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Ask HN: Fake Job Candidates?
We're recently seeing a plague of fake job candidates.
We've seen:
* fake github accounts
* ...with stolen, bot generated content that looks like their contributions
* candidates who manage to not remember their own name/getting it wrong/joining zoom with wrong name
* we hear from colleagues guy who shows up on Monday for work doesn't look like the guy who was interviewed
* recently we dismissed developer after discovering he was working (also full time) at another company (we coordinated termination on both sides - I'm not even sure if it made him without work or just removed 2 out of N jobs)
How do you deal with this spam?
Are you using some services to filter this out?
Is ie. github interested in fighting those spam constellations of fake accounts?
How do you work with people without being an asshole to ensure they also play fair?
- bobkazamakis 4y agoHave you tried paying them? One guy was so desparate for cash he apparently needed a second job.
- tbarone 4y agoVery aggressive screening at the outset, with all the submissions in an easy to read list. At my last job, we would ignore every single submission that didn't have a cover letter. If the cover letter has even the slightest red flag; for example if it doesn't mention anything specific about the company, then onto the next one. The next step would be an equally aggressive phone screen. It's ruthless and you might miss out on some great candidates, but the time wasted by interviewing the wrong people is a killer.
- fwungy 4y agoA lot of people have stopped writing cover letters because they don't seem to have any impact.
- LazyMans 4y agoYeah. I don't write those.
- simplotek 4y ago> At my last job, we would ignore every single submission that didn't have a cover letter. It's funny because I automatically drop a job prospect if they mention cover letter. If they request it right in the job ad and the job description is interesting, I send my updated CV and my contacts, but leave out anything resembling a cover letter. If you care about getting to know me, set up a meeting. I already sent you a doc with what I did and where I did it. I'm not going to waste significant amounts of time on a document that I'm not even sure anyone will read. If your rationale is that it saves up your time, well it wastes mine, and mine is more valuable. And finally, anyone can write anything about anything in a cover letter. It boggles the mind why anyone would think this sort of document has a critical role in figuring out anyone is a decent hire.
- tbarone 4y agoAll very fair points, I suppose it just comes down to whatever the particular company is looking for. At the time it was important to find people that showed enthusiasm and would fit well with the rest of the engineers. Taking the time to show that enthusiasm in a personalised way was a good start. It's interesting though that there are such large differences in approaches out there. > anyone can write anything about anything in a cover letter. I could say the same thing about a CV.
- Beaver117 4y agoI think if you stop offering remote positions you'll get rid of 100% of these, just saying. Of the ones you interviewed, they managed to pass the interview didn't they? What's wrong then? Were they not making an effort to perform? Having a fake github doesn't matter if they perform well imo.
- gs17 4y agoAren't they implying the interview was with an entirely different person? That's who they thought they were hiring, not the guy who showed up.
- mirekrusin 4y agoYes, that's what we're doing for positions we have open in timezones where we have offices. We have to cover different timezones as well where we don't have offices setup for some projects.
- dangwhy 4y agoyeah we had people join with different person interviewing for them. We now have a policy to take a screenshot of person's face during interview and compare them to person who joins. We've busted a bunch but a whole lot have slipped through the cracks.
- thinking4real 4y agoCompanies save your image without your permission and then companies are simply baffled why people don’t want to be in video calls!
- 1_1xdev1 4y agoI don’t think you have a reasonable expectation here. Companies have to do something to fight this kind of fraud
- comprev 4y agoIt's not unreasonable to ask the candidate permission to either record the video interview, or at least have their camera on for 20s while a screenshot is taken.
- dangwhy 4y ago> then companies are simply baffled why people don’t want to be in video calls! never had an interviewee decline to be on video call for an interview. Are you trolling ?
- dalmo3 4y ago> busted a bunch but a whole lot Would you mind sharing rough figures and %s? Just curious on what sort of scale and environment would attract/hire a bunch of impostors.
- thinking4real 4y agoIronically, in my last job hunt I encountered several fake jobs/companies I learned to filter out indian hiring people because 100% of them started a conversation demanding “updated resume”. I noticed even if I said the one I submitted was most recent they would still demand I send another. Clearly trying to get more data from me. Other than that we’re several positions at companies which couldn’t be validated, interviewers who were so clueless they had to be faking, and numerous other issues. And of course that’s after already weeding out all the bot generated job postings.
- simplotek 4y ago> Ironically, in my last job hunt I encountered several fake jobs/companies I'm under the impression that most job ads out there are actually fake job ads, or ads from companies who have no job and/or no immediate plan to offer one to any candidate. We have HR types trawling candidates for their CVs to build up impressive-looking portfolios to showcase as who they have in store for candidates, and use that to catch potential customers.
- pengaru 4y agoI know someone who's getting a 20% cut for any US-only remote jobs he secures for an offshore team of developers who otherwise can't get such jobs. All he does is interview and get gigs for these people he doesn't even know, they do all the work. Probably something you're experiencing the other side of? AIUI they found him on LinkedIn just based on his skills overlapping theirs while being in the US, no prior connection - it's likely they didn't stop at him. From his POV it's nearly free money while getting tons of interview practice.
- JonChesterfield 4y agoHard to feel much sympathy with the remote (but only in the US) crowd.
- stumblindrunk 4y agoWhy?
- JonChesterfield 4y agoBecause I like US working hours and working remotely and live in Europe.
- stumblindrunk 4y agoI don’t know what that would do with feeling no sympathy? It’s a pain to hire internationally. Not like a huge one, but for non-enterprise if really is a burden.
- brianwawok 4y agoSo as a European you have a right to all American jobs? I just want to make sure that is what you are after. Last time I checked as an American I did not have a right to all German or England jobs..
- NullPrefix 4y ago
- 5350-uiop-1130 4y agothis is what happens when you gameify the interview process. i admire those people who can get away with this because it makes an absurdity of the rotten system.
- 1_1xdev1 4y agoSaw this a number of times at my last job. Things we encountered: - candidates that were clearly talking to someone between getting asked a question and answering - entirely different person interviewing than showed up to the job - one person on the coderpad, another person on camera (and hiding this fact) A surprising amount of comments trashing companies for trying to protect themselves from fraudulent candidates —- reality check required. If the person who interviews and the person who shows up for the job are different, companies are well within their right to terminate that employment. The point of the interview is to see if that person should be hired. If you’re unhappy about this, you’re probably in on the scam.
- mgh2 4y agoVirtual assistants, greedy programmers: https://www.teamblind.com/post/Working-3-full-time-jobs-for-a-year-now-AMA-hxQrtu4U https://www.teamblind.com/post/Working-3-full-time-jobs-for-...
- readonthegoapp 4y agointeresting that it is only recent.
- Mandatum 4y ago> we coordinated termination on both sides Outside of the US that would be very risky. You’d be opening yourself up to litigation.
- ryandrake 4y agoI agree all those other things are annoying/fraudulent, but... > recently we dismissed developer after discovering he was working (also full time) at another company (we coordinated termination on both sides - I'm not even sure if it made him without work or just removed 2 out of N jobs) I don't think I've ever heard a reasonable objection to this, assuming 1. the person's second job is not with a competitor, 2. they are not sharing confidential information (keep both jobs air gapped and separate) and 3. the person is performing up to expectations at both jobs. We applaud low income service workers who bust their butts working multiple jobs (often 40 hours each) to make ends meet, but when it comes to office workers getting a second job, that's taboo. Doesn't make sense.
- mr337 4y agoI was thinking the same thing. Unless you know the situation of the employee, working to get them fired from both jobs can seriously put them in a bad financial position + loss of benefits, especially medical benefits. If they aren't happy with that just terminate employment. To go after them to get terminated from both jobs is just being an asshole. > We applaud low income service workers who bust their butts working multiple jobs (often 40 hours each) to make ends meet, but when it comes to office workers getting a second job, that's taboo. Doesn't make sense. Hit the nail on the head!
- brianwawok 4y agoI mean, good. My employment contract has right on there that all outside employment will be disclosed. And because I pay salary, I am expecting that all of your efforts will go towards my job. Try to lie and hold two jobs? I will 100% fire you, and get the other place to fire you. In fact I have done this once myself as well.
- xormapmap 4y ago> And because I pay salary, I am expecting that all of your efforts will go towards my job. Why? Most (even salaried) full-time contracts require something like 38-40 hours per week. So long as what your staff are doing outside of those hours is not representing the company in a bad light, it should not be your concern. Trying to control what your staff do in their own time is toxic.
- giantg2 4y ago"we coordinated termination on both sides" It's one thing to ask if they currently work there and provide the same info, but coordinating to terminate them from both companies seems like an antitrust issue.
- mirekrusin 4y agoYou reach another company to try to understand what is happening and you discover whole thing rides on lies on both sides.
- giantg2 4y agoThat's fine. I assume each side would independently come to the conclusion to terminate. But actually coordinating those terminations between the companies seems like a problem.
- mirekrusin 4y agoMaybe wrong use of words on my side.
- fwungy 4y agoWe hired someone once who was only superficially competent in a niche technology that we didn't understand well. This person had a contact with someone who was competent and was coaching them. It took us a while to figure out what was happening. It was a huge PITA because they had to wait for their contact to be available to get anything done.
- mirekrusin 4y agoThat's one of the main differences between being "contractor" and "full time employee". As contractor you can sub-contract your work (unless contract clearly specifies otherwise, maybe not enforceable in some jurisdictions?), as employee you can't.
- logicalmonster 4y agoThe root of this problem is that technically speaking, most people doing recruiting don't know their head from their ass when it comes to technology. I don't mean having actual programming experience, I just mean having enough basic high-level understanding to have a little intelligent conversation with somebody. This lack of knowledge means that the only method most recruiters have to try and rank people is asking the pointless "How many years of experience do you have with X technology?" questions that are easy to just totally bullshit your way through. A good technical recruiter ought to be able to have a 5-10 minute conversation with a job-seeker about stuff they can't easily bullshit: going into depth on a past project or asking them a system design question in a particular domain and having enough sense to ask a good followup question or 2 and knowing if their answers are anywhere near reasonable. > recently we dismissed developer after discovering he was working (also full time) at another company (we coordinated termination on both sides - I'm not even sure if it made him without work or just removed 2 out of N jobs) Was the person doing their job or not? I can understand firing somebody if he was not performing, and I can almost understand firing somebody if they have more than one job and work with some sensitive/confidential information and might be a risk in some fashion with 2 jobs in a similar industry, but it seems pretty mean-spirited to go after both jobs. Honestly, I'd be more inclined to fire a manager who couldn't tell their employee wasn't working 1 job than the employee who was industrious enough to perform at 2.
- johanvts 4y agoMy contract states that I am expected to use my full work time with my employer and can't have another job. I think that this is a pretty common clause. It's not just about the hours but more the focus and energy.
- logicalmonster 4y ago> It's not just about the hours but more the focus and energy. I understand the ostensible justification, but is that the real one? Let's say that an employee does all of the work asked of them at a 100K salary and performs well, and still manages to hold down another n jobs. What's the core issue here? It feels like the real issue is that a boss is feeling a little butthurt that they didn't get to extract ($100K * n) production out of a $100K salary. If somebody should be feeling wronged here, it's the person who is capable of doing ($100K * n) work getting paid $100K even though he's n times more productive than his peers who might be getting paid as much or even more than him.
- phaedrus 4y agoI have a suspicion an engineer/developer I worked with was secretly working two or more full time jobs. I didn't mention it to our boss as I had no evidence - only a gut feeling. He was eventually let go anyway after being given far too many second chances to produce any sort of output. He had graduated college and started work just a couple months before everyone went to work from home due to the pandemic, so it was always ambiguous whether he failed to adjust, had crippling social anxiety, or was actually just sandbagging us & doing other things with his time. A couple reasons I thought this was: weird timing of IM replies and un/availability, repeatedly getting caught and warned against using his personal laptop instead of his issued laptop for work (when we were in the office), an impression everything was a game to him, and the aforementioned lack of any output. After he got fired he changed his FB profile to say he worked at a different company in the same general discipline as we do, which could have innocent explanation he was just quickly hired, but maybe that was his other job or one of them. Also weirdly his social media story posts mostly consist(ed) of trading app screenshots showing "line go up" equity gains in 4x leveraged ETFs even during weeks I know the market was doing poorly. Again just a gut feeling but my spidey sense is these app screenshots might be recruitment bait for some kind of scam.
- TurkishPoptart 4y agoA lot of this typically stems from Indian recruiters who harvest peoples' resumes. Sorry to sound harsh, but all the WITCH companies do this and are based in India [1] [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27571707 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27571707
- ijustcantevenw 4y ago> How do you work with people without being an asshole to ensure they also play fair? Too late. > * recently we dismissed developer after discovering he was working (also full time) at another company (we coordinated termination on both sides - I'm not even sure if it made him without work or just removed 2 out of N jobs) You should expect a lawsuit for this. If you give me his contact, I know a few good lawyers. Really, who cares? If they're getting their job done, who are you to tell another man what he can do with his body?
- simplotek 4y ago> Really, who cares? Apparently, both companies cared. Cared deeply. Hence the coordinated firing. > If they're getting their job done, who are you to tell another man what he can do with his body? Quite literally, employment contracts stipulate Basic requirements such as working hours and availability. If an employee says he's pulling 40h/week but he's actually pulling around 20h/week, if that, then the question of fraud is up. If this was supposed to be a non-issue, why go through so much trouble to hide it?
- ijustcantevenw 4y ago> Apparently, both companies cared. Cared deeply. Hence the coordinated firing. Seems like collusion, wage suppression, interference with business and interference with employment. I hope this guy sues the crap out of OP's company. > If an employee says he's pulling 40h/week but he's actually pulling around 20h/week, if that, then the question of fraud is up. If an employee is getting 40 hours of work done per week, then I don't see the problem. > If this was supposed to be a non-issue, why go through so much trouble to hide it? Because it's none of their business.
- simplotek 4y ago> Seems like collusion (...) It's as much collusion as it would be if two victims of fraud agreed to go together to the police to press charges. > If an employee is getting 40 hours of work done per week, then I don't see the problem. You're not. > Because it's none of their business. What they put in the contract is unequivocally their business, don't you think?
- JBlue42 4y agoReminds me of this insane story from Ask A Manager: https://www.askamanager.org/2022/01/the-new-hire-who-showed-up-is-not-the-same-person-we-interviewed.html https://www.askamanager.org/2022/01/the-new-hire-who-showed-... I figured it had to be rare - how many people are brave enough to pull that off? Can't believe this is something people running into more. I don't know if this is good news or bad for someone like me that's actively looking and not having much luck. Disappointing that fake people can get further.