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If you equate "be ambitious" with lying, that says more about you than it says about resumes or HR.

by pc86 5y ago

ben_w 5y ago
I’d agree with @LeifCarrotson on this. If an app says “minimum requirements: 8 GB RAM” any PC which reports that it meets the minimum requirements but actually has 4 GB RAM is making a false claim. Ambition is what you can become, not what you are. The only way of applying without dishonesty would be to do so while openly saying “I don’t tick all your boxes, but I still think I’d be a good fit because XYZ”. I might like this if I saw it in a job application, because it means the applicant was paying attention and not just applying to everything… but that doesn’t work so well when there’s already a “Preferred Qualifications” section, and might even have the opposite effect.
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago
  > If an app says “minimum requirements: 8 GB RAM” any PC which reports that it meets the minimum requirements but actually has 4 GB RAM is making a false claim If a job says you need 8 years of experience and you say you have 8 when you have 4, that is lying. If you apply to a job that says you need 8 years of experience and you only have 4, that isn't lying. It isn't dishonest. It would be like the person selling that PC asking, "hey, might 4GB work if we throw in a better processor?"
  - majormajor 5y ago
    Whether or not it's "moral" to apply to the job, this whole argument shows the problem with listing minimum requirements like that: in this very thread, you've got people saying "I'm not going to bother," so you've shrunk your candidate pool. Is "doesn't want to waste our time when we tell them not to waste our time" really an important attribute for you to reject candidates on? Or would more accurate "minimum" requirements be better?
- bryondowd 5y ago
  Applying for a job isn't claiming that you meet the requirements, it's testing whether you meet the requirements. So the closer analogy would be installing an app that claims to require 8 GB RAM, just to see if it'll run anyway on your PC with only 4 GB RAM. Maybe the installer will block you, or maybe not, as long as you aren't tweaking your PC to report to the installer that it has more RAM when queried.
- Zababa 5y ago
  > “I don’t tick all your boxes, but I still think I’d be a good fit because XYZ” That's exactly what I meant by being ambitious. I think you shouldn't lie when applying for a job, but on the other hand there is a shortage of applicants in tech. You could recognize this as an opportunity if you're confident that you can "grow to the desired level" of the job offer.
- tomp 5y ago
  If the app works with 8GB, the app's requirements are stupid and should be ignored.
jsight 5y ago
You are correct, of course, but the context of this thread is applying to a job without meeting the minimum "requirements". Arguably the lie is the "requirements". But what is a candidate to do? Skip the job, because they don't have the required qualifications? Assume the requirements aren't real? Dress up the resume with some fake barely there qualifications to fit? Different cultural backgrounds will have different responses, and very few will really be lying. The worst thing, though? The knee-jerk response to the ones that dress up the resume is often to want to add even more requirements...

If you equate "be ambitious" with lying, that says more about you than it says about resumes or HR.

by pc86 5y ago

If you equate "be ambitious" with lying, that says more about you than it says about resumes or HR.

I’d agree with @LeifCarrotson on this. If an app says “minimum requirements: 8 GB RAM” any PC which reports that it meets the minimum requirements but actually has 4 GB RAM is making a false claim. Ambition is what you can become, not what you are. The only way of applying without dishonesty would be to do so while openly saying “I don’t tick all your boxes, but I still think I’d be a good fit because XYZ”. I might like this if I saw it in a job application, because it means the applicant was paying attention and not just applying to everything… but that doesn’t work so well when there’s already a “Preferred Qualifications” section, and might even have the opposite effect.

JumpCrisscross 5y ago
> If an app says “minimum requirements: 8 GB RAM” any PC which reports that it meets the minimum requirements but actually has 4 GB RAM is making a false claim If a job says you need 8 years of experience and you say you have 8 when you have 4, that is lying. If you apply to a job that says you need 8 years of experience and you only have 4, that isn't lying. It isn't dishonest. It would be like the person selling that PC asking, "hey, might 4GB work if we throw in a better processor?"
- majormajor 5y ago
  Whether or not it's "moral" to apply to the job, this whole argument shows the problem with listing minimum requirements like that: in this very thread, you've got people saying "I'm not going to bother," so you've shrunk your candidate pool. Is "doesn't want to waste our time when we tell them not to waste our time" really an important attribute for you to reject candidates on? Or would more accurate "minimum" requirements be better?
bryondowd 5y ago
Applying for a job isn't claiming that you meet the requirements, it's testing whether you meet the requirements. So the closer analogy would be installing an app that claims to require 8 GB RAM, just to see if it'll run anyway on your PC with only 4 GB RAM. Maybe the installer will block you, or maybe not, as long as you aren't tweaking your PC to report to the installer that it has more RAM when queried.
Zababa 5y ago
> “I don’t tick all your boxes, but I still think I’d be a good fit because XYZ” That's exactly what I meant by being ambitious. I think you shouldn't lie when applying for a job, but on the other hand there is a shortage of applicants in tech. You could recognize this as an opportunity if you're confident that you can "grow to the desired level" of the job offer.
tomp 5y ago
If the app works with 8GB, the app's requirements are stupid and should be ignored.

jsight 5y ago

You are correct, of course, but the context of this thread is applying to a job without meeting the minimum "requirements". Arguably the lie is the "requirements". But what is a candidate to do? Skip the job, because they don't have the required qualifications? Assume the requirements aren't real? Dress up the resume with some fake barely there qualifications to fit? Different cultural backgrounds will have different responses, and very few will really be lying. The worst thing, though? The knee-jerk response to the ones that dress up the resume is often to want to add even more requirements...