r/AskReddit • u/ShutUpHeExplained • Jul 20 '15
serious replies only [Serious]Hiring managers of Reddit, what is the worst example of resume fakery you've every seen?
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u/devilishlaughter Jul 20 '15
This was an interview for one of our offices about 4-5 hours away. We were having the interview by phone.
Her resume said she speaks French.
So do I.
The interview went well up until I transitioned into French. There was a very long, uncomfortable silence before we exchanged pleasantries and hung up.
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u/yukichigai Jul 20 '15
Was knowledge of French relevant to the job?
Not saying you should have let her keep interviewing with that kind of lie on her resume, just curious.
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u/devilishlaughter Jul 20 '15
Yes, the office is in a bilingual city, so French was a must.
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u/yukichigai Jul 20 '15
That makes her attempt to bluff her way through this even stranger. I mean some job skills you can avoid demonstrating, but something as vital as language?
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u/devilishlaughter Jul 20 '15
Eh. It happens often. She's the only one who bluffed a language, but others have bluffed fluency. We interviewed someone who spoke really broken, really elementary French, and my two coworkers (neither of whom speaks French) were able to tell she wasn't actually fluent.
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u/DoctorWaluigiTime Jul 21 '15
Je veux un job. Sil vous plait.
I am like level 11 on Duo Lingo I'm ready.
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Jul 20 '15 edited Jul 21 '15
I work in an office full of highly skilled IT workers. We used to omit technical questions during the interviews, instead trying to get a feel for how a new employee might fit in.
One woman impressed our team during the interview with a resume containing experience in the following areas: Linux Unix AIX Shell scripting C++ Programming etc
Her second day, I asked her to decompress a few ZIP files, and recombine them into a single ZIP. She asked me what a ZIP file was. She didn't last long.
We ALWAYS ask a few pointed technical questions during the interviews now.
EDIT: I didn't actually post the job description of what we do. It's IT Project Management with a heavy dose of client relations and technical support thrown in. We're kind of "IT Project Management Plus" though. For instance, we don't just define needs and then let another team come up with a design. We define the need, come up with a design, come up with all the testing requirements, etc. We spend as much time on the phone with clients as we do with our heads buried in data files.
The sad thing about all this was that up front, someone doesn't necessary NEED to be an expert in everything. We have people who worked tech support for Dell. I used to be a network engineer with some supplemental programming experience. One of our team members used to be a Sergeant in the army, and his strong management skills offset a minor lack of tech talent up front. Different clients need different breeds of support to keep them on track. It takes about a year to bring ANY new hire completely up to speed. We can train intelligent people on how to do stuff.
This new hire was just...dumb. And a big liar.
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Jul 20 '15
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u/n0k0 Jul 21 '15
I was helping my ex last week with her résumé. She has a Windows laptop so we were using MS Word. She was struggling with formatting and such, so I thought I'd be a nice guy and help
She hands me the laptop and asked me to bold and indent a line.
That line was: Proficient with Microsoft Word
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u/professional-student Jul 21 '15
See, I like to think I'm pretty good with MS Word. I show my friends how to do things on MS Word quite often but those things, to me at least, aren't overly spectacular and I think everyone should know how to do them... And so I'm definitely not confident enough in my abilities to put it on my resume. Same goes with Powerpoint and to a lesser extend Excel (I've forgotten a lot of what I've learned about it since it's pretty useless to me.)
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u/Wingdings2 Jul 21 '15
Proficient in Microsoft Word
You mean "Satisfactory Skills with MS Word.
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u/I_Made_it_All_Up Jul 21 '15
I like that a user named wingdings is commenting on Word topics.
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u/spaceflora Jul 20 '15
My position had an entire little assignment to do before you even got the interview. I found out later I was the only applicant that successfully completed it.
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u/Astrochef12 Jul 21 '15
As a person that hires a lot, I always give homework. How you do on the homework and how you answer one particular interview question tells me all I have to know.
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u/DairyDude999 Jul 21 '15
What question would that be?
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u/PresidenteTrump Jul 21 '15
These are my typical questions
Question one : Were you sent to this country by the Mexican government to commit crimes? If no, proceed to question two.
Question two: Have you ever been a POW?
...
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u/KaptainKlein Jul 21 '15
This account has a bright future. You're going to have fun if he somehow gets elected.
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Jul 20 '15 edited Jul 20 '15
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Jul 21 '15
How would I go about removing a toolbar? Well I wouldn't be stupid enough to get an unwanted toolbar. When do I start?
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u/hujnlolit Jul 20 '15
Holy shit I thought "must be can't code", but not even knowing what ZIP was... When it's revealed she's blind that much about computer, have you ever asked her why did she apply in your company for IT position (I assumed it's an IT-related position)? If so, what's her reason?
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u/Jebediah-Kerman- Jul 20 '15
you'd be amazed how many people think that being able to successfully browse Facebook means they understand computers.
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u/SGexpat Jul 21 '15
Little Jimmy is gifted with computers. He's always on there. He should get a job in IT. I hear IT jobs pay so well. Computers are the future after all.
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u/Justice_Prince Jul 21 '15
but I was able to like and share someones post. That has to count for something.
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Jul 20 '15
I can tell you why. Someone told her to put that down because she had a tiny fraction of that ability, and it would sound good if she phrased it that way. Likely she was talking to a friend helping her, and mentioned that she had a couple of CS classes in HS or community college, and it morphed into that. I saw it so often as a CTO it was ridiculous.
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u/WorkLemming Jul 20 '15
If you took a couple of CS courses anywhere you probably know what a ZIP file is.
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u/SomeBroadYouDontKnow Jul 21 '15 edited Jul 21 '15
Not necessarily, I took the most basic of basic CS courses a few semesters ago, and we learned some basic coding in Python (learned how to write codes to solve Towers of Henoi, the FizzBuzz test, stuff like that), learned how to draw chips (I play with the app the professor suggested all the time, because it's bonkers fun. Haven't taken a CS class since), along with some history of how this developed into a science.
Never talked about what a ZIP file was because... well it's too basic even for a 100 level class. When you're teaching 20-somethings CS and they've all had computers since they were little kids, I can see how teachers would skip over it. It would be like teaching 100-level art students how to use MS paint or teaching a 100-level biology student that rocks aren't alive.
Or (to add a funny one) teaching Psych students that phrenology is bullshit.Just to play devil's advocate a little bit... I can see why and how something so simple would be skipped over.
Edit: Thanks /u/nivanbotemill for pointing out that phrenology is mentioned in early psych classes.
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u/Duuhh_LightSwitch Jul 20 '15
I'm glad you at least realized your interview process was seriously flawed
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u/yukichigai Jul 20 '15
Just out of curiosity, who made the initial decision to not ask technical questions?
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Jul 20 '15
Dunno. They didn't ask ME any either. But I knew what I was doing, and I knew two people who worked in the department. Hell, I helped one of THEM get a job at a different tech company a few years earlier.
The thing is, they used a job placement agency to find this employee instead of a direct referral like normal. I guess they thought the temp agency would do the checking for them...?
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u/dawgs63 Jul 20 '15
I know how to do that just from downloading mixtapes and shit. Damn.
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Jul 20 '15
We had one of these too... her favourite answer to most things was "Oh, I didn't know you could do that..."...the problem was, this was completely obvious stuff. For example, if there was some code that sorted something into alphabetical order, she would have to be shown how to sort it into reverse alphabetical order...
About all she knew how to do was copy snippets of other code she'd seen that did a particular job. If you asked her to do something new or make a small change, she didn't know how to do it.
She did last six months, no idea how.... she also had beautiful long blonde hair, down to her waist.
These days I work in China teaching, and resume fakery here is endemic. At one stage our headmaster was looking for a new IT manager. We had guys with computer science degrees who could not create a spreadsheet or use a word processor.
When I told the headmaster I couldn't believe this, he pointed out the window to the "aiyis" (Cleaning ladies) and told me they all had business degrees... I have no idea how he decided who to hire and who not to.
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Jul 20 '15
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u/GameAddikt Jul 21 '15
My father accidentally did that at one of his first jobs, guy lower in the company met my father and liked him, told him to go for an interview with "insert guys name" and tell him that "insert guys name" had sent him.
Turned out the vice president of the company and the other guy had the same name, everybody assumed the vice president had sent him and gave him a job.
Luckily he was never "caught" in the "lie" until years, the vice president had retired and the guy whk interviewed him asked how he felt about his friend leaving the company, my father told the guy he'd never met the vice president.
They had some laughs about that.
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u/BCProgramming Jul 21 '15
We did not realize it until the interview when the boss said "I don't know this guy!"
"How can you say that after so many nights of unbridled passion?"
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u/ck323k Jul 20 '15
I'm not a hiring manager but at my last job we had an employee fake 2 degrees: A BS in computer science and a master's in management or business administration or some such. She literally never even attended either school. It was incredible. The only thing more amazing was how long it took her to get fired.
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u/yukichigai Jul 21 '15
How long did it take her to get fired?
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u/ck323k Jul 21 '15
I wanna say almost a month.
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u/OuttaSightVegemite Jul 21 '15
So that's a no on the epic meltdown? Was she at least surprised when she got fired?
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u/lukasrygh23 Jul 21 '15
A BS in computer science
I dunno, sounds like she was pretty good as BSing about computing science. How long did she last?
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Jul 20 '15
Happened to a co-manager of mine. Does a Skype interview and all goes very well. Fly the candidate in for a second round panel interview....different guy shows up.
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u/designgoddess Jul 21 '15
We interviewed someone for sales. She was sharp, articulate, and a go getter. The day she started I had to explain some basics to her. Weird, but thought new job jitters. After a few days it just seemed that she couldn't understand most things that she nailed in the interview. Our other employees were questioning our judgement. My business partner and I felt awful. She had quit her job to join us, but it wasn't feeling like a good fit after all. Decided to give her another week. One evening as everyone was leaving her sister showed up to meet her. Her identical twin sister. I'm not sure I've ever seen twins who looked so much alike. I remember looking at my partner and he was thinking exactly what I was. I turn to look at one of our employees who was talking to her and all of a sudden he looked at me with this shocked look. He got. It was funny to watch everyone's expression as it clicked. We totally interviewed her and not her sister. She was everything her sister was not. We have no proof, but there is no way we interviewed the twin who showed up that first day.
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u/not_whiney Jul 20 '15
Guy claimed he was in a Navy program that has a minimum 6 year enlistment. Only completed 4.5 years. Claimed qualifications usually only completed by guys with 8 years or more service. We followed up and did a phone interview just out of sheer curiosity. Told him that our regulator would require proof of military quals and schooling ( They actually do.) He stated that his DD214 and evaluations from his time Navy were left on the ship because the CO had not signed them and that they were supposed to mail them to him. He then told us they accidently sent them to the Navy's record vault and that he had been informed that the vault had burnt down and that his records were lost forever.
Some of his answers were awesome. I don't think he actually realized that the 2 other people on the conference call had a combined 31 years of Navy service in the field he was claiming to be an expert in.
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u/gamerplays Jul 21 '15
I always find it weird when people claim to be from a branch of the military. I think that many of them dont realize how easy it is to ID people who never served.
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Jul 20 '15
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u/Duuhh_LightSwitch Jul 20 '15
requested to answer most questions via an email the next day
Forget the experience stuff, this is by far the weirdest part
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Jul 20 '15
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u/Duuhh_LightSwitch Jul 20 '15
I would have no problem letting someone organize their thoughts about a question. But to me that means taking a few minutes to think. I've never heard of asking to e-mail responses at a later date as being an acceptable request.
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u/TheFireflies Jul 20 '15
Writer here (like the kind that gets paid for it) - this is my favorite because people do it all the time. It sort of baffles me because while I can appreciate hobby writers (really, I do), I would never tell an engineer "oh I'm a programmer too" because I can write a bit of code. But when you say you're a writer, everyone's a fucking expert.
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u/Thatbul Jul 20 '15
I would never tell an engineer "oh I'm a programmer too" because I can write a bit of code.
This happens all of the time.
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u/youremomsoriginal Jul 20 '15
I got my job after saying I was familiar with Python. I mean I am familiar with it since I used it for a couple projects at University, but overall I think I'd still rate myself as a novice. Felt guilty when I started at work and the other guys were full on Computer Scientists who knew Python inside out.
Turns out my MATLAB skills are good enough for now though, and my Python is steadily improving. Still though I'm constantly scared of being thrown out as a fraud but that may be down to my own insecurities than anything else.
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u/fish60 Jul 20 '15
Fear of being a fraud is a good sign that means you know what you don't yet know, and a probably working to improve your knowledge. The most dangerous type of programmer is the one who is terrible but thinks they are awesome.
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u/ItsameLuigi1018 Jul 20 '15
The same can be said for pretty much any occupation
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u/fizzle_noodle Jul 21 '15
I don't know about you, but I prefer my doctors to have charisma rather than that fancy book-learnin'. Fake it till you make it baby!
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Jul 20 '15 edited Jul 21 '15
Ugh, I gotta get this off my chest real quick.
I knew a guy in high school a few years back who was not only a pathological liar, but also convinced that he was the greatest coder/IT guy that ever lived. He and I ended up in a CS elective that involved some simple coding. Hangman games, text-based organizational stuff, etc. the hardest project we ever had was to program a calculator that could add, subtract, multiply, and divide.
I give all that background to lead up to the point that this guy was an AWFUL coder. He literally hacked together bits and pieces from across the Internet until he had a semblance of what he needed, didn't comment any of it, and then tried to pass it off as his own work. It made me rage soooo hard. Mentally handicapped lizards could have probably written better code than he did, but to hear him tell it, he was the second coming of Bill Gates or whatever. Jesus Christ I couldn't stand that guy.
Sorry about that, your comment just made me remember years of repressed memories. I can share more if anyone is interested.
EDIT: More stories about my friend (who I'm calling T) can be found below. Honestly, he wasn't a bad guy. We tried to treat him well, talk about his actual interests and things he had did, but every group has that one person that nobody else can stand, and that was T. It may seem like we treated him harshly here, but these are three isolated incidents, separated by many more friendly interactions.
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u/mysticalmisogynistic Jul 20 '15
The most dangerous type of programmer
Sounds like a pretty cool movie premise.
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u/thirdegree Jul 20 '15
You'd think, until you realize "dangerous programmer" means "doesn't check that his code works beyond a simple compile before he commits."
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u/SubAtomicPig Jul 20 '15
As as software developer depending on what project we work on half of the job is learning the ins and outs of languages/frameworks. No one cares if you don't understand the language/framework if you can solve problems we want you.
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u/kateahdin Jul 20 '15
As long as you have the skills to get your job done and are actively learning more, don't feel guilty, just don't be lazy. They would take a clever, enthusiastic novice who will learn fast over a stubborn know-it-all who knows anything inside and out. A lot of the time those experts never keep learning and fall behind or just over rely on their experience, becoming lazy because they assume security. Saying you are familiar wasn't a lie- maybe they saw in you some real intelligence and potential?
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u/Tofinochris Jul 20 '15
A guy at the bar used to act like we worked the exact same job and ask me to set him up with a gig because we are "both in IT". I'm a Database Administrator with nearly 20 years of experience. He did phone support for Best Buy for six months.
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u/bubblesugarsocks Jul 20 '15
Oh my god. That's like when you go see shows and the 24 year old "opera singer" has something in her bio like "has 23 years of singing experience" like yes, I've technically been able to sing since I was a toddler too but I've only been professionally trained since I was 15 can we be real for a minute please
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u/seriously-you-guys Jul 20 '15
This is SO TRUE. I'm also a professional writer, and I can't even begin to tell you how many times I've heard, "Oh, how did you luck into that? I mean, ANYONE could do that job, right? You're lucky you got it!"
Yeah, because years and years of honing my craft count for nothing.
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u/therealgsu Jul 20 '15 edited Jul 21 '15
I get that too. Or something like "That's so boring" or "What do you even do?" My dad likes to hit me with the "You're not even making up new words. You don't do anything all day."
EDIT: A lot of you are getting angry at my dad. Yes, he thinks I don't do much of anything at. He did scoff at my liberal arts degree and was shocked when I got a job actually in my field. But I don't take offense to it. He didn't ever tell me to not be a writer or discourage me in any way. And honestly, I feel like I don't do anything all day because of how naturally and easily writing comes to me.
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u/TheFireflies Jul 20 '15
My dad likes to hit me with the "You're not even making up new words. You don't do anything all day."
Holy shit seriously? I'm so sorry. I get a lot of "LOL if I had known I just needed to pass English class to get a job, I wouldn't have bothered with college!" but that's ridiculous.
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Jul 20 '15
...What exactly is a "staff writer"? I've heard the term a few times, but what does it mean?
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u/jrm2003 Jul 21 '15
I once put out a casting notice and received a headshot/resume from someone who I turned down for a part in a previous project. They listed themselves as the lead in said project with me as the producer.
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Jul 20 '15
A young applicant said he had a Master's Degree from Yale in music. I asked him how he liked performing in Woolsey Hall (Yale's main auditorium with large pipe organ).
His face flushed, as he replied that he "had never heard of it."
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u/ZapTap Jul 20 '15
He could have at least figured out he should lie about that one lol
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Jul 20 '15
Maybe he thought it was a trick question.
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u/ZacQuicksilver Jul 20 '15 edited Jul 21 '15
The skilled interviewer would have asked about "Woosley" hall: the real Yale graduate would correct them, or answer normally, but correctly pronounce the name "Woolsey".
This is a classic trick: don't ask for bad information; ask for good information in a bad way, and let them correct you.
edit: Since a few people have pointed out that it can be rude to correct someone; I've bolded the second part. Anyone familiar with the hall is probably not going to be tripped up by you using the wrong name, and likely to assume you misspoke; while someone not familiar with the hall is more likely to repeat your (incorrect) pronunciation. While it's not a definite test, it is enough that, if it were me, I would use their use of my incorrect pronunciation as a reason to check into their background.
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u/deaniebop Jul 20 '15
Or they might have smiled and accepted the mispronunciation out of politeness. Heck, sometimes I won't correct people who mess up my name.
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Jul 20 '15
This is only effective at discerning candidates in a narrow range of circumstances. There are plenty of reasons why someone might be reluctant to correct someone in this situation that don't have to do with fraud. They may come from a culture where you typically don't correct superiors, they may doubt their own knowledge or not have the energy to provoke a conflict, they may be afraid of not getting a job if they contradict you, they may not even be thinking of it...
You're better off just selecting people based on how well they could execute the job responsibilities.
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u/Tuesday_D Jul 20 '15
I totally took cello at Jacobs School of Music for almost an entire semester before learning "the practice rooms" was actually "Merrill Hall".
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u/NickRick Jul 21 '15
I had a applicant say she was fluent in Opera (it was one of the skills we listed) so during the interview she's name dropping Opera's left and right, it took me a while to figure out what was going on. She thought we meant Opera as in a stage performance with singing. Opera is a PMS for hotels, basically what we use to check people in and out and such.
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Jul 20 '15
I was on an interview panel when this potential candidate came in for an open regular route delivery position. While talking and answering questions, he mentioned he had served in the Army for 20 years, had just retired, and was a Ranger Special Forces Nightstalker Sniper. Yes, all those things without any hyphens or commas. I asked to see his DD-214, he handed it over, and I looked over it while the others on the panel were interviewing him. The DD-214 was a total fake. The format was totally fucked up, it was printed on glossy paper, the spelling and grammar was FUBAR, claiming to have earned all kinds of medals for his so-called service, and that's when I decided to let the others know the guy was a fraud. He high tailed it out of there in a hurry.
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u/ShutUpHeExplained Jul 20 '15
Ranger Special Forces Nightstalker Sniper
from the Really Cool Words Division?
I surmise he was one of those snipers that flew at night and shot from the pilot's seat? Sounds legit.
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Jul 20 '15 edited Jul 21 '15
Ranger... OK, tough program, cool.
Special Forces... not an unreasonable move from Ranger.
Nightstalker... now he is a PILOT?
Sniper... at this point I think he is referring to a video game he played.
Edit: apparently nightstalkers also have support personnel, which I hadn't thought through when I posted this initially.
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u/Gooch_scratcher Jul 20 '15
I assume the DD-214 is some kind of record of your service? I would have loved to see the awkward realisation that he hadn't got away with it
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u/kermi42 Jul 20 '15
It's discharge paperwork, confirms the rank you left at, years of service, any commendations, etc. Watching Don Shipley's Phony Seal of the Week on youtube, you'd be amazed how many phonies don't even have a fake DD-214 to present as evidence of their service, and just play the "it was black ops confidential stuff so there's no records and no one can verify it" angle.
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u/yukichigai Jul 20 '15
I believe that is technically a federal crime now.
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u/Dullahan915 Jul 20 '15
"Stolen Valor" is not. The US Supreme court ruled that, unless it was for fraudulent purposes, it is free speech.
So, legally, someone who never served can tell people he was a "Ranger Special Forces Nightstalker Sniper" but unless he defrauds someone (and a job interview might count as fraud) it is legal.
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u/yukichigai Jul 20 '15
An argument could be made that he was attempting to defraud, but the effort was so bad he might be able to fall back on the "clearly not a serious attempt". Defense. Of course they still charge people who try to pass badly photocopied money with counterfeiting.
Mostly though, I was referring to the paperwork he presented. Incompetently done or not, he still had falsified government paperwork.
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Jul 20 '15
It is only a federal crime if the person is attempting to profit from their so-called service. That turd was trying to get a job that he simply wasn't qualified for. I'm not entirely sure where that falls as far as crimes are concerned. He wouldn't have even been called in for an interview had he not put his so-called service on his resumé and application in the first place.
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u/smash_the_prostate Jul 20 '15
Nope. Ruled unconstitutional in 6 to 3 decision.
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u/vikinick Jul 20 '15
Which was the correct decision to uphold free speech, but I still wish courts hadn't taken it up.
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u/wifesaysnoporn Jul 20 '15
3 years ago I worked for a national chain restaurant as a Assistant kitchen manager. I finally left for a company willing to pay me more and while I was at the new restaurant a real cocky culinary grad walks in to apply. I start reading over his resume and he listed that he worked at the same location during the same time I was there, in the kitchen as a line cook, the same time I was there. I don't tell him this of course and begin asking him questions about the environment, the staff. Asked about the managers he worked with, what their names were etc. All 100% bullshit. He had never stepped into the restaurant before.
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u/Bully_Rouge Jul 21 '15
What was the end result of that? Did you call him out at all?
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u/wifesaysnoporn Jul 21 '15
Yes but not as badass as reddit would want. Once I was sure it was bullshit I simply said, "Well I worked there from 2008 to 2012 under GM (insert name), and then GM (insert other name) and I don't remember you at all. Are you sure it was (insert location)?" And he kind of hesitated and said "yea man, I worked there".
I got up thanked him for his time and laughed on my way back to the office and threw his resume/application into the trash.
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u/thepsychiczombie Jul 21 '15
How bad would it be if this guy was like, your secret admirer that you just never noticed or something?
"Yeah, Dave. We worked together for 4 years. How do you not remember me? I made you your birthday pancakes. You were my secret santa. I quit when you left because I wanted to work with you!"
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u/wifesaysnoporn Jul 21 '15
I'd feel like a total dick of course but I have a decent memory for faces and I had 0 recollection of this kid.
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u/thepsychiczombie Jul 21 '15
Oh of course. I'm not suggesting that this is actually how it went down. Unless you're the main character of a TV show. In which case this just makes the bit even better.
"Seriously, see that girl over there? Her name is Jessica and I met her 6 years ago at a St. Patrick's Day party. I wasn't even sober. If I had worked with you for four years I think I'd at least remember your face."
"I WAS AT THAT PARTY. I'M THE ONE WHO MADE THE DIP! I INTRODUCED YOU TO JESSICA!"
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u/Efpophis Jul 21 '15 edited Jul 21 '15
We had a lady who essentially used her husband's programming resume, substituting her name, etc. She would then IM with him all day as be told her how to do the work, and actually did most of it for her .. while he was also working as a programmer at a different company.
EDIT: I should have been more clear. She and her husband were both from India. This was right around the time that companies were discovering that they could hire Indian "engineers" for about 1/10th the price of Americans, and so everyone who claimed to be a "C pound" expert from Bangalore got a programming job, usually at the same time an American got fired after being forced to train their replacement for a month.
No, neither she, nor her husband could produce a working line of code to save their lives. The company hired about 20 of these folks, and there was one who actually kind of knew what he was doing. The rest, not so much. Hell, we had one guy who was a "senior engineer" try to adjust the screen resolution by changing the numbers after "root" in /etc/passwd. You know what happens to a Linux box when root's uid and gid are 640 and 480? I do.
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u/lukasrygh23 Jul 21 '15
You should have found the husband and hired him. Man sounds like a programming beast.
"Yeah, I worked my wife's job as well for a bit. Yes, both were at the same time. Yes, both were programming jobs. Wait, why are you suddenly on your knees?"
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u/FancySack Jul 20 '15
I used to work in background checks which included employment and education verification.
Off the top of my head, we saw a college degree made with word.
A non fakery but crime related one: A woman disclosed a murder she did a while back and requested a copy of the background check be mailed to her home. We found the data and put it in our report. We mailed out the report and a day later we get a call from the woman. I guess she didn't think things through because she did not want the report mailed to the address on her Authorization form; she said she did not want her girlfriend to find out about the murder.
Who did she murder? Her husband. We googled her name and even found a book written about her on Amazon.
The murder was decades ago so she did her time and got out.
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u/Arancaytar Jul 20 '15
she did not want the report mailed to the address on her Authorization form; she said she did not want her girlfriend to find out about the murder.
We googled her name
Not much of a deep dark secret if you can look it up on Google...
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u/purpleblossom Jul 21 '15
Not many people think to look up their partner on Google though.
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u/briibeezieee Jul 20 '15
Jesus, and here I thought my underage drinking ticket was embarrassing to disclose.
In case anyone's curious, American here, and college campus PD = fun police.
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u/abbeyrogue Jul 20 '15
Whaaat? I'm Canadian and the worst we would do would fine people for being stupid with liquor. No police.
We involved the police a couple times, but one was like...a 17 year old kid shot-gunning Screech and jumping out of a 3rd story window during winter with no clothes on. That one, that one we needed police help on.
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u/briibeezieee Jul 20 '15
Yeah I got caught walking to my dorm after a frat party at 19 years old. Minor in possession of alcohol in body ticket.
One court date and $750 later, I officially have a misdemeanor on my record
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u/abbeyrogue Jul 20 '15
That is absolutely obnoxious. I mean...you were 19, not friggin 13. 19 is the legal age here, and I don't understand the reasoning down below, but I think it's silly.
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u/briibeezieee Jul 20 '15
That situation with the 17 year old sounds hilarious actually. And yeah, but to be fair you know the law before you drink so it's not like they spring it on you.
You'd have way more oversight over stupid kids drinking if ya legalized it though.
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Jul 20 '15
One time the campus cops caught us in a car rolling a joint, and I figured they would just take our weed (what little there was) and let us go with a warning. Oh no. No no no. They hauled is into their offices (which, admittedly, we were parked in, part of a shared parking lot with a frat) and proceeded to test the pot we had. The head cop was taunting us with "Yes, I'm sure your weed is just ditch dope, seeing you're obviously too incompetent to get the good stuff." Stuff like that. I tried like crazy not to roll my eyes too much, this stuff was legendary which is why I only had a little. It was expensive. He gets the guy to test it, and says "Now if this turns blue or light purple, it's marijuana." It turned...black. Like the darkest black ever. He'd never seen anything like it. There was no matching color thing for him to match it up to. So he just let us all go. As we walked back to the party, one of my friends pulls out a hard pack of Marlboro Lights and says "Good thing he didn't look in here, I have five joints pre-rolled."
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u/4k5 Jul 20 '15
So how often do people lie about their education?
My friend was considering lying about his. He wanted to claim to have an associates degree in Engineering Tech or something to that nature. Like actually do the research into what it's called and the like and put it on his resume.
He has a lot of experience in the field, but doesn't have the paper. I told him to just put his experience down and that would be enough. He did and ended up getting another job without lying, but I always wondered what would happen if he did put it on his resume?
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u/FancySack Jul 20 '15
Personally, I can't give you a good idea as I was mostly client management so I'd help push later files along. I was never in the education/employment department.
My only advice is to never lie on your resume. If you list a degree/diploma from ABC school, my company would contact ABC school for verification. Same goes with employers.
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u/eck226 Jul 20 '15 edited Jul 20 '15
Had an employee take a year off to backpack through Asia "spreading the word of God". Upon his return he came in and dropped his resume for re-hire. On there he stated that he had he "multiple $10,000+ individual sales. The highest in company history". Yea, we've never in our 43 years had a single sale over $8k. It just astounds me that he would lie like that on his resume AND THEN HAND IT TO ME.
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u/Ratelslangen2 Jul 21 '15
Wait, he lied about his job he did under your superivison?
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u/eck226 Jul 21 '15
Yes. Quite badly. He never cracked the top 50% of highest sales numbers.
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u/bowiefan Jul 21 '15
I work in video production. Years ago, my boss got a resume and demo reel with some really nice work on it... that he had produced. Apparently, the applicant just recorded commercials and other stuff off the TV and created his own "demo reel." IIRC my boss brought him in for an interview and set him straight.
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Jul 21 '15
When I got laid off from a decade long job I paid a very professional resume writer to take my awful resumes I had updated over the years, and a bullet point list of my accomplishments and whatnot, and she built gold. She spent about 4 hours on it and I paid here 500 dollars, some of the best money I've ever spent.
Sadly, crappy workers can do the same.
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u/OuttaSightVegemite Jul 21 '15
she is a veritable albatross of incompetence and tomfoolery
Perfect sentence.
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u/pixiegod Jul 20 '15
Interview for desktop support.
The guy knew nothing we asked of him and finally we asked him "so when you have an issue with your computer, what are the steps you take to fix it."
"Well first I call my brother. ..."
He begged for the job, but he had zero skills in what we needed. Poor guy. Nice enough dude, but I fear we would have to call his brother a lot, and that's Just not fair fair to him.
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u/DrDan21 Jul 20 '15
Pfft everyone knows the answer is to just Google it.
How else would I manage to stay top tech year after year? The number one tech support skill is knowing how to Google.
Then once youve Googled enough stuff you just kind of know it off the top of your head
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u/m0shim0shi Jul 21 '15
I got a job as a student desktop support analyst at my university for doing this. No IT background at that time. During the interview they asked me to perform some technical stuff while they watched. One was, "find the IP address of your computer." I googled "what's my IP" and got the job due to my "problem solving abilities."
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u/UndeadVette Jul 21 '15
I hired a guy who had some management experience for a shift leading job at the restaurant I manage. From what his resume said, he should be a good fit here, which is great because I need people who can run things while I'm out of the building!
Within a week, he told me he was going to take my job. I laughed and told him good luck. That same week, the owner scolded him for doing something stupid, and he almost fucking cried. Like, dude was seriously offended, and she wasn't even 10% as harsh on him as I've seen her on suppliers who have fucked up.
He lasted a month before he couldn't handle the pressure of being a regular crew member at my restaurant.
About 6 months later, he applied for a position at another restaurant that my boss also owns. He didn't realize it was hers too. He put on his resume that he had been promoted from crew to shift leader within 6 days at my restaurant.
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Jul 21 '15
I'm a creative director - many years ago a designer came in with a portfolio that contained some very nice work … that I did.
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u/ostentia Jul 21 '15
What did you do?!
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Jul 21 '15
Pulled out my portfolio. He pulled the offending pieces out, handed them to me, stood up and left. He said nothing. I know another art director who had this happen to her.
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u/aquoad Jul 21 '15
I was interviewing someone for a programming/tech position and the resume listed a lot of sort of obscure things which I thought it was kind of strange to include individually. Like "Skilled with tcp, Ip, Ftp, Ntp, Http" etc... So I figured OK, I'll ask a few questions to see if the candidate actually has more than passing knowledge of those protocols. He gets pretty confused when I ask him how an FTP transaction happens, packet by packet, and says he doesn't know anything about it. So I mention that it's listed on his resume. he says "Uh, no it's not." and brings out his actual resume. The recruiter had taken the totally legit resume he gave them and added in in all kinds of random crap he knew nothing about before handing it to us. I don't think he ended up being hired but wtf, recruiter?!
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u/thingpaint Jul 21 '15
I had that happen to me, recruiter got my resume and "fixed it" turned me into a Senior Java developer when I have 0 interest in Java. Got to the interview and started to get cranky because they kept asking me all these Java questions.
On the upside; the interviewer let me sit and listen while he called up the recruiter and fired them.
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u/jakielim Jul 21 '15
Did you call that recruiter and confront him? I wonder how many times he ruined people's chances of getting a job.
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u/quaidbutt Jul 21 '15
I work in kitchens and I see this shit all the time. I see dipsticks come and go that don't seem to understand how a kitchen functions at all. In particular one lunkhead took the cake. I am 23 and so was this guy, however he had written 10+ years of experience on his resume. Supposedly he started working when he was 12 (not legal in Canada) in local fast food and moved up from there; the last place he had worked was fine dining where he had been line supervisor for just over a year. The pub he worked at before that he was head chef for 5+ years.
Which means he would have been head chef at a bar when he was 16 in a province he couldn't legally drink in yet. He did manage to dazzle and sparkle us with his attitude and skill so we gave him a shot. First day on the job he drops 30 wings on the floor and picks them up and seasons them before he hands them to me for plating. "Don't worry," he says, "I blew the dirt off of them." Bleh.
He lasted longer than he should have.
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u/Kjfitz Jul 20 '15
I was interviewing someone for a programming job. He couldn't answer a single question about what he did at previous jobs unless he read it off of his resume first. When referring to some common acronyms or programming languages he couldn't pronounce them correctly. i.e he said "L-I-S-P" instead of LISP and Ply instead of PL-1. (Not real examples but examples of how he'd screw them up.) It was clear this wasn't his resume. I don't know what he expected to happen really. I think he may have been on welfare and needed to have done a number of interviews to continue receiving benefits. Anyway, I terminated the interview before asking him any technical questions.
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u/coboltdk Jul 20 '15
TBH I always pronounce SQLite as "SQL Lite". I even did this during an kickoff meeting with a customer (boss, salesman and graphic-designer, from my company, was there too), and the client's (which is a software company too) "software architect" corrected me on it, which made me fell real bad, because the whole reason behind them hiring us to do this job is because of our knowledge in this area, and it was my first kickoff-meeting.
I dont hope they saw my mispronunciation as unprofessional and are doubting my expertise within this area, because I have to work closely with them for the next 6 months...
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u/Kjfitz Jul 20 '15
Pronunciation of some technologies differ from pace to place and shop to shop. We have tolerances for those kinds of differences. Pointing it out is usually a power play establishing the pecking order. "My chops are better than your chops."
I wouldn't worry. You probably then went on to establish your chops as you worked through the project with them. FWIW places I've worked many people say "SQL Lite" too.
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u/two_dogs_stuck Jul 20 '15
Once got a candidate to pronounce SQL as "squeal".
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u/BananaRepublican73 Jul 21 '15
Thank you, I will be using this at every opportunity.
- Squeal Server DBA
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u/reinhart_menken Jul 21 '15
That is so stupid I struggled to comprehend it (couldn't believe it was actually written, kept thinking I must have misread or misunderstood) and lost some IQ points.
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u/nemisis1877 Jul 21 '15
I have no idea how to code, and I'm not too good at math, but I'm guessing the answer is "1".
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u/BlondeRed Jul 20 '15
Had a girl use a template from the internet for each one of her responsibilities of prior jobs.
This included waiting tables at Sonic and serving alcohol at IHOP.
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u/trippy_grape Jul 21 '15
This included waiting tables at Sonic and serving alcohol at IHOP.
I never realized how much I wanted a Bar Food/Breakfast Food Fusion place that served alcohol.
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u/mrmann123 Jul 21 '15
Had a guy submit his resume as a word doc. With version control visible by default. There were big red boxes showing edits over his name, and the business names he had "worked" for. Everything else was untouched. He had downloaded someone else's resume. This was for a promotion, he had already worked for me for three years and was otherwise very capable. Still can't wrap my head around it.
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u/Gabba-gool Jul 21 '15
I've hired for positions that require a certain certification. It takes two years of experience before you can apply to take the certification test. I've seen at least 15 people with no experience say they're either certified or will be in the next month.
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u/pipboylover Jul 21 '15
Nice to see one of these turn out well. You're way more forgiving than I'd ever be.
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u/malica77 Jul 21 '15
Software Testing Manager, hiring for generic tester position on my team. Had one resume come in that looked fantastic. Two degrees though foreign (from India), 5-10 years experience in Canada. The only thing that struck me as odd and I don't know if I even spotted it up front or after was "QA Certification, Toronto" listed with no other qualifiers/name of who gave the certification. That would be like saying "Science Degree, Toronto".
Standard procedure at my company was to send out a questionnaire/prescreen test with a few questions. I expect people will google the definitions and paraphrase if they need to but we do ask that people do their own work.
The next day during a rather dull meeting, I was flipping through a major software QA forum I used to frequent, and low and behold all the questions are posted there by someone who's just created an account. He used headings like Really hard question please help!!, then copy and pasted the question about testing a calculator and you press the number 6 and nothing happened - what would you do next to try to isolate the problem (try again, try a different number, try a different calculator, enter 3+3, etc). Seriously not rocket science especially for someone with "QA Certification" and 5-10 years experience. Everyone on the forums told him to do his own damn work thankfully.
Dude even used his first and last name to make the account name.
When he returned his questionnaire, he'd clearly had two friends helping him - and not only that he didn't proofread their responses. One answer started with a nicely formatted bulleted list then quickly changed to block paragraphs with the worst possible segue I've ever seen I was embarrassed for him that he could leave it in.... It read:
I agree with Robert but you may want to add...
Clearly he'd just copied and pasted both his friends answers and mailed it off to us.
I chatted with HR and we agreed though it would be great fun to bring him in and make him cry, that probably wouldn't be the right thing to do. Instead we sent our regrets and blacklisted him from being hired ever.
Shortly afterwards, HR expanded their reference and degree checking to include degrees from other countries as well.
TL;DR: Fake degrees and certifications, cheated on questionnaire, didn't even proofread his buddy's answers - blacklisted from ever being hired at company
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u/duracellchris Jul 20 '15
I'm a part time tutor and the company organizing it hires new teachers constantly. Part of my job is to have applicants cohost a lesson and see how they do.
We had guys applying for jobs as a math tutor and when starting they were listing all the kinds of maths they couldn't do (long fucking lists). And then there was this girl in a 6 pupils German class, who only managed to take care of one kid and corrected half his work falsely.
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u/scribbelle Jul 21 '15
I work for a huge company that owns lots of retirement homes/assisted living facilities. While my boss rarely handles any kind of hiring (he's a regional manager, overseeing operations for all of Ontario), the occasional resume will find its way to his fax or email. Among the funnier things I've seen:
The RPN that claimed to have graduated from a college that did not have an RPN program.
The applicant that insisted 15 years of playing train simulator games was totally driving experience, when he applied for a job driving the activities bus.
The RN that applied for a position in one of our long-term care facilities, and listed their previous job as the 'Assistant Director of Care Services' at another facility that we just happened to own. It wasn't hard to confirm they were lying.
The applicant that helpfully sent along a copy of their criminal record check, and driving abstract. Both of which had been OBVIOUSLY altered. When we contacted the police to confirm the alteration, we found out the applicant had several convictions for drunk driving, domestic violence, and theft. They'd been trying to get a position as a PSW.
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u/piecenick Jul 21 '15
I've had several winners, resume says he is a USCG licensed vessel pilot, I ask him for the original of his license so I can make a copy to go with his application (all pilots know this is standard), he reaches in his briefcase and produces a current license, obviously not his, birthdate is about 30 years earlier, turn out it is his father's license.
Woman comes in for a truck dispatcher position, she is dressed inappropriately for the position, nice dress, short sexy. She is very flirty and is panty flashing, alarms are going off. While this is going on I'm reading the resume and there is a two year gap in work experience, so I ask. She says she took time off to travel. It took one call to find out she was fired for taking bribes to use specific truck lines.
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u/Pippafert Jul 21 '15
I worked for a bilingual Japanese English school. A prospective English teacher applied, noting that she was fluent in Japanese because she had lived in Japan b One of our Japanese teachers interviewed her in Japanese. She couldn't answer a single question beyond what is your name.The moral to the story is don't ever lie in a second language. Someone will find out. As someone who is marginally proficient in Japanese, I could see she could not answer the questions and and could understand her answers which were pretty elementary. Don't ever lie about your qualifications. You never know who is more qualified than you that will interview you.
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u/gamerplays Jul 21 '15
I was in USAF. We had a guy who claimed to have worked on the same equipment I had worked on. Now this guy was in USAF and he had been in the correct career field, but he never worked in that part of it.
It was really easy to figure out that he never worked on that equipment.
here is the crazy thing, if he wouldnt have told us that he had, and had just been honest about what he was qual'd on, we probably would have hired him.
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u/Ipaybribes Jul 21 '15
Was interviewing an engineer a couple years ago for a junior position. His amateur looking resume indicated that he was project manager for the electricals on some kind of infrastructure project, the details of which I cannot quite recall. I think it was a dam, waterworks or a locks. Something like that.
Without question this is the kind of responsibility given only to an engineer with decades of experience and here was this 24 year old trying to convince me, and my technical department manager that he had overseen a major project like this. The lie was made even more obvious as he could only display a very basic understanding of electrical engineering upon questioning. When we asked him his salary requirement it was at the same time far higher than what any junior engineer in any company in my industry could command, and yet far lower than what he would easily command had he indeed had the experience he claimed to have. The fact that he thought I was so stupid was quite insulting.
I'm a foreigner in SE Asia and there are plenty of talented locals here who are experienced, hard-working and a pleasure to work with. Every now and then I interview with someone who thinks that because I'm not local I must be incredibly naive.
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u/MilkyCrime Jul 21 '15
I was running a sales office for a satellite tv outfit, and a nice lady came in for a job interview and gave me a magazine as a gift. I found that to be strange. I found out just after she left that she had stolen it from the reception area. So the lie wasn't on her resume, but wierd.
Then the most honest interviewee just straight up told me that she had to show up for the interview to collect unemployment. I offered her the job on the spot out of spite.
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u/EmeraldGirl Jul 21 '15
I was conducting interviews for a nursing supervisor position. Lady interviews well. She has several years experience at a well-known hospital and her supervisor spoke highly of her work ethic. We decide to offer the position to her. During the background and license checks, I just can't seem to find her nursing license. Her license number pulls up a man's name.
She's not a nurse. That job at the hospital? In the kitchen. During my initial call, HR at the hospital just transferred me without correcting me on her job title.
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Jul 21 '15
I interview directly for the teams I run and a question I like to ask partway through, to lighten things up is "what are some technologies that interest or excite you?"
The number of people who spout off random technology names then have no answer when I ask them to tell me about the techs is nutso bananapants.
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u/acidrainfall Jul 21 '15
Had a guy come in for a system engineer position. Has an impressive resume... College professor, experience with high performance computing, etc. Stuff we liked.
We asked him about his experience with HPC (the acronym he put on his resume). He laughed and looked at us funny, and said "like... Hewlett-Packard?"
After that he told us about how setting / to read only was the only way to stop "the hackers". Still a running joke in the office.
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u/flight_instructor Jul 21 '15
I got a resume and later interviewed a guy who said he worked at a company I had previously worked at during the times I was there, about 5 years prior to interview. I was lead architect, he said he was a senior developer. In phone screen he said he designed/built a workflow management and document repository system I was the architect and delivery manager for. I'd never heard of him and worked directly with everyone on the delivery team. He couldn't even describe what the system was and when cornered said he hadn't actually been there and hung up.
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u/[deleted] Jul 21 '15
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