. I could hear her saying "sorry, but you are in the wrong line of work".
Anyhow, this lazy arse Tiffini doesn't bother to learn squad about industry she is hiring for, so you overworked and scared IT folks better stop lying on your resumes, because she wants to go on with her Dolche & Gabana happy life.

"honeycricket",
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