Brainfade Posted June 24, 2009 Posted June 24, 2009 ... and then realized that the person lied on his/her resume? Is it common for folks to blatantly lie (beyond exaggeration, that is) on their resume? What do you do when you find out? A couple of years ago, I was reviewing applicant-folders for a teaching position. Candidates are required to submit a "statement of teaching philosophy." As I was reading through one of these, I got suspicious - the first part (general overview) was well-written - concise and substantive. But the part explaining the courses that he would be hired to teach was a disaster. Horribly written, full of grammatical errors, and no substance whatsoever. I googled a string of words from the first part, and lo and behold - it was copied verbatim from an on-line "sample." The decision for us was easy.
Sachinism Posted June 24, 2009 Posted June 24, 2009 Put that persons application through a vetting company
Lurker Posted June 24, 2009 Posted June 24, 2009 ... and then realized that the person lied on his/her resume? Is it common for folks to blatantly lie (beyond exaggeration' date= that is) on their resume? What do you do when you find out? A couple of years ago, I was reviewing applicant-folders for a teaching position. Candidates are required to submit a "statement of teaching philosophy." As I was reading through one of these, I got suspicious - the first part (general overview) was well-written - concise and substantive. But the part explaining the courses that he would be hired to teach was a disaster. Horribly written, full of grammatical errors, and no substance whatsoever. I googled a string of words from the first part, and lo and behold - it was copied verbatim from an on-line "sample." The decision for us was easy. Did so 6 months back. Got screwed by a fellow Indian :(( Actually I made a couple of mistakes. I got impressed by his resume (passed out of REC, did Mtech at a good US college). Also had good experience(AT&T and Wall Street). The latter was fudged(I found it later), however the educational background was good. Second mistake I made was I did not dig too deep into the technical area. More questions were about approach, goals, problems resolving skills etc and frankly the guy aced it. However when he showed up at work he was greatly lagging on technical skills. This has been a real downer for me.
Brainfade Posted June 24, 2009 Author Posted June 24, 2009 Did so 6 months back. Got screwed by a fellow Indian :(( Actually I made a couple of mistakes. I got impressed by his resume (passed out of REC, did Mtech at a good US college). Also had good experience(AT&T and Wall Street). The latter was fudged(I found it later), however the educational background was good. Second mistake I made was I did not dig too deep into the technical area. More questions were about approach, goals, problems resolving skills etc and frankly the guy aced it. However when he showed up at work he was greatly lagging on technical skills. This has been a real downer for me. What do you do then? Can you turn around and fire the guy based on the past? I am glad I caught the plagiarism in the application. If we had hired this person, imagine what our students would be learning about plagiarism?
Lurker Posted June 24, 2009 Posted June 24, 2009 What do you do then? Can you turn around and fire the guy based on the past? We did think about it. It all came down to bad economy, people already jobless, lets be sympathetic, he is not so bad and that line of thinking. Plus of course a major part was the laxity on our side to grill the guy. Companies spend a considerable time recruiting people , at our place the HR was reluctant to get the whole process started again..and so he is here for now.
Brainfade Posted June 24, 2009 Author Posted June 24, 2009 We did think about it. It all came down to bad economy' date= people already jobless, lets be sympathetic, he is not so bad and that line of thinking. Plus of course a major part was the laxity on our side to grill the guy. Companies spend a considerable time recruiting people , at our place the HR was reluctant to get the whole process started again..and so he is here for now. That's awfully nice. Most other people would be like - bad economy, people are getting laid off anyway, and now we have an excuse to fire the guy :-)!
Lurker Posted June 24, 2009 Posted June 24, 2009 That's awfully nice. Most other people would be like - bad economy' date=' people are getting laid off anyway, and now we have an excuse to fire the guy :-)![/quote'] Tell you the truth I personally did not like the idea. I know I know it sounds pretty awful but the way I look at it is right now in this bad economy there is an extra responsibility for all of us to do a better job. Heck those of us who have a job are lucky to have one. And if someone is not doing even at-par job he/she should have to face the music. I feel happy for the guy that he has work but its his work that I am not very happy with. Ah well.
Ram Posted June 24, 2009 Posted June 24, 2009 Academia and Industry are two different ball-games, at least as far as the expectations from the candidates goes. In the Industry, the focus is on getting a person who is perceived as someone capable of fulfilling his job responsibilities well and there’s not much dwelling on his past. Academia is a totally different proposition. The reputation of the institution lies on the candidates’ ability to produce original work. If he plagiarizes, that could spell disaster for the organization.
THX_1138 Posted June 24, 2009 Posted June 24, 2009 One simple approach to weeding out the fabricators from the genuine talent is to request a 'statement of purpose', similar to that required for college application. maybe even request a suffix to the resume that explains the individual's motivations, aspiration and a little about what particular talents they might bring to the job. whenever i have applied for a job, i have never simply submitted a resume, its always been a resume and a brief statement about myself that runs about a page long, never more. and i believe there are online resources that permit you to check the authenticity of a claim that one is a graduate of a particular institution. simply check if the individual did indeed graduate from the stated university in the stated year. but at the end of the day, if one is being hired for the purposes of a technically savvy job, do as lurker suggested: quiz the candidate on the material they ought to be knowledgeable of!
kumble_rocks Posted June 24, 2009 Posted June 24, 2009 Academia and Industry are two different ball-games' date=' at least as far as the expectations from the candidates goes. In the Industry, the focus is on getting a person who is perceived as someone capable of fulfilling his job responsibilities well and there’s not much dwelling on his past. Academia is a totally different proposition. The reputation of the institution lies on the candidates’ ability to produce original work. If he plagiarizes, that could spell disaster for the organization.[/quote'] Spot on !
kumble_rocks Posted June 24, 2009 Posted June 24, 2009 One simple approach to weeding out the fabricators from the genuine talent is to request a 'statement of purpose', similar to that required for college application. maybe even request a suffix to the resume that explains the individual's motivations, aspiration and a little about what particular talents they might bring to the job. whenever i have applied for a job, i have never simply submitted a resume, its always been a resume and a brief statement about myself that runs about a page long, never more. and i believe there are online resources that permit you to check the authenticity of a claim that one is a graduate of a particular institution. simply check if the individual did indeed graduate from the stated university in the stated year. but at the end of the day, if one is being hired for the purposes of a technically savvy job, do as lurker suggested: quiz the candidate on the material they ought to be knowledgeable of! In the IT world, number of resumes are of candidates with international education . Very difficult to validate the authenticity.
fineleg Posted June 24, 2009 Posted June 24, 2009 In the IT world' date=' number of resumes are of[b'] candidates with international education . Very difficult to validate the authenticity. Very true. Which is why often times I tend to prefer candidates with US Education - since it is easier to verify the authenticity. Its very difficult to verify education in India. There will be University names like Osmania University (just an example) - but sometimes you have to ensure what college, not just university etc. But Lurker just gave an example where with US Education, the person still lied on other areas. So, not easy to verify all things overall.
THX_1138 Posted June 26, 2009 Posted June 26, 2009 In the IT world' date=' number of resumes are of candidates with international education . Very difficult to validate the authenticity.[/quote'] i believe the system is able ascertain if a particular university is accredited by the local country's board of education. it might not be able to verify if the individual did indeed complete the coursework listed...
Zap_Brannigan Posted June 26, 2009 Posted June 26, 2009 I've been involved in the interview process only once when i was hiring for a member in my team. He had a masters from one of the top schools in the country and good projects. But all technical questions were met with vague answers or "my project mate who is a PhD student was incharge off it". I didn't want him but my manger didnt look past his school name and now i am stuck with him. In the 1st project we worked for me, i pretty much had to double check and correct even little and mundane things. I washed him off my next project but now because the current project is divided into 2 groups in my team, i got stuck with him. I already have to design a new accurate block (never used before) only because the work he was doing for the last 1 year has turned up to be completely inefficient. Now i have to design everything around his mistake or postpone the project for a couple of months and work on it myself. I am too jaded at this place to do the hard work these last few months. The next 3 months are gonna be awesome.
DomainK Posted June 26, 2009 Posted June 26, 2009 I think most applicants (at least in India) take some liberty in writing their resumes. Somethings are exaggerated, somethings are hidden, somethings are stolen and some things are understated. They do however try to as much as they can deal with in an interview. I have taken a few interviews. And I remember many applicants who, like cricaddict mentioned, got passages written by others as their own work. I had to given them each a topic and ask them to write a page on the spot. It was surprising how many of them fell short of expectations.
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