4 ms·
This reminds me of my last job, where the karma gods smiled upon me and not so much for another guy. I've always written my resume somewhat uniquely for SEO[1]
by SEJeff 10y ago
This reminds me of my last job, where the karma gods smiled upon me and not so much for another guy.
I've always written my resume somewhat uniquely for SEO[1] and happen to work quite heavily in the Linux space. At the time several years ago, my resume was on the first or second page google search results for something along the lines of "linux system administrator" and variations.
The stars must have aligned as some poor schmuck thought he'd spruce up his resume by copy & pasting lines verbatim from the first 4-5 good Linux resumes he found via google. Unfortunately for him, one of them was mine. Also unfortunately for him, I'm known as a very technical interviewer that doesn't take any bs.
So besides the fact he wasn't qualified from a technical perspective for this position, I decided to see what he'd do. I stopped him mid interview and pulled up my resume on my phone. I handed it to him and asked him to read a few lines. Then I asked him to read a few lines that were verbatim from his resume. His face lost all color and he shuddered. There is simply no way I was buying that he and I both came up with the following 3 lines in a row:
* Re-implemented the global dns/ldap setup for higher availability. Used keepalived for auto-failover
* High performance computing, benchmarking, and kernel tuning. Constant review of upstream kernel activity
* Maintenance and engineering on a from scratch Linux distribution in support of high volume electronic trading
Amongst two or three additional ones, it was too much of a cooincidence. He swore that the recruiter had doctored his resume and that the recruiter was a liar. I gave him a shot at doing tech for the rest of the interview. However, I turned it up to 11 and was visibly agitated at this point that he'd stolen from my work trying to market myself. Now I'm normally extremely friendly in interviews, but teched him so hard it hurt my brain. He failed miserably.
We told his recruiter the story and said if it was true we were going to immediately stop doing business with that recruiter and his company. He quickly and happily forwarded us every single email from that candidate clearly showing they'd done nothing other than rearrange the styling and put their awful logo on it. The recruiter decided to stop working with this candidate as well.
Moral of the story: Don't steal people's resume, they work hard making it and that is dishonest. Don't lie to technical people about your technical skills. It will ruin your future career prospects.
[1] http://www.digitalprognosis.com/resume.htm http://www.digitalprognosis.com/resume.htm
- daftcunt 10y agoYou sound like a cunt.
- thedappler 10y agoWtf is wrong with you
- robwilliams 10y agoWhat does this have to do with the article?
- whamlastxmas 10y agoYou sound like a huge asshole. You knew going into this you wouldn't hire him, yet you wasted his time anyway. You make it sound like he plagiarized a book you wrote and was trying to sell his own. He found people that worded their resume really well and decided to use it for his own. It's not like there's some sanctity to the wording of resumes. Get over yourself.
- SEJeff 10y agoCorrection, he wasted my time, but interviewing for a position he wasn't remotely qualified to perform. Honestly is the most important trait in any team member. How do you not see this?
- whamlastxmas 10y agoBecause job listings are overwhelmingly asking for more than they mean. "10+ years experience" means "a couple years if we like you". "CS degree or similar required" may as well not be there on the listings that have it. The responsibility of figuring out whether they're qualified is yours, not the candidate's. How the hell is he supposed to know what your needs are? You should have figured this out in an email or quick phone screen. Additionally, you're a terrible interviewer if someone is failing miserably. There is no valuable data to use from this situation. Turn it down until they stop failing, and see how far it can be pushed. I'm sure you know this, but decided to be a prick instead. There's nothing dishonest about using wording from someone else's resume. If I did it and someone asked about it, I'd definitely say "I saw how someone else phrased it and found it really good, so I used it too" and obviously wouldn't put it down if it wasn't true. This guy probably would have said something similar if you didn't throw it in his face and make him so uncomfortable.