
I Got Catfished by a Candidate - imartin2k
https://www.saastr.com/catfished-by-a-candidate/
======
mrbill
You just never know who might turn up from your past...

1999: I was a sysadmin at an ISP in Austin. One day we had a tour come
through, people looking to see if they wanted to colo in our datacenter. In
walks in the former CEO and most of the technical staff from the Oklahoma
City-based ISP I'd started my career at and left in '96\. We laughed, shook
hands.. and they headhunted me away a couple months later with a 200% salary
increase for their new Austin-based startup.

2015: interviewing for a remote sysadmin position at a firm in California.
They knew of me through some mailing lists I've run for a couple of decades. A
couple of interviews in, I mention that I'd need to get off early on Thursdays
to attend Lodge as I was a Freemason. Turns out two other execs interviewing
me were also Masons. It certainly didn't hurt my job prospects.. And then
after I started the CEO asked "Weren't you mr_bill on efnet #unix IRC in the
90s?" I gulped and said "Yeah..." and he said "Cool! I was on there too..."

And, at my current job, after I got hired, my team lead said "Yeah, (other
coworker) said you were cool and said you'd fit in well here..." \- turns out
the other coworker was another EFNet IRC buddy that I'd never met in person..

So, never lie about a contact or reference and never burn bridges if you can
avoid it - you never know when someone from your past may be in a position to
influence your future.

~~~
pjc50
Next time someone says technical hiring is not hiring quite so many women or
minorities because it's purely meritocratic, I'm going to point them at this
post.

~~~
rando444
(1) Networking and building a reputation for yourself will always have value.

(2) Most of the things that he's listed are merits. Being involved in his
community, having a strong verifiable previous job history with good
references, etc.

(3) Having a good job history, making friends, and being involved in online
and offline communities are not things limited to white males.

~~~
pjc50
In re (3), the post specifically mentions the Masons, which traditionally is
extremely exclusive, men-only, excludes Catholics, etc.

They've opened up _slightly_ in response to pressure, and there are some
female freemasons, but it's still pretty exclusive.

~~~
rando444
The masons was an anecdote specific to that commenter, my point was that there
are many different types of groups that serve the same purpose.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
At the very least, I think pjc50's observation highlights that there is a
certain _inertia_ in some industries that perpetuates a bias toward one or the
other gender.

Edit: changed a couple of words to make my point clearer.

~~~
rando444
Well if we're doing anecdotes, I work for the second largest IT firm in my
country, and the management is largely made up of women, and I don't believe
any of them to be freemasons.

Perhaps this observation has more to do with location and culture than it does
industry.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
Sorry, my point wasn't really about Freemasons in particular, but I'm too
tired now to try to clarify.

------
f4stjack
The thing I don't get is, and probably I'll be downvoted to hell because of
that, even though this guy lied about his past, his knowledge is solid. Nobody
can guess what the interviewers will ask you and from what I've read from the
text he aced those.

If this is the tech business rolls what I see that it wants developers with a
history, with connections, with "clout" so to speak; doesn't matter if you can
help their business immensely, or fit to the position they are listing for.
And this attitude is really really paradoxical. Like you are not searching for
a candidate with required skillset but an ideal candidate with required
skillset with glowing references. Because why take the risk? Like having a
glowing history prevents anything happening...

Anyway imho what you are trying to gauge from a job interview is how good that
guy/gal is. And I'm sure if that guy did say "I am an newly trained man with
no relevant job history" he wouldn't go into the interview stage even though
he knows his stuff for his application. I mean if he failed that, I'd say
"okay this guy is trying to scam this company" but no, he is able and informed
about the position he is applying to. And that's totally irrelevant from the
text I am reading. Which is bonkers if you pardon my french.

This text also reminded me of a quote from Neil Gaiman, he faked his
references for his first job and then he worked to create those
references([https://singjupost.com/full-transcript-neil-gaiman-
commencem...](https://singjupost.com/full-transcript-neil-gaiman-commencement-
speech-to-the-university-of-the-arts-class-of-2012/2/)). In his words he was
"chronologically challenged". So if he was trying to be a writer in our modern
times, we wouldn't have a Neil Gaiman.

~~~
lvillani
His knowledge is solid, sure, but would you really want to work with someone
who has such a strong inclination to cheat and deceive? I certainly wouldn't.

~~~
tomcooks
He adapted to an unfavourable situation, studied hard, did his research well
and passed multiple tests - I'd gladly work with someone like that

~~~
nkrisc
And when the solution to the next unfavorable situation he faces involves
railroading you? Liars lie and cheaters cheat. You might be fine if you're
never their target, but you never know when you will be.

~~~
root_axis
Well said. These types of people are driven by an extreme arrogance that
manifests itself as the justification for any bad behavior. Ultimately they
believe they are always right, so if they have to lie in order to get you
fired, that's fine, because clearly your crazy ideas are a threat to
everyone's livelihood, and it would just be better for everyone if you were
gone from the office, they just don't know it yet, but I have a knack for
these things that others seem to lack, so I'll take it upon myself to engineer
your firing.

~~~
magduf
The companies they're applying to are engaged in behavior that is just as bad,
so these "catfishers" are just creatively adapting to the unfavorable
situation that employers have collectively created.

~~~
nkrisc
You're right. Still wouldn't hire them.

------
chickenfries
> However, I am glad that I caught it early before we hired him. If we had
> hired him, tough to say what could have happened. Maybe he would have been
> great and our best performing AE. Maybe he wouldn’t have even known how to
> log into Salesforce.

When you make it to the top by lying, you're considered a winner:

[http://www.businessinsider.com/how-goldman-gary-cohn-got-
to-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/how-goldman-gary-cohn-got-to-wall-
street-2015-5)

> "I lied to him all the way to the airport," Cohn told Gladwell. "When he
> said, 'Do you know what an option is?' I said, 'Of course I do, I know
> everything, I can do anything for you.' Basically by the time we got out of
> the taxi, I had his number. He said, 'Call me Monday.' I called him Monday,
> flew back to New York Tuesday or Wednesday, had an interview, and started
> working the next Monday.

I know there are dozens of other examples, because I hear people talk about
how they had to lie to get their first break all the damn time, from people
who are now very successful.

~~~
justherefortart
Everyone lies, because the interviewing process itself is a fucking joke,
ESPECIALLY in the Bay Area.

If the person can answer all my questions and they have a good attitude, I
honestly don't give a shit what got them to that point.

If someone doesn't work out, you can fire them. Yes it's "exhausting", maybe
if it's so difficult to manage or run a business you should find a different
role for yourself.

I really enjoy hiring personally. I treat it like a two way street instead of
"I'm the big boss man with all the power". I remember how I was recruited out
of college, I show that same interest in the employee as I want them to show
in their career (note, not my company, I'm 100% okay with someone just coming
in and doing a good job, not being in fucking love with my product, industry
or anything else all these bullshit companies seem to offer).

~~~
drdeadringer
> Everyone lies

I am clueless about certain things and perhaps this is one of them... but
really? Outright lies of pure red-handed snake-oil fiction?

Surely there must be a line between the "HR speak" most must sing along to and
reality that does not qualify as pure uncut straight-up lies.

Help me understand what you mean.

~~~
fenwick67
For literal people like myself the line between a lie such as "my biggest flaw
is I work too hard" or "I have never used illegal drugs" and a lie like "I
worked at Acme Corp" can seem thin.

~~~
drdeadringer
Please explain to me how "this person worked here" compares to "I never
inhaled". These two statements do not equalize for me.

~~~
Yizahi
Totally similar things. Drugs are irrelevant for doing the job and same is
work experience. What matters is skills but they can't be measured most of the
time so proxy value "experience" has been invented. But everyone knows that it
is only a proxy thing and that very likely you won't be hired if you can do
the job but can't "prove" it. So social moral value of lying about work
experience has fallen to insignificant levels, for majority of jobs. The only
thing stopping people from lying about experience part is fear of getting
caught or no need to do it in the first place.

~~~
magduf
Exactly. I've been pretty lucky in that I've had a lot of good experience, so
my lying is with other things, such as making people think I plan to stick
around at their company for a really long time when that's very unlikely.

I have to agree with the other poster: I think nearly everyone lies, it's just
a matter of what they lie about, and how much. Don't forget that "lies of
omission" are still lies. You're not going to get far by being completely
truthful about everything. I was lucky that my educational background and work
experience have been good (and of course that I come from the right
socioeconomic background for this kind of work), but there's other places
where I've had to be less than honest (like "why did you leave this job?").
I'm sure just about everyone is the same way to some extent.

------
Steeeve
It's strange to me how much linkedin is valued in silicon valley because to me
it's like the ugly stepsister of social networking. Expecting someone to have
a fully built out profile and expecting that person to actively seek out
contacts in their own company is strange. I typically seek out contacts either
when I first meet them or not at all. The only rhyme or reason to when I do it
is when I happen to have a reason to be on linkedin. People are very haphazard
about what their contacts look like. Some people have 50% recruiters, some
people it's all friends, some people it's work colleagues, some people it's
potential clients. Just because you know somebody doesn't mean that you are
linkedin friends, and just because you aren't linkedin friends, doesn't mean
that that person knows much about you at all.

I wouldn't trust social profile hunting as a real gauge for anyone's
abilities. I know plenty of good coders that don't have github accounts
because they aren't involved in open source at all. There are plenty of
recruiters that don't know linkedin because they have other sources that fill
their pipelines. There are people that build out their profiles specifically
for job searches. There are others that won't build out a profile at all.

As far as back-channel references go, I'm not a fan. I expect references to be
minimal because giving a reference is odd territory. A bad reference can
result in a lawsuit, so why would anyone ever give a bad one? A TMI good
reference can result in a lawsuit. People should stick to the basics.

The danger territory as far as I'm concerned is hiring someone at the tail end
of a long group of rejects. You peel back your instincts in order to get to
the finish line.

~~~
raesene9
I'm not really surprised at how heavily linkedin is used. It's an easy check
for companies to carry out, so they'll make use of it.

As a candidate spending a bit of time connecting to people on Linkedin can
help your chances of finding a role, so why not do it? Obviously, some people
will have other better avenues of getting roles, but it's one avenue that can
be used.

Personally I've never used Linkedin to find a role however I do find it handy
just to get an idea of who works where in the industry and where pepople I've
known in previous roles work now.

~~~
Steeeve
I suppose I phrased things a bit harshly. I see value in LinkedIn from a
candidate/networking perspective. From a validation/reference perspective is
where I see the issue.

This isn't the first I've heard of using it for back-channel references. I
think that is pretty common in the bay area.

------
deedubaya
Maybe the author should evaluate _why_ they got catfished.

Recruiting processes are so convoluted and hard to break through, that someone
who apparently otherwise would have been a great candidate, had to lie to get
an interview. Was a good candidate really only one that had worked at the
managers previous employer?

How many great candidates are companies missing out on because of arbitrary
filters?

~~~
AmericanChopper
>someone who apparently otherwise would have been a great candidate

Dishonesty is an intolerable trait. This person clearly wasn't a great
candidate. Lying at work is just about the only thing I'll always fire
somebody for.

~~~
ironjunkie
Everyone is lying at work to some degree. That's what office politics is all
about, even though it is not straight lying.

How many times did my managers not "lie" to me by telling me that it is
impossible for the company to give a raise or anything as a policy right now,
while my colleague gets one one week later (sharing salary information is
beautiful!)

~~~
AmericanChopper
This is really a reductio ad absurdum. But if you think your boss is dishonest
with you, then go find a new boss. Dishonesty instantly destroys trust, and
unless it’s about something entirely trivial, it’s almost impossible to
restore it.

A trustless workplace cannot be functional. You can point to examples of
workplaces that are dysfunctional if you like, but it’s something I refuse to
contribute to, or even tolerate. I don’t feel an ounce of remorse for any
person I’ve fired for dishonesty, and it’s a practice I’ll continue with.

Perhaps other employers are more tolerant of it than I am, but all people hate
being lied to. Some people do use lies to get ahead, but it comes at the
expense of integrity, and youre equally capable of getting ahead with honesty
and integrity (qualities that most people like, unsurprisingly).

~~~
ironjunkie
I think what you are really saying is that you will fire people for lies
bigger than a specific "threshold", which I understand and agree with.

What I'm saying is that in the social work environment everyone lies to some
level and it is actually widely accepted so. I googled exactly for 5 seconds
and found this article to give you a couple examples:

[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-
man/11652018/10-que...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-
man/11652018/10-questions-you-should-never-answer-honestly-at-work.html)

~~~
AmericanChopper
That’s not really what I’m saying at all. Every lie you tell jeopardises the
trust you have amongst others. You might not get caught, and if you do, you
may not damage the trust irreparably depending on the magnitude of the lie.

I’m also saying that a workplace cannot be functional without trust, and that
a workplace that tolerates dishonesty will invariably erode it. So unless you
want to exist in such a workplace, you should not tolerate dishonesty either.

Finally I’m saying that dishonesty is not a prerequisite for success, and that
you can be successful with integrity and honesty, and that people value those
traits.

I’m not saying there’s some magical threshold, which below, lies become
justified. Dishonesty is not a justifiable personality trait, and trying to
defend it demonstrates a lack of integrity.

You’re also confusing dishonesty with a lack of 100% openness. If somebody
asks your for personal information, or information they’re not entitled to,
there is no moral requirement to disclose it to them. This is the reductio ad
absurdum I was talking about.

~~~
learc83
You ever politely laugh at something you really didn't find all that funny?

Human social interactions are built on small deceptions. Some amount of
dishonesty is required if you want to avoid being an awkward social pariah. If
you are incapable of any social dishonesty whatsoever, you will quickly be
labeled an inappropriate, self righteous asshole.

Of course there is a limit to those social norms. Dishonesty that exceeds
those limits moves from being polite to what most of us consider lying.

~~~
AmericanChopper
I’m very worried that so many people here seem to think it’s impossible to be
empathetic with people without being dishonest.

~~~
learc83
Surely you've had this conversation numerous times throughout your life with
people who hold this opinion. You clearly disagree with it, but it's common
enough that you shouldn't be surprised by it.

Philosophers have debated this question for millennia--it's nothing new.

>empathetic with people without being dishonest

Empathy and honesty are orthogonal.

------
johnwh
Backdoor references are very unethical in my opinion. Beyond the fact that you
are telling a third party about someone’s job search without the searcher’s
consent, you can also get a very biased opinion.

My wife was fired from a job at a well known University in the area. She had 2
bosses in a year, one of them twice after coming back from prolonged mental
health leave. Within a month of coming back my wife’s boss had a long term
relationship end which lead to my wife being blamed for everything and
anything, and was then subsequently fired.

On the other hand, my wife has excelled at her current job. She has been
promoted 4 times at this point to a director level position and is extremely
well respected. If they were to call her previous boss (who has had multiple
people promoted over her in the past 2.5 years), the review would be awful and
not reflective of my wife’s work.

You know what would have caught this without any effort what-so-ever? Calling
the company and verifying dates of employment. It is part of every job
application, and is expected.

~~~
Johnny555
_Backdoor references are very unethical in my opinion. Beyond the fact that
you are telling a third party about someone’s job search without the
searcher’s consent, you can also get a very biased opinion._

But frontdoor references are guaranteed to be biased no one (well, almost no
one) is going to use someone that didn't like them as a reference, they are
going to dig up someone that will say something good about them.

We had one DBA hire that was not very good, she lasted 3 months before we had
to let her go because she just couldn't do her job. One of her references
didn't have much good or bad to say, but her most recent manager (where she
worked for 5 years), gave a very glowing reference, outlining all of the
projects that she had helped with.

It wasn't until we had let her go that we found that that while the person
that gave her a glowing reference actually was her manager, she was also her
roomate... and her girlfriend.

~~~
johnwh
However isn’t the point that references are people who have worked with you
and (hopefully) managed you. By calling a backdoor reference, you may not be
calling a strong relationship and getting hearsay. For all the recruiter
knows, they could be calling a coworker that asked the candidate out on a date
and was rejected.

The whole point of references is that given the opportunity to put your best
foot forward, can you find people to vouch for you. It may fall short, but so
will calling a tenuous relationship.

I did quite well at my previous job (my boss has been a reference twice, in
addition to my employee who took over my position when I left), but had a
another specific manager been asked, I would have received an awful review,
unrelated to my job, but because he hated my boss and therefore hated me and
my team. We rarely worked together, and he has little idea of my
accomplishments, but it wouldn’t be crazy to ask a director at my previous
company for that backdoor reference.

Basically my issue is that I don’t believe that backdoor references are in any
way more effective than regular references, but are tremendously unethical,
and could lead to false negatives.

------
andrewstuart
I'm a recruiter.

Three anecdotes come to mind for this topic:

#1

I once sent out a coding test email to a candidate.

Not long after I got an email back from this candidate saying "Hey bro could
you do this test for me please." or words to that effect.

Obviously mistakenly forwarded it back to me instead of to his bro who he
wanted to do his coding test.

#2

I definitely got catfished but it was by another recruiter who was fishing to
try to find out who my client/employer was - he was hoping I'd call the number
so he could pretend to be a valid candidate and I would reveal the name of the
employer. I took the issue to the job board that the resume came from, and
they threatened to ban his company from advertising on their board. Never
happened again as far as I know.

#3

I've got about 150,000 resumes in my candidate database. One thing I'd be
interested to do is run some sort of duplicate text detecter over my candidate
database.

I've definitely received resumes that duplicate text from other resumes.

~~~
ng12
I've been wondering how often #1 happens. Our coding test isn't particularly
difficult but it is timeboxed, and somehow candidates pass it who take 15+
minutes to string together a for-loop when they come on-site.

~~~
andrewstuart
Home based unsupervised coding tests are fine I think, as long as you ask the
candidate to talk through their solution when they come in to meet in person.

------
navs
_sigh_

> Rule #2: Take a long hard look at a candidate’s social profiles.

Is not having a LinkedIn account going to come back to bite me, even when
applying for dev roles? I've had even senior devs at popular local dev shops
say LinkedIn is a "necessary evil" because it:

1\. is easy to grep

2\. you can find whether a candidate has similar connections to you

3\. recommendations

I get New Zealand is small and the social graph for LinkedIn can be well
utilised because of this but I just don't want a LinkedIn account. Is a
traditional CV so bad?

~~~
gamblor956
In California at least, looking at an applicant's social profile can reveal
information the company is not allowed to ask for or use in the hiring
decision.

LinkedIn wouldn't qualify since it's a public resume, but checking out an
applicant's Facebook page or Instragram would likely give rise to actionable
legal claims if the applicant is rejected. This doesn't mean you'd lose, but
you'd pay out a chunk of money to defend the lawsuit and other candidates
would avoid your company.

~~~
jkaplowitz
LinkedIn isn't public. It is inaccessible to people like me who haven't
accepted the LinkedIn Terms of Service. The formerly porous auth wall has
recently been made tighter.

I wonder how this affects whatever California law you were referencing?
(Honest question. I have no idea as to the answer.)

------
maxxxxx
I don't think we should use such stories as a reason to make the hiring
process even more paranoid. In general people are pretty honest so I wouldn't
like to see them having to jump through even more hoops because of a few
fraudsters.

Advice number 1 is probably best : "Trust your gut". If something doesn't make
sense it's worth clearing that up.

~~~
BadThink6655321
Depends on the culture of the people. I have experienced numerous instances
where an Indian candidate is not who they claim to be. Person X is hired,
person Y shows up. Person X conducts the phone interview for person Y. And so
on. And this has happened for not just me.

~~~
maxxxxx
I just experienced this with a contractor. I have never seen him do anything
himself. I strongly suspect he is sending his work somewhere else.

~~~
freeone3000
He's a _contractor_. That's the difference between him and an employee: He
chooses the time, place, and manner of his work, including subcontracting it.
If he's not allowed to do this, chances are you have an employee.

~~~
abiox
> He chooses the time, place, and manner of his work, including subcontracting
> it.

all of this is entirely within the scope of the contract.

"subcontracting" is unlikely to be permissible in a variety of scenarios,
especially if the material being worked on is even vaguely sensitive.

when it does happen, it's typically in a larger organizational context and
then there will usually be some vetting or approval process.

~~~
lovich
If you are controlling how work is done then you have an employee. If
subcontracting is unacceptable and you are still hiring contractors then you
are just trying to run around employment law, at least in the US

~~~
abiox
do you have specific citations or is this some ideological stance?

to me it makes zero sense to hire a vetted contractor who can then just toss
say, classified data, over to some unknown random. it's a completely untenable
proposition.

~~~
lovich
If you are requireing who can do the work and how it's done you've constrained
the person into an employee-employer relationship regardless of what you
decide to call. Contracts are like an interface, you are setting up an
agreement on what is being provided and don't care about the implementation.
When you constrain the contract so much that only a single person can fulfill
the contract you are just abusing the concept of contracting.

In the example above with NDAs and security clearance that can be a perfectly
valid requirement, but you can't reasonably be upset if the contractor
subcontracts out to someone else with clearance who has signed the same NDA

~~~
abiox
i don't agree with your definition of contracting, but either way i'm
particularly interested if you can point to some legal code that forbids a
contract from containing a "no subcontracting" clause. that would be quite
interesting.

~~~
lovich
I looked and couldn't find any limitations on subcontracting that werent
specific to federal contracts so it likely that my personal view doesn't match
up to the law

------
donretag
I get catfished often.

Company X offers me a role where I have responsibilities Y and benefits Z.
Promotions after a set number of time.

Times go by, still not doing Y, but intern level work. Benefits Z never
appear. And that promotion? Sorry, someone needs to die or leave first, and
then maybe we will hire a direct replacement.

Companies lie all the time in order to get a candidate to join.

~~~
danpalmer
Are you “interviewing” the company well enough when you are looking for a job?

They shouldn’t be lying, but you can often pick up on these things through red
flags in answers they give to your questions.

~~~
hinkley
Maybe it’s a local thing, but I find I rarely have time to interview the
company anymore. For the most part they’ve a set agenda that takes up all the
time. I miss the days when nobody knew how to interview. I had plenty of time
to ask questions.

~~~
organsnyder
Any good interview process will allow—even encourage—candidates to ask
questions. I've found that most interviewers are very open to me turning
things around and asking them something; and judging by the way interviewers
tend to love talking about their companies, I think it's been to my advantage
to do so.

Yes, good interviewers often have a script; but a good script will provide
time for questions and other free dialogue.

------
lkrubner
On the upside, the person who was trying to get a job seems very good at
selling. Certainly, they seem good at selling themselves. If this is for a
sales job, then the energy they showed should count in their favor, and the
work they put in, as well as the easy social graces that charmed everyone.

I've known honest salespeople, but generally sales, as a profession, does not
reward complete honesty.

The important thing would be to find out if this guy was lying to hide
previous criminal behavior. That would be important to protect the current
company from. But if there was no criminal behavior in this guy's past, I'd be
interested in seeing if they could hook new customers as well as they hooked
the hiring company.

~~~
bduerst
Why? They'd eventually deceive the new customers just to make the sale, even
going so far to fabricate facts and people just to do it. That's not the type
of person you want bringing on new accounts at your company.

~~~
lkrubner
If they engage in outright fraud, then they are criminals, and they've
probably been criminals in the past. That's why I emphasized the one thing to
really check for is whether they are hiding a criminal past.

At one point, when I was running my own business, I worked with an alcoholic
who was a good salesman. I knew that he could be toxic, so I structured an
agreement such that I kept some distance between him and my company. I
basically just offered him a generous finders fee. I told him if he could
bring in business, I would give him a percentage. We got at least one big
contract because of him.

I'm not saying that every company can or should work with such people. Every
company is different. But if you know the circumstances of your company, and
you think you can get useful work out of someone who has some known problems,
then it is possible to structure a deal such that your company wins.

~~~
bduerst
>If they engage in outright fraud, then they are criminals, and they've
probably been criminals in the past.

You're assuming that they were caught _and_ convicted.

Displaying this pattern of behavior w/o a criminal history doesn't mean they
won't continue said behavior in the job. It's a terrible idea to have hired
this candidate and I'm not entirely certain what your motivation is for
arguing otherwise.

------
tgb
The author is missing the most obvious rule that they should have taken away
from their experience: don't use the number and email provided by the
candidate. Jim's email or number is probably readily available on the company
website or by calling up the front desk at the company.

~~~
InclinedPlane
Yup, if the company is big, call or email the "front desk" or 411 number of
whatever and ask to talk to that specific person. There are about a zillion
ways to do this properly and the poster did none of them, sheer amateur hour.

~~~
lozaning
For what it's worth I have worked at places where its a fireable offense to
talk to anyone about past employees. You'll be referred to our co-employer
(insperity) who will only give you mm/yy of beginning and end of employment
and not a word more.

------
qaq
I know a person who has faked a position on resume to get around the whole you
need experience to get hired and to get experience you need to get hired thing
in marketing field and now he is super successful C level exec in Fortune 50
company so go figure.

~~~
maxxxxx
There is a very thin line between "hustling" and outright fraud. The same
behavior can result in a good career or jail time depending on luck and
ability.

~~~
amatecha
it all depends whether you roll a 1 or a 20, am I right? ;)

~~~
lovich
I don't know ow why you were downvoted. It was told on a joking manner but is
effectively true. There were many people on here crowing about the greatness
of Elizabeth Holmes even though she was a giant fraud. If people are going to
ask for ridiculous requirements for well paid jobs then they should expect
either A:that people will say what you want to get the position since, as this
article implied, reality and what is useful to a company don't seem tied
together or B:never complain about a shortage of candidates and the associated
highb salaries if you are going to cultivate a list of requirements that
exclude 99.99% of humanity

------
jeena
> Rule #2: Take a long hard look at a candidate’s social profiles.

> Rule #4: Google is your friend.

That are one of the main reasons I don't post with my real name on the
Internet, and I don't have an LinkedIn account. I don't want people to
interpret what I put on the Internet in their own way when it comes to the
decision if they should hire me or not.

~~~
chatmasta
I take the opposite approach. I accept that everything I post online is
public, and a chance to control my own narrative.

I would much rather fill the Internet with my own content about myself, than
leave it empty for someone else to impersonate or disparage me. Additionally,
I am proud of what I post publicly — otherwise I wouldn’t post it.

Public personas are a professional necessity, especially in our industry. For
example, what if you want to show your contributions to open source? Or your
stackoverflow answers?

If you do everything online under a separate identity, then all your positive
contributions are unlinkable to yourself. Yes, you can hide any “bad things”
you may post from your employers. But are you really posting anything bad? Is
it worth sacrificing credit for your positive contributions?

Granted there is always the “nothing to hide” counterargument. That is, it’s
not up for me to decide what’s “bad.” A potential employer could misinterpret
my words, or otherwise negatively judge me based on my online profiles. But in
that case it’s probably better to avoid the relationship anyway.

~~~
jkFeiwi
Not a developer, but laughing at this statement:

> Public personas are a professional necessity, especially in our industry

If I wasn't on hacker news, I would assume you were an actor or a radio talk
show host. Maybe you're right, and developers need to have a public persona
today. But why does it need to be that way? You aren't performers. You aren't
politicians.

~~~
chatmasta
> You aren't performers.

Aren’t we though? How is a developer on a software project different than an
actor on a set? How is a product requirements doc different than a movie
script?

An actor can make or break a film just as a developer can make or break a
software project.

I actually think there are far more parallels than differences.

~~~
TheCoelacanth
Which performers are in a movie is a major factor in who chooses to view the
movie. Which developers created the software is not a major factor in who uses
the software for most software. The only exceptions I can think of are
software that is used mainly by other software developers.

------
djhworld
The thing about checking social profiles for number of connections etc is
strange to me, although maybe it makes sense in the sales world.

I have a LinkedIn but rarely log into it, most LinkedIn emails get filed into
spam.

Missing good opportunities? Maybe. I dunno, it's just never been my thing.

I hope recruiters, at least for developer roles don't use LinkedIn profiles
and connection count as some sort of metric in a hiring decision

~~~
paulgb
I deleted my LinkedIn over a year ago and haven't looked back. It might be
handy for sales folks but as a developer it's a cesspool of spammy content and
dark patterns.

~~~
amatecha
Yeah, I get the "opportunity of a lifetime" about once a week, maybe once
every two weeks.

~~~
tytytytytytytyt
From a recruiter in NJ about an opportunity in CA?

------
HeyLaughingBoy
_Out of all of the possible people to choose as your fake manager, this person
chose one out of the two people that I knew from Acme Corp_

Someone who I had interviewed and who turned out to be a terrible employee (we
fired him after 9 months of trying to find _something_ he could do right)
listed me as a reference on his resume.

Problem for him was that the hiring manager at the next place where he applied
turned out to be a friend of mine.

The world's smaller than you think it is!

~~~
rconti
Well I mean, friend or no, you wouldn't have exactly been able to provide a
glowing review. Of course, you can be slightly more candid with a friend.

Or did the candidate provide fake contact info for 'you' ?

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
This is how I answered when my friend called and asked what I thought of the
guy, "Do you want my actual opinion or the Corporate Response?"

He immediately knew what I meant and said "OK, that's all I needed."

For those who don't get it, the Corporate Response (that any other person
checking up would receive) would be "the employee worked in Software
Development from MM/DD/YY to mm/dd/yy and was assigned xxx tasks" with no
further comment.

------
gumby
> backdoor reference checks aren’t always considered kosher by everyone

?? These are the _most important_ references. Many excellent candidates won't
have a back connection but when they are possible they can make an important
difference two ways: One is the way described here (or, "this person was OK
but doesn't sound like they would work out for the kind of thing you want --
that was where they failed with us too."). The other is the opposite, which
has happened to me twice: "Oh that person? Look, if you don't take them let
them know we'd really like them back" (on a candidate who barely made it
through the interview but there was enough something there that we decided to
do some background checking. Turned out he was simply nervous in front of
people he didn't know and gave a terrible interview.). Without the background
check we might have missed an excellent candidate with poor job-seeking
skills.

Whenever I get a resume with a school on it that I or one of my colleagues
attended I always check. I also once had an amazing candidate with 20 years
experience in the lab doing just what we wanted. Their resume said that they
had a degree from my schoo in X. I of course looked them up on the alum site
and saw they had a degree in Y. Now both X and Y were in the set {Chemistry,
Physics, Material Science, Chemical Engineering} so clearly had they simply
told the truth it wouldn't have mattered -- the 20 years of experience would
have said enough for anyone who actually cared about degrees after all that
time. But since they lied...the resume went into the trash and the candidate
was never brought in for an interview.

~~~
cascom
It is generally understood that candidates must consent to have their
references checked.

In what part of the application process did the candidate consent to you
letting anyone you choose know they are looking for a job?

~~~
RightMillennial
Pardon me if this is a naïve question. Isn't the point of references that they
can be checked and verified? Why would you need to obtain explicit consent to
contact the contacts when they've been provided? Isn't the consent implicit by
virtue of them being supplied?

~~~
abiox
> by virtue of them being supplied

afaik, a backdoor reference is specifically _not_ a reference that was
(intentionally) supplied.

------
deedubaya
You'll never be able to trust a candidate who lies.

Blatantly lying to a potential employer will never work out well in the long
run. Just don't do it.

Programmers are lucky in that they can take code they've written, and say
"see, here's my proof that I can do the job".Other types of jobs (like sales),
however, are reputation based, and you damn well better make sure the opinion
of the person who is vouching for your candidate is legitimate.

~~~
maxxxxx
"You'll never be able to trust a candidate who lies."

This also goes the other way. I have had companies lie to me about salary
structure or working conditions and it definitely hurt my loyalty when I found
out that I had been lied to.

~~~
vkou
You're supposed to lie in socially acceptable ways. Preferably ones where both
parties know the other is lying.

Your boss lies to you that he can't give you a raise, you lie to the hiring
manager that you won't take the job without a 10% bump in pay, your VP lies
that the merger won't affect headcount, etc.

~~~
Retra
None of those are socially acceptable. But I dunno, maybe you live in a shit
place.

------
crescentfresh
The place I'm at now forbids employees from being references for past
employees (or current employees discreetly seeking other employment). Is this
normal?

It would have prevented "Jim" or anyone else at ACME Corp from being a
reference to catfish-er, so requests for a reference from the company would
have been denied right off the bat. That would have made it harder to spot the
fake.

~~~
notyourday
It is fairly standard. Most of the companies would only verify if someone
worked between the two dates and what was the position to avoid lawsuits.

~~~
salvar
Standard in the US maybe, but I've never even heard of anything like this in
the UK. I'm sure it happens, but I will eat my hat if it's fairly standard.

~~~
jdietrich
Most larger companies require references to at least be checked by HR.
Employers have a duty of care to provide accurate references for their former
employees. There's a non-trivial risk that a manager could provide a bad or
indifferent reference simply because of a personal grudge, which the company
could be held liable for.

[http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKHL/1994/7.html](http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKHL/1994/7.html)

~~~
justherefortart
I've only had one company and 2 government jobs check my references in 25
years in the field (feds were checking for clearance, so required).

I call my references to see if they were contacted after I've been offered
positions in the past it's amazing how little it happens.

I don't check references because I don't give a shit. You're either giving
people that like you, or why would you be giving them at all. If you're still
employed, calling that person's current job is a huge no-no (could cost them
their employment).

What the fuck is so hard about just figuring out if you like someone and
hiring them. Telling them fully what goals you expect them to achieve and
giving them the tools to do the job. Then if they're not successful, letting
them go.

Oh yeah, you'd have to be a good employee yourself and work for a good company
to do that.

------
thieving_magpie
>Rule #2: Take a long hard look at a candidate’s social profiles.

That worries me if I need to enter the job market. I have no social media
profile with my name attached to it. I don't enjoy the
facebook/twitter/instagram style sites.

~~~
mr_toad
I doubt employers who search out candidates on social media are looking for
good things. They’re probably looking for red flags, and potentially anything
could be a red flag to some people.

------
alex_young
I know a guy who catfished Forbes for years about his net worth and parlayed
that into a sweet job in federal government with lifetime benefits! [1]

[1] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/trump-lied-to-me-
abou...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/trump-lied-to-me-about-his-
wealth-to-get-onto-the-forbes-400-here-are-the-
tapes/2018/04/20/ac762b08-4287-11e8-8569-26fda6b404c7_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.2ebb6dc7cc54)

~~~
hudibras
Oh wait, I thought you were talking about this guy:

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2017/11/07/the-
cas...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2017/11/07/the-case-of-
wilbur-ross-phantom-2-billion/)

------
njharman
> He impressed each interviewer with his knowledge and passion for the brand,
> his sales acumen, outbound hunter mentality, and overall presence.

> Our Catfish never faltered, kept a smile on his face the entire time, and
> did his homework. We even talked about sales operations, discussed the pros
> and cons of MEDDIC, and talked about Salesforce workflows. I mean, this guy
> was pretty good.

Sounds like they were an excellent candidate. That you let go.

~~~
austenallred
They were a great candidate right up until the "lied on their resume and in
job interviews, also created a fake email address and phone number to pretend
to be someone else" part.

~~~
Spearchucker
You don't know that. The only way you're going to know that is to ask why.
Call him back in, tell him is skillz are the bomb, but why lie? Who knows,
there _might_ be an acceptable answer.

------
kelukelugames
This is not a catfish. This is a person lying on their resume

~~~
tzakrajs
They also gave a fake reference number implying they were prepared to pose as
someone else to social engineer. That is beyond lying on a resume.

~~~
dx034
I think he never called it? Maybe it was just an invalid number.

------
dewiz
I was hoping to find out from the story why this catfish lied in the first
place. If they passed the interview so well they must be someway good.

~~~
mihaifm
In the tech world I would imagine a scenario where you don't have any
professional experience in language X, you've been working only in language Y,
but you've done some personal projects in language X and would like a career
shift. It's hard to get a senior position without any experience.

~~~
merinowool
Just do a project in language X on a professional, senior level and if you
incorporate, you can write you worked for that company on that project.

------
piptastic
That's odd. The author defends his "backdoor reference checks" by saying he
would have never caught the catfish otherwise. Then later on the same person
he contacted for his "backdoor reference check" was given to him as a
reference, which would have happened regardless.

~~~
darrenkopp
Yes, but they might have naively used the given number rather than the number
they personally had, out of convenience, which would have caused the catfish
to succeed.

~~~
netsharc
But no, the author knew Jim, if he had dialed that number and did a bit of
small talk he would've known that's not Jim on the phone (unless the fake Jim
is quick on his feet about pretending to be someone else).

The catfisher is stupid, he should've looked through the author's LinkedIn
profile and saw that the author is connected with Jim, he would have not used
Jim as a reference if he had done that.

~~~
darrenkopp
Oh, I see what you are saying. Yeah, that is a good point.

------
Willson50
Does being a catfish really matter if they passed the rest of the interview
process?

~~~
amorphid
If you're going to outright lie to my face & get caught, you'd better have a
proof that you had discovered a brain tumor after having told the lie,
pictures of the tumor being removed, and a doctor's note explaining "healthy
now - no more liar liar pants on fire".

~~~
hfdgiutdryg
Why? Management lies to employees constantly. Sales lies to customers
constantly. Why the sudden insistence on honesty?

~~~
bduerst
So it's okay to lose an arm if you've already lost a leg?

Because honesty is better than dishonesty?

~~~
ironjunkie
Ahah, that's what management tells you. While telling you at the same time
that you shouldn't ask for a raise as they don't give those out this year.

~~~
bduerst
So you lie to your coworkers and customers, because someone else lied to you
at some point? I'm not sure I quite follow...

~~~
ironjunkie
It is all a game in which everyone pretends to be honest, but walks a fine
line of acceptable lies. I'm only reacting to the "feel good" line that
everyone is honest. This is not the way it works and we should not be duped to
believe that.

~~~
bduerst
Believing that honest > dishonesty is not the same as being duped into
believing that there are no dishonest people... This article is proof enough
of that, and nobody is making that claim.

------
southphillyman
I know this candidate lied but them navigating the interview process so
impressively appears to validate that they are good at selling......

~~~
jkFeiwi
More like: validate that they are good at lying

------
catfish123
Disclaimer: I not condoning any lying and misdirection.

It's interesting how we seem to tolerate plenty of lying and manipulation from
managers, even more CEOs and the ads industry (ads are communication from
companies) and even more from politicians.

For an unemployed person, lying might be seen as necessary not to end up
homeless.

For a CEO or a politician perhaps it can be about getting marginally more
support or power or money.

Again, I'm not condoning it. Yet it seems society is less forgiving with the
less fortunate.

------
rdtsc
I was recruiting developers for 5 years or so. We've had a few ones who
managed to almost slip by like this. Almost...

The most obvious was when I started doing it, there was the one who copied a
project from Github and presented as his own work. "Hey look what I built!"
kind of a thing.

The problem is I like work samples (more than whiteboard algorithm puzzles),
they perhaps didn't plan on that, so I got excited and start asking questions.
Usually that leads to a great time and I learn a lot about their work,
attitude, how well they can explain a problem etc.

Well it turns out he couldn't explain how it works. I was baffled. Here is
this awesome candidate -- personable, friendly and built this great
application but was having difficulty explaining the basics. So I asked my
coworker during lunch. He went did some research and found the original
project on GH. I felt like an idiot after that. But better me feeling like an
idiot that spending months on salary and admin work only to find we got a dud.

------
venuur
This seems to be more of a story of a flawed interview process. The author
claims all the interviews when very well. This suggests their questions are
not substantive enough to actually distinguish an experienced candidate from
others. Alternatively, the “catfish” was amply qualified and faked references
for reasons not discussed in the article.

------
rb808
The real question is how many people normally get the job with embellished
resume's, fake recommendations and friends as references. I think its quite a
high percentage. I'm always honest but I think I've missed out on a lot of
jobs I could easily do because I don't meet the "requirements".

~~~
cascom
There is a big difference between embellished and fake. I always assume there
is some title/responsibility inflation on resumes i read, but i generally
assume that those people did in fact work at those companies in those groups,
etc.

------
Const-me
> a catfish is someone who creates a false identity

By this definition, U.S. Marshals Service is a bunch of catfishes:
[https://people.howstuffworks.com/witness-
protection.htm/prin...](https://people.howstuffworks.com/witness-
protection.htm/printable)

~~~
eeZah7Ux
Social networks are making witness protection very risky.

For a witness the old "we know where you live" is now 100 times more plausible
and threatening.

------
anothergoogler
I hope the author knows that you don't need a backdoor reference check to
confirm past employment.

------
xtrapolate
(1) I don't want to hire dishonest/unreliable/disingenuous people. I wouldn't
want to work alongside them, and I prefer to distance myself from such
personalities at all cost.

(2) From a job seeker's perspective, I don't want to be secretly spied on by a
potential employer. I can (and often will) volunteer any information
necessary, through a mutually agreed upon channel. I wouldn't want someone
prying through my personal social network accounts, secretly contacting random
people that may or may not know me from past workplaces. I wouldn't want a
potential employer making baseless assumptions based on my social media
accounts (or lack thereof).

~~~
pfortuny
quote: “if I didn’t do my backdoor checks I would have never uncovered the
Catfish.”

So: the end justifies the means...

This is the way of tyranny. Unbelievable and unacceptable.

------
pc86
> _But, in the end, something would have slipped and the situation would have
> caused repercussions six months down the line._

Sorry but I just don't believe this part. People have faked their way into
high paying, high powered jobs like this before. Sometimes they're caught, but
I just can't bring myself to believe that every single person gets caught
every single time.

I've often thought about creating an entirely fake, nearly perfect resume for
a VP or SVP job just to see if I could even get an interview, but I don't want
to waste anyone's time with that and I'd be more than a little worried about
the professional implications.

------
organicmultiloc
You can call it "catfishing" like you just captured a criminal mastermind, but
people of color generally don't have the reference game down and are forced
into doing stuff like this in order to avoid having their application thrown
in the garbage.

References are more of a "how many connected white people do you know" check
than anything else. If you always had references to call on before you even
finished school than you probably won't even understand the world of people
who did not, and the people who didn't get that first internship and have no
way to break in short of fraud.

------
paul7986
I’m so happy that I’m older and do not work in a place filled with young or
insecure people all worried about making themselves look best vs. working
together/pulling in each other’s strengths and getting the job done awesomely.
I could never work at Google or places where you exhaust yourself physically
and emotionally to shine brighter then the next. Barf!!!

This manager’s hiring post reads to me like a company filled with brogrammers.

------
megy
> The next day I received two references from the recruiter—but neither was a
> manager and neither was from Acme Corp. Apparently she was still waiting for
> that particular reference. Odd…but OK. Why wouldn’t he have that info
> readily available?

Getting ref's takes time, it is silly to think it doesn't. You need to contact
the people and ask them first, and lots of people are very busy with work. You
are not there priority.

~~~
jiveturkey
apparently the contact came from an outside recruiter. not from the candidate
himself. when dealing with an agency like this, the agency normally has refs
in hand, in advance.

------
xor1
>backdoor reference check

Anyone know a good place to do one of these on myself? I have an infraction on
record (traffic ticket) that apparently shows up as a misdemeanor in at least
one database. I found this out during my Global Entry interview. I'd like to
begin the long and painful process of unraveling this, but I don't really know
where to start. It could be a problem in just one database, or in dozens.

~~~
dx034
I would be very surprised if that flags up anywhere, unless you apply for a
government position.

------
emodendroket
I'm not going to defend lying on your resume, but the contours of this story
are interesting -- they talked to this guy because of the fraudulent history,
and then were champing at the bit to hire him, which suggests that in every
other way he was a good candidate. Perhaps we're putting an excessive emphasis
on the previous companies someone's worked at.

~~~
mercer
I'm not sure what you're trying to say. Based on the story itself, I have no
reason to believe that they'd have dismissed him if he had been honest _and_
competent.

~~~
emodendroket
The story seems to suggest he was "comfortable" with him after he saw his work
history, which suggested to me that an honest resume may have ended up in the
trash can without any interview.

~~~
mercer
Ah, right. I can see that.

------
briandear
I really hate the so-called term “catfished” it’s a completely contrived word
that came from a 2010 movie that probably 50 people actually saw. “Ghosting”
is another one, but at least you can use context to sort of figure out what
people are actually talking about.

A bit off topic, but this adulteration of language — from an obscure pop-
culture reference, is a bit silly.

Obviously the author agrees that most people don’t know what the term means or
he wouldn’t feel compelled to explain what the heck catfishing actually means
in the second paragraph.

Urban dictionary != real dictionary. I guess in another life I must have been
a member of the Academie Française. Or maybe just too old to be cool.

It’s so fetch apparently that I and a large number of non-Buzzfeed aficionados
just don’t get it.

~~~
pavlov
MTV's "Catfish" series has had seven seasons so far and is shown around the
world. It's not obscure at all.

~~~
netsharc
But how did they get the name? From the movie.

I saw the documentary on a flight. I guess I'm part of the 6.57x10^-7 percent!

~~~
pavlov
It doesn't matter where the name came from. The MTV show could be called "Sea
Urchin" and it would still define the phenomenon.

------
segmondy
Lot's of candidates lie. The one test that we gave that most people copied was
converting decimal to roman number. They copied the first solution that they
found, variable names, etc. the few times they changed the variable names,
they kept the same number of spacing, braces in same position.

So one line might have "if (...){ " where another has "if(...){"

How demanding can this be? Once money is involved, folks will do almost
anything. I had to fire a recruiter once for asking me to lie. Updated my
resume, sent me the updated copy with tools I don't know and have no intention
of learning and said he was going to use that.

~~~
Clubber
>The one test that we gave that most people copied was converting decimal to
roman number.

I've read some really stupid programming questions, but that has got to be one
of the top 5 stupidest.

Also, I think you mean to say "integer," as Romans didn't have the concept of
"decimal."

[http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/52552.html](http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/52552.html)

~~~
dx034
Why stupid? As a take-home exercise it doesn't sound too bad. Won't take
forever to solve but still requires some understanding of algorithms. Not as
easy as FizzBuzz but also nothing you can't solve after work.

~~~
Clubber
1\. The candidate must know how roman numerals work to pass. (This was before
OP said it was a take home test which makes it a little better, but ...)

2\. The question uses the term "decimal," rather than "integer." Roman
numerals don't account for decimal numbers, so it's not even an accurately
answerable question as posed.

3\. When you google Roman Numerals and decimal, the first link tells you this.
I assume the writer didn't event attempt to google.

4\. The question will filter out candidates who don't know how roman numerals
work and / or googled it to research how roman numerals work. Not only are
these good candidates filtered out, but now they are telling all their other
good candidate friends about that company and their stupid questions.

5\. The pool of good candidates that will respond to your opening just
temporarily diminished by a few people (depending on friends in #4)

6\. For all this, the business didn't even test something that is in any way
relevant to what that business does, unless that business is a digital clock
face maker for smart watches or something.

If any one of these happened, that's bad. Way more thought and consideration
should have gone into this question.

~~~
segmondy
It was a typo. Not decimal. But whatever.

~~~
Clubber
Ya, whatever. I guess you failed that test, huh? You must be a bad programmer
based on that. Better luck at your next interview.

See how silly the premise is?

~~~
dx034
Isn't a quality of a software engineer to produce good code even when the
specification isn't 100% correct? A lot of bad software exists because it was
designed to only do what was written in the spec with no room for flexibility.
Good engineers will have a dialogue with other stakeholders and clarify any
issues and potential future uses.

That means, if you read decimals for roman numerals you'd ask them to clarify
as there are no decimals, just integers. They'll admit the mistake and already
know that you read the task properly.

~~~
Clubber
Sure, a great software developer can built a solution with a simple problem
definition, "We spend a lot of money communicating with stakeholders."

You have to understand though, as a good developer, if someone asks me a
question like that, it strongly implies that they don't know what the hell
they are even doing. Hiring managers have to be keenly aware of what their
questions are implying about their companies. I don't think many give it much
though other than googling, "tough interview questions."

FWIW, I've sat on both sides of that table.

------
jpz
I presume an "AE role" is an account executive role - which must be a sales
and relationship role?

It would seem to me that he aced his interview - he certainly sold the story!

I don't mean to imply sales is unethical btw, I know ethical sales people -
but the fact they couldn't filter the prospective candidate on actual skills
or knowledge, and only filtered the candidate for fabrication, seems to
indicate they are hiring for people of a certain background.

The fact he gamed that is quite impressive, but it also speaks a lot about
whatever the hiring criteria is.

------
the_watcher
Isn't employment verification a standard part of background checks? Whenever
I've gone through them, I've had to provide contact info to verify my
employment at least 5 years back.

------
phendrenad2
Isn't a "backdoor reference check" a great way to tip off the candidate's
current employer that they're looking around, and make the candidate your
enemy for life?

------
jiveturkey
> My team and I are a pretty savvy group.

Except for the repeated evidence of an overinflated sense of self, pretty fun
reading. I'm left thinking, wow, this really happens?!?

~~~
itronitron
well, the story could be completely made up...

------
ww520
This read like a soft marketing material for Linkedin.

------
dx034
Is getting a reference from your current manager considered standard? How do
you get that without tipping your manager off?

------
blauditore
Wouldn't the fake reference part be easy to debunk? If applicable, call the
company's generic (front desk) phone number and ask to be forwarded to XY. If
the company is too large for that, use email and make sure the domain of the
address you got matches the official company website.

------
mediocrejoker
Am I the only one who was really distracted by the use of the term Catfish in
every other sentence?

I've heard the term and I know there was a film called Catfish a few years
about someone who created a fake identity online but I didn't realize it was
such a common term.

How is a catfish different from a fraud?

------
Iv
I am not sure why she feels it shows such a glaring hole in their recruitment
process? Interviews and CVs are extremely vulnerable to lying. The only step
in the process to catch liars is exactly what she did: be a bit paranoid about
references.

------
viach
I can't imagine someone passed a software developer interview and got rejected
over the bad references, or better, even having checked his references at all.
Something to consider before moving to Bay Area.

------
tomcooks
I'd have sat down with him and told him I know he's lying, but hire him anyway
because he managed to adapt to the situation and excel (which is exactly what
I want from a manager).

------
cascom
Almost every job I ever had had an intermediate step with
background/biographical reference checks after I accepted the offer, but
before I started.

~~~
dx034
That makes sense. Once you signed, it's easy to get a reference from your
employer (at least factual). Before that it's unnecessary. Especially if there
are more tests to come, I don't want 10 companies requesting references when I
look for a new job.

------
_bxg1
Why would you do this? Either you can do the job or you can't... I guess if
the entire job is remote you could outsource the work to someone else?

~~~
quickthrower2
Can do the job != Can convince company to hire you

~~~
_bxg1
Right but if it turns out you're a fraud it'll become apparent almost
immediately and they'll just... fire you. What would you gain from that?

~~~
quickthrower2
Not much, probably it's a personality type thing.

------
bausshf
Good article, but please fix the site.

The stars for certain text will cover text in the article making some things
"hard" to read.

------
woolvalley
Why are backdoor reference checks "necessary—especially in the Bay Area"?

------
linkmotif
How is this catfishing? Isn't this just attempting to lie to get a job?

------
AlexCoventry
What is an "outbound hunter mentality"?

~~~
chunger
Cold calling, usually.

It means that they're not only working leads that come in from marketing
campaigns, website, & emails (these are inbound, initiated by a potential
customer). Typically means picking up the phone and calling strangers to try
and sell them things (initiated by you - outbound).

------
jyew
interesting, lots of people are condemning this lying act but have no problem
with the "fake it till you make it" culture

------
lentil_soup
Off topic, but what's an "AE"?

~~~
calcifer
Account Executive, I think.

------
GBond
Isn't this the plot of Mad Men?

------
matz1
It's all depends, for sales person, I don't care if you lies, as long as you
can sell and the client happy.

------
ianamartin
Coming soon to a blog near you: "I was the perfect candidate and didn't get
the offer because companies hire based on who you know and where you worked,
not how good you are."

Assuming that all of this is completely accurate and not at all written by
someone who's a little wonky (Honestly, heart palpitations over a fucking
candidate? Dude, cool your jets, man. You are waaaaaaaaay too stressed about
this.) it's still an extremely unusual situation.

Anyone who uses this one--in my opinion at least partially false and possibly
entirely fabricated--instance to go around giving advice about hiring has a
screw loose.

The takeaways are incredibly suspect.

1\. Trust your gut.

You know what? Fuck your gut. I don't care about your gut. Or mine. Gut
instincts are more often than not a thinly veiled excuse for allowing racism,
sexism, and insecurity into the hiring decision. Instead of something murky
and nebulous like a gut instinct, try having a process instead. And follow it,
even if it disagrees with your gut.

2\. Social profile

Fuck that too. Social profiles are bullshit. LinkedIn is a bullshit predictor
of anything and a bullshit indicator of past performance. So is GitHub.

3\. References--given or backdoor

Fuck this too. References are meaningless. Don't bother. The references a
candidate gives you are going to be at least neutral if not glowing. Extremely
few people are dumb enough to give bad references. Backdoor references are
extremely unethical. References are noise, not signal.

4\. Stalk your candidates online looking for anything suspicious.

Wait for it . . . .

Fuck this too. If you dig deep enough, you'll find something wrong with
everyone.

The author says he doesn't know what would've happened if he'd gone ahead with
the hire. I do. The author would've continued the neurotic and unhealthy
behavior displayed in the article. He would've continued to be the kind of
boss who makes decisions based on his gut regardless of anything else a
situation might be calling for. He would've brought the candidate into a toxic
work environment run by a person who is entirely too emotionally involved with
his job. The author would probably have ended up firing the candidate and then
later refused to acknowledge that he ever worked there when future companies
called for references.

In my opinion, every element of this article is extremely suspect. From the
veracity of the facts therein to the takeaways based on them, it all smells a
little . . . fishy. My main takeaway is that I should remember to never apply
to work at this company. But then again, that's just my gut talking.

------
partycoder
tl;dr: A guy tried to social engineer a recruiter by providing fake references
and creating fake profiles. The recruiter verified the references through
contacts in the mentioned companies.

A better conclusion for this unnecessarily long article: pay for a background
check including employment verification once the candidate passes all
interview rounds.

------
fwdpropaganda
> We even talked about sales operations, discussed the pros and cons of
> MEDDIC, and talked about Salesforce workflows. I mean, this guy was pretty
> good.

> Maybe he wouldn’t have even known how to log into Salesforce.

I think the author is just a pretty bad interviewer.

------
gaius
For everyone that fakes their way through an interview, there’s a job ad that
was a bait-and-switch anyway. That is just how the game is played now. I don’t
like it either, but don’t hate the player.

------
ihsw2
Catfishing can be the only way to get a job. The article author clearly
reinforces this by explicitly stating that he was attracted to this candidate
on the basis of their pedigree.

Here is a person that would've otherwise been fine but their only
qualification missing was something outside of their control -- repeat,
someone that would've otherwise been a qualified candidate. Is the tech
industry driven by merit or is it driven by nepotism? You decide.

------
ebbv
Tip #3 is pretty silly. Lots of people don't use LinkedIn, it's a horrible
site, and a LinkedIn profile isn't proof of anything.

Spend more time talking to your candidates and ask for real references. Don't
trust phone numbers and emails given by the candidate, if someone references
someone who works at a company then contact the company through their public
contact methods.

------
eecc
Very upbeat narrative, guy sounds so proud of himself. Also very short
sentences, is it usual to write so naively, perhaps a kind of mannerism
meaning to be true?

------
hfdgiutdryg
_Maybe he would have been great and our best performing AE. Maybe he wouldn’t
have even known how to log into Salesforce. Or, even worse, maybe he would
have been dishonest about something down the line. Whatever the outcome,
better to suss it out early._

So, the person appeared competent and capable, and "may have been our best
performing AE" but it's "better to suss it out early" by immediately rejecting
him?

Sounds like they should have considered some sort of short-term contact to
evaluate the guy. Instead, their ego was bruised, so they rejected him and
patted themselves on the back.

~~~
huebnerob
Your stance is that they should have hired the guy who blatantly
misrepresented himself to them?

Hard disagree, even if this guy is the best that ever was, he's shown his true
colors. The second it's beneficial to him, he'll lie again.

~~~
hfdgiutdryg
My position is that, in his own words, the applicant "may have been our best
performing AE", but the solution was to reject him.

As for misrepresenting oneself, what's the actual problem? If he's got the
ability to do the job, who cares if he lied to get through the Byzantine
interview process? And, as I already said, _employers (management) lie all the
time_.

