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> you find out immediately once you hire someone whether they are lying Do you really believe this? Lets say we have a mediocre person on a team who tells the

> you find out immediately once you hire someone whether they are lying Do you really believe this? Lets say we have a mediocre person on a team who tells the story of him being a star performer. How would you catch that? He went on the design meetings, he know why every decision was made, he has worked on the project for years. There is no way you would catch it, and the halo effect would likely mean that you still think he is doing decent work but that the environment might have made him a bit worse but you wouldn't believe that he lied.

aantix 7y ago
Nuance comes from experiencing constraints from implementing the solution. Eventually the liar runs out of those details when pressed.
dahart 7y ago
> Do you really believe this? Yes, absolutely. I’m not lying. :) Like I said, I have lots of experience with it. I’ve interviewed people who tried to inflate their contributions, and it’s easy to tell over the course of a 5-10 minute conversation. > How would you catch that? Easily, they would fail to be a star performer, and fail to match the abilities they advertised. You can’t lie your way into good programming. However, it’s bigger than lie or not. Seasoned programmers have mature philosophies, and you can tell by talking to them. And honestly, I don’t mean this judgementally, but your question does sound like it comes from a lack of experience. You will find out what I’m talking about in time; big lies are not in the least bit easy to pull off, and almost nobody tries that kind of thing because the probability they’ll get caught and have serious consequences is very high. Being present in design meetings and knowing why decisions are made does not make you able to talk about it fluently. BTW, while I believe this myself absolutely, I don’t know for absolute certainty that I’m right. So if it’s easy to do and the payoff is large then you should do it and write about it! If you could easily lie your way into a job, then it should be easy to work your way into one of those super high paying jobs, making robots or neural networks, and get away with it for years.
- bigwavedave 7y ago
  > You can't lie your way into good programming. Agreed. There's so much more that goes into programming than just knowing a programming language or two, so even if someone does know basic coding or has medium understanding of a former coworker's acxonolishments, there's so much more in the domain that (in my experience) liars, fakers, and overhypers are exposed very quickly after hiring. Granted, understanding this doesn't help weed them out before the fact, but still I think most interviewees know this and are wary of spinning their stories too far out of control.

aantix 7y ago

Nuance comes from experiencing constraints from implementing the solution. Eventually the liar runs out of those details when pressed.

dahart 7y ago

> Do you really believe this? Yes, absolutely. I’m not lying. :) Like I said, I have lots of experience with it. I’ve interviewed people who tried to inflate their contributions, and it’s easy to tell over the course of a 5-10 minute conversation. > How would you catch that? Easily, they would fail to be a star performer, and fail to match the abilities they advertised. You can’t lie your way into good programming. However, it’s bigger than lie or not. Seasoned programmers have mature philosophies, and you can tell by talking to them. And honestly, I don’t mean this judgementally, but your question does sound like it comes from a lack of experience. You will find out what I’m talking about in time; big lies are not in the least bit easy to pull off, and almost nobody tries that kind of thing because the probability they’ll get caught and have serious consequences is very high. Being present in design meetings and knowing why decisions are made does not make you able to talk about it fluently. BTW, while I believe this myself absolutely, I don’t know for absolute certainty that I’m right. So if it’s easy to do and the payoff is large then you should do it and write about it! If you could easily lie your way into a job, then it should be easy to work your way into one of those super high paying jobs, making robots or neural networks, and get away with it for years.

bigwavedave 7y ago
> You can't lie your way into good programming. Agreed. There's so much more that goes into programming than just knowing a programming language or two, so even if someone does know basic coding or has medium understanding of a former coworker's acxonolishments, there's so much more in the domain that (in my experience) liars, fakers, and overhypers are exposed very quickly after hiring. Granted, understanding this doesn't help weed them out before the fact, but still I think most interviewees know this and are wary of spinning their stories too far out of control.