
Lying on your resume - ridruejo
http://steveblank.com/2012/07/30/lying-on-your-resume/
======
btilly
There is a general rule of thumb. People who don't cheat, tend to strongly
dislike people who do. People who do cheat, convince themselves that everyone
does it, and it isn't a big detail.

Admittedly a ton of people cheat. But as someone who doesn't cheat, if I find
out that you did, I'm going to lobby to not have to have you as a co-worker.

I have no idea how many people there are out there like me. Hopefully enough
to discourage you from cheating. (Probably not, but I'd like to believe that
it is not just a quixotic gesture on my part.)

~~~
derefr
In general, I don't cheat, but I don't find any problem with other people
cheating, either. I think the difference is that you find the axis on which
you are or aren't cheating (in this conversation, a degree) important and
worth ranking and measuring people against. I don't. It's a silly game and
people can have whatever numbers they like if they (or, perhaps, their
parents) really want them.

I like knowing that the number I got was the one I honestly deserved (this is
the same reason I never, say, crammed before tests in school--the grade I got
wouldn't have reflected my lasting knowledge of the subject), but I know that
I can't trust anyone _else's_ degrees/certifications/previous employments and
commendations et al. to represent their honest talent/skill/dedication, so
it's a bit silly to consider them any kind of useful _comparative_ (rather
than self-evaluative) measure.

Like that other poster keeps pointing out in the job threads: if you want to
hire good knowledge workers, an IQ test and a work-sample test will get you
further than any set of expensive status-signalling criteria ever could.

~~~
btilly
_...if you want to hire good knowledge workers, an IQ test and a work-sample
test will get you further than any set of expensive status-signalling criteria
ever could._

I have seen data supporting that. However it could also land you in court for
discrimination, see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co.>.

Most companies are risk adverse, and hence an IQ test as an admission criteria
is verboten.

~~~
daniel-cussen
I believe only the army is still allowed to do it.

~~~
eblume
My understanding is that anyone can do it if they provide a validation study
showing that the IQ test directly correlates to job performance and doesn't
discriminate on other protected statuses. My understanding is also that the
number of companies that have done this is as close to 0 as makes no odds.

~~~
gergles
No, it _can_ discriminate on other protected statuses as long as you can prove
that the test has a direct correlation to work performance. (Actually, the
decisions require 'a strong basis in evidence' of 'business necessity', which
you would demonstrate by showing a strong correlation.)

See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricci_v._DeStefano> for the state of the art
in I/O psych/job placement/etc.

------
rickdale
Seinfeld Moment:

George: Alright. Listen, I gotta get some reading done. You mind if I do this
here? I can't concentrate in my apartment.

Jerry (checking out George's textbook): Risk management?

George: Yeah. Steinbrenner wants everyone in the front office to give a
lecture in their area of business expertise.

Jerry: Well what makes them think you're a risk management expert?

George: I guess it's on my resume.

------
ChuckMcM
One of the real features of not lying is that you don't have to remember it.
But if you lie you have to tell the same exact lie to everyone or get caught
up in it. Why add to the stress of an already stressful process (interviewing)
by adding a bunch of untruths you have to keep track of?

On the College Degree question I see a degree as the first thing you do where
you don't have to do it. Or more precisely you have found it within your self
to accomplish a goal that took longer than a year with an uncertain outcome
and one where you could quit at any time. A lot of engineering work can be
like that. Something that is going to take a couple or three years to realize,
will have bits of crap in the middle that will be annoying but required to do,
and will have an uncertain outcome.

So if you have a degree I know you can do that, if you don't I have to probe
to see if you can. If you haven't had a job where something took more than a
couple of years to deliver I don't know if you can stick with something long
enough to get it done. That is an issue for me as a hiring manager. Now if you
left college because you were working on something _else_ and that took you a
few years to get right and shipped, well that works just fine for me.

~~~
j_baker
You're placing too much emphasis on completing things. The vast majority of
startups won't be around for the length of time you're suggesting. The vast
majority of BigCos have plenty of people who can finish projects and maintain
the status quo.

Both kinds of companies need people who can _start_ major projects and get
results quickly.

~~~
ChuckMcM
"You're placing too much emphasis on completing things."

Probably, I try not to hire folks who can't complete things. I think you're
off on your startup timing through. I know lots of startups that took a year
to get to their MVP and then another to get to something they were willing to
call 1.0. But by the same token I don't think of things you could do in a
weekend and ship as being 'startups'.

------
debacle
My degree was a formality. It's a footnote on my resume, for HR's eyes only.

When I get into the interview, I'm completely candid - All college taught me
was how to pay off debt. I'm still learning.

~~~
freehunter
College taught me something about lying on a resume. I was applying for a job
and took my resume to the school's career services person to look it over. She
asked me a couple questions about hobbies and classes and said she'd get back
to me with an updated resume. A couple days later, I really needed to get my
resume in, and she finally sent it back to me. I forwarded it off with just a
slight once-over.

During the interview, the man uttered a phrase that stopped my heart: "So,
tell me about your electrical engineering experience." As it turned out, the
career services woman understood my basic PC building skills as electrical
engineering skills. Much like you, I was up-front in the interview and told
him that it was a mistake on the resume. I got the job.

~~~
atomical
You: That's a mistake on my resume.

Him: Oh why is that?

You: Because I had someone else do my resume.

(odd pause)

Him: You're hired!

~~~
gcp
The resumes of people straight out of college/university are often horrible,
so this is more likely than you think.

I don't know why that is though, it's obviously important. Maybe these, err,
kids, think that as they have no working experience, employers aren't likely
to look at it a lot?

~~~
freehunter
It's really hard to build a resume without having experience (in both your
career and in creating a resume). When your main accomplishments consist of
taking classes in your field of study, what do you put down that is both
relevant and not too much information? How do you predict what the company
wants to see on a resume when many job postings flat-out lie to you, puffing
up the job and inventing requirements that don't actually exist? How do you
emphasize that you know these skills but don't have any concrete evidence
beyond a degree to prove it?

It can be done, obviously. But making a good resume is a skill that generally
take time to master. If you do it right the first time, you may never need a
resume again. These difficulties are why career services exist at colleges.
And even they can't get it right sometimes.

~~~
gcp
I agree with all your points.

My exasperation comes from the CS field interviewing recent CS graduates. Many
don't put the personal/hobby programming/adminning/etc projects they have done
on their resume. The result is a resume of less than half a page that lists
their name, study and hobbies (outside CS!). And sometimes with sloppy
formatting & layout.

They presume "it wasn't real work" so it "doesn't count". _I_ 'll be the judge
of what counts!

~~~
mhurron
Who puts their hobbies on their resume?

~~~
freehunter
If your hobby (programming, Arduino, security research) is relevant to your
industry, it's a great way to tell people that you know and are interested in
something without making it the main focus of your resume.

If I'm applying for a network administration job, knowing the Linux source
code wouldn't be required but you'd better believe putting "hobbyist Linux
programmer" would do nothing to hurt your chances of being hired.

------
Peroni
UK based experience here so my experience may not apply outside that.

As some of you know, I worked as a successful technical recruiter for a number
of years and I only ever came across one organisation that requires proof of
your educational qualifications. The rest simply assume you're telling the
truth.

It's a risky strategy but in software development at least, someone with a few
years of development experience under their belt who lies about having a CS
degree will struggle to maintain the lie once they are given tasks that
require a fundamental understanding of programming theory. The more experience
you have, the easier it is to pull it off.

On a side note, we interview tech directors and CTO's on a regular basis and
ask each of them _How important is a CS degree in todays market?_ as well as
_How much value do you place in a Developers personal projects such as github
& demo sites when they apply for a job with your company?_ and the answers
give an interesting insight into the mindset and importance of experience
versus qualifications.

Link: <http://hackerjobs.co.uk/blog>

~~~
adam-a
As a UK based programmer I've had 3 jobs since leaving University. Out of
those, 2 I recall asked to see proof of my degree (photo copy of my graduation
certificate). The other I can't remember but I think they did too.

This is probably because I am a more recent graduate, if I had 10 years
experience I imagine that would be more important to companies than my
education. However, I think plenty of places do take it quite seriously.

~~~
Peroni
I'm sure most companies would require proof for a recently graduated
programmer but as your experience grows, the quality checking decreases.

------
Tyrannosaurs
As someone who hires if I find a lie on your CV, even a relatively small one,
I have to make the assumption that you're untrustworthy and I won't hire you.
It may be the only one but I have limited exposure to you and limited time to
build a view so one lie is a big deal.

And if you say "I did it to get your attention", my response would be "why,
haven't you done anything real worth my attention?"

The problem is that most people who lie aren't undiscovered geniuses, they're
simply liars. I might miss out on a genuis at some point in my career but I'm
certainly going to miss out on a lot of the grief that comes with hiring
dishonest people.

EDIT: Removed a section based on something I think I've misunderstood.

~~~
cgmorton
Hold on. I might have misread, but I thought the point was he -didn't lie-. He
put 'Mensa' because he was in Mensa. It stood out because so many other people
had an 'education' section at that spot on their resumes.

~~~
wccrawford
There's a lot of confusion about that. I thought that was the point, too, but
enough other people thought differently that I searched for him.

He doesn't seem to be a current member of Mensa. That doesn't mean he wasn't a
member at the time, though. So far as I know, there's no way to look up
records of past members. (Except maybe by a Mensa employee, which I'm not.)

Still, I don't think he meant that it was a lie. If someone asked me about it
on my resume, my answer would be much the same as his. I usually have a second
reason, though: If it bothers anyone that I'm a member, I don't want to work
there. In my experience, people who have a beef against Mensans tend to make
life very hard for smart people in general. They seem to make it their life
goal to bring them down a notch. I don't need the extra stress, so I just
avoid those companies.

------
rm999
Recently I interviewed a candidate for a fairly niche but high demand field. I
generally liked him - he had skills that would have been useful to the team,
and he was a very bright person. But a couple of us felt he exaggerated
aspects of his resume by sprinkling in a couple of bullet points he knew we
were interested in (from the posting) but didn't understand well. He would
have fit well on our team, but ultimately we decided we couldn't trust him. If
he lied about being "proficient" in skill #2, how did we know he wasn't lying
about certain achievements or even jobs from the past?

I realize his lie was less severe than making up an education (and ironically
much easier to catch), but it's a good example of how small lies can do a lot
of damage.

~~~
barrkel
> If he lied about being "proficient" in skill #2, how did we know he wasn't
> lying about certain achievements or even jobs from the past?

I think you can tell if someone is lying about specific job experience in
technical areas; when you drill down, the detail won't be there.

But there's a more general issue here (though I think you're only slightly
guilty, because your leap is quite small). It's about a kind of intuition
about dishonesty being an aspect of a person's character, rather than a mode
of behaviour in a particular scenario. A lot of people make wild jumps from
single actions to an inference about behaviour in lots of different
situations. I think behaviour is heavily dependent on the situation, and much
of what we think of as "character" is unwarranted.

People generalize from small incidents (of honorable or dishonorable
behaviour) to a character classification, and then specialize these labels
back down to predictions of behaviour elsewhere. But the guy who would never
cheat a shopkeeper out of mistaken change may actually be a tax fraud, not
because of "character", but because of wholly different frames of reference,
possibly even resentment of government.

It's the same with people who judge "attention to detail" by spelling or
grammar errors. I label them narrow-minded myself :)

~~~
ajross
I'm with you 100% right up to your last point, which sounds just wrong to me.
The whole idea of "attention to detail" is that it's a personality trait that
allows a person to see small details and defects _even in areas where they
aren't expert_. And most of us believe it exists.

So yes: if you submit a resume with clear spelling errors (i.e. ones caught by
a spel chkr) most of us would take that as evidence of a lack of attention to
detail. And we'd generalize to you skipping a test case before pushing code,
or making sure all your stock photos are licensed before deploying the site,
or...

~~~
barrkel
I'll agree with you on spelling errors on a CV, but not when generalizing from
e.g. forum posts or random emails.

------
Tycho
_When I got my first job in Silicon Valley it was through serendipity (my
part) and desperation (on the part of my first employer.) I really didn’t have
much of a resume – four years in the Air Force, building a scram system for a
nuclear reactor, a startup in Ann Arbor Michigan but not much else._

Statements like that make me think most of the HN crowd live in a different
stratosphere. That's a pretty good resume by normal standards.

~~~
gcp
I fully agree here. Either Silicon Valley was a much more exclusive place in
the 80's, I'm fooled by the 30 year technology difference, or this is needless
self-depreciation.

The resume looks _stellar_ to me.

~~~
msutherl
I have a strong feeling that standards of rigor have dropped considerably
since the 50's, but I have no data to back it up.

~~~
gcp
Maybe it's simple demand vs supply economics? The Valley has had a chronic
shortage of engineers, hasn't it?

------
patdennis
I stopped attending college with one semester left until graduation. It's on
my resume and it's never held me back in any way.

The key is that I was able to prove myself early on in my industry (before
even leaving college). That set me up with the connections I needed to get my
foot in the door.

edit: I guess I should clarify that I left college to take a job, not because
I was failing or anything like that.

~~~
overshard
I'm in the exact same, comfortable, spot. I left college with a year, maybe a
hard semester, until I graduated. Took a great job, had lots of work
experience even before college and have never had a problem. If you have no
experience they look for a degree. If you have no degree they look for
experience. Just make sure you have 1 of 2.

------
DanBC
> Why don’t you make something up.”

This is shocking. In the UK this is potentially a criminal offence, and it
certainly leaves the liar open to civil action. And even if they don't bother
with courts they can just dismiss you and you've lost most of your
protections.

And it sounds like really weird advice. What happens if recruiter tells Joe to
just make something up, and then sometime later has to approach Joe with "a
great candidate; a perfect fit for the job"?

That's for any job. Obviously there are some jobs which are more protected -
you cannot call yourself a dietician or social worker unless you're qualified
and registered.

~~~
shawabawa3
Well for the recruiter it is probably no risk. They get paid if the person
gets hired, nothing happens to the recruiter if the candidate gets
fired/arrested a year down the line for lying on their CV.

~~~
wccrawford
We had recruiters do this to us. We clearly told those recruiters that if we
catch them at it again, we'll stop using them.

They stopped.

It's not 'no risk' for them, but only if they company calls them on it. If
more companies put their foot down, this problem would largely disappear.

~~~
randlet
Why give them a second chance at all? It is essentially a "no risk" situation
for them if the only consequence for them is a slap on the wrist for a first
offence.

~~~
wccrawford
Because like it or not, we needed them. We were willing to take the pain of
dropping them if it was the only way to get them to stop causing us extra
pain.

Since they stopped when forced to, the pain was gone and we continued.

We used a couple other recruiting companies, too, and none of them produced
enough viable candidates to keep the desks filled. (That sounds worse than it
was. It was a growing company.)

------
bmac27
This is a great piece from SB and one I can totally relate to. Since I've
started working for other people, I've never found myself in a serious ethical
quandry with interviewers regarding my dropping out of school. Maybe because
in most cases, I haven't been asked about it as there are lots of folks in my
field (SEO & search marketing in general) who learned on the fly through their
own sites, etc. But if asked, I tell them the path I've taken to get to where
I am, although I try not to go into my life story.

It's usually more of a challenge when speaking socially with co-workers,
especially when you're dealing with real "job people," who follow the school-
career-40-years-of misery path to a tee. Frankly, I try to avoid talking about
it as you're usually subject to one of two diametrically opposing viewpoints.
Usually, they don't say anything that would make it outwardly identifiable but
you can pick it up through body language etc. It's either:

A. "What are you, some kind of idiot?" or B. (what I've gotten more lately)
"What do you think you are, some kind of genius?"

It's funny because I don't consider myself either of those things. But to keep
the conversation away from that, I just avoid talking about it, although I
will if asked. (One guy I used to work with it just stared at me blankly like
I had just kicked his dog or something after I told him I had dropped out of
undergrad and not a masters program, although he was the exception to the
rule!)

I don't know how many companies I've applied to declined to speak further
because of the lack of degree but I've only had one company ever flat out tell
me in the interview process that they couldn't hire me: and that was an
education lead-gen company.

Honesty & transparency really are your best weapons in situations like this.

~~~
Futurebot
Dealing with people who do not like those that do something else than (what
the listener expects) the "default" thing happens in so many contexts. Not
going to college is just one of many. Some simply have a difficult time with
those who "live intentionally" - they seem dangerous, subversive, maybe even
untrustworthy to said listener. Try explaining to certain people that you're
over 30 and not married (and never will be), don't have children (and don't
want them), live alone, don't own a house or a car (and take public transport)
and watch as their faces change to shock, confusion, or abject terror. It's a
particularly odd reaction as these things (like not getting married, living
alone, etc.) become more common in places, but some
groups/cultures/subcultures simply have not caught up with that reality.

It's perhaps a ubiquitous reaction to those perceived as "purposeful"
outsiders.

------
54mf
I have zero college experience, I've never lied about it, and I've never had a
problem getting a job. In fairness, my specific area of expertise (front-end
design/development) is one where you can make a real name for yourself simply
by building something awesome, but I'm still of the opinion that moxy and
gusto will take you farther in many fields than a degree. Especially in
technology.

------
justin_hancock
I have had the joy of interviewing people who've lied on their CVs (Resumes).
One particular pearl was a guy claiming he'd worked on a particular project I
had lead, I proceeded to ask him about the project who ran it, what it was
about etc, he gave some vague answers, needless to say he didn't get the job.

Though the worst offenders for this aren't individual agents, its usually 3rd
parties such as body shops trying to provide augmentation staff or recruitment
agents doctoring resumes to try and get candidates in. I believe it was the
case with my earlier example.

~~~
crusso
I consider even small lies on a resume to be red flags. The worst ones are
lies that don't have to be told to get the job. They expose character flaws
that I don't want in anyone working with or for me.

For example, I had a software development candidate who put "Fluent in
Spanish" on his resume. Spanish wasn't a requirement for the job in any way,
but unfortunately for him there were several native Spanish speakers in my
office. I pulled a co-worker into the interview room and asked her to speak
with the candidate in Spanish. I understand a little Spanish and was able to
follow as she asked him about where he was from and what his hobbies were. The
candidate could barely converse with her. I guess he had a couple of courses
at school and called himself "fluent".

You never know everything that is true and isn't true on a resume, so
interviewing someone is a process of building up a web of trust. I'm going to
validate whatever I can in an interview from software design and pattern
knowledge to whether or not you really were an Eagle Scout. It's all fair game
if you put it on your resume.

~~~
toomuchcoffee
_I guess he had a couple of courses at school and called himself "fluent"._

Umm, another possibility is that he learned Castilian, and the people in your
office grew up speaking some Latin American version. Just the other day a
native speaker from Spain told me of his being completely flummoxed by the
border guards trying to casually chat him up on his entry to the U.S.

~~~
crusso
Nope. The people I worked with were almost all from Spain. They spoke
Castilian. My main exposure before them was always from Latin American
sources. I LOVE the way Castilian people speak since it's so clear.

We had Latin American folks in the office too. They never had a problem
speaking with each other. Maybe a border guard speaking broken Spanish
confused someone, but this woman was just trying to ask basic Spanish 101 type
questions.

The follow-up to the story is that I came across the same candidate's resume 6
months later. He had changed the "fluent in Spanish" to something like "basic
Spanish".

~~~
gcp
I had a very similar experience when I was much younger, fooling myself that
by not specifying how fluent I was, I wasn't lying when claiming knowledge of
language X. Then I had an interview much like the one you described and
learned that "misleading statement" and "lying" are close relatives.

No job, but life lesson learned.

------
Flow
Years back I was a consultant and was interviewed for a telecom assignment.
The meeting was nice and later he called me just to clear some things up. He
kept talking about Erlang and then asking me about my experience level with
Erlang and I told him I had none, but that I love programming languages and
probably would learn it quick.

Then he said I had Erlang on my resume... Turns out my boss had altered my
resume without telling me. I was honest and told him that I had no experience
and had no clue how that ended up on my resume, maybe he read the wrong
resume? Nope. It felt really awkward hearing him say he just couldn't trust
anything on my resume now. But he understand him perfectly well.

My boss just laughed when I later told him what happened. He also told me to
be a bit smarter and play along better.

I'm so glad I don't have a boss like that today.

~~~
driverdan
How / why did your boss have access to your resume? That's not something you
should have on a company computer.

~~~
gcp
Consultancy. His boss is selling his skills (and resume) to this customer
(employer).

------
veyron
In many industries they won't consider you without a degree. And if you lie,
you will be caught (there's a clearinghouse specifically for this)

~~~
guard-of-terra
In many industries you actually need a degree: you need knowledge and skills
to do anything useful while not being a walking disaster.

Not the case in most of the IT.

------
sblank
For clarity.

I was in Mensa ~1969-1982.

In high school I was a terrible student and therefore I didn’t think I was
that smart. My sister, much older and much wiser, thought otherwise and had me
take a Mensa test when I was a junior.

The numbers confirmed her suspicion.

Being a Mensa member didn’t make school any easier but it gave me comfort that
I wasn’t a complete idiot, just that I learned differently. Convergent was the
only time I put Mensa on a resume because of how the recruiter described the
intellectual horsepower of the hiring exec and the rest of the team. I thought
I needed something to wave to get in the door.

It worked. After that I just let my resume and accomplishments speak for
themselves.

------
krosaen
contrast that with advice from Neil Gaiman <http://www.uarts.edu/neil-gaiman-
keynote-address>

""" People get hired because, somehow, they get hired. In my case I did
something which these days would be easy to check, and would get me into
trouble, and when I started out, in those pre-internet days, seemed like a
sensible career strategy: when I was asked by editors who I'd worked for, I
lied. I listed a handful of magazines that sounded likely, and I sounded
confident, and I got jobs. I then made it a point of honour to have written
something for each of the magazines I'd listed to get that first job, so that
I hadn't actually lied, I'd just been chronologically challenged... You get
work however you get work. """

I'm lucky enough to have never been faced with a situation where I felt like I
needed to lie to even have a chance, so I have a hard time judging. Always a
tough call.

------
snorkel
I've seen good candidates get turned away for not finishing college, and to
that I have to ask would you turn away Mark Zuckerberg or Steve Jobs? Many
professions need to change their attitude about requiring college degrees.

~~~
EliRivers
Is Zuckerberg a particularly skilled programmer? Is he some kind of business
genius, churning out an endless string of sure-fire hits? Or did he get
insanely lucky and cash in before it all fell apart?

~~~
lincolnq
You ask this question in a way that suggests that you think he got insanely
lucky, and that's it. Whereas I actually think he is a great businessman. (I
also think he got lucky)

He could have sold Facebook for billions of dollars at any point. If he felt
like he was riding on luck, he should have expected his luck to run out at any
moment in the last five years or so, and thus have a strong incentive to sell.
So he was either being exceptionally irrational (stubborn, stupid, etc.) or he
knows something you don't about the business he's in.

~~~
veyron
The "insanely lucky" part focuses more in initial traction and less on future
actions. He got in at the right time in the right milieu. THAT part is luck.
You take it as a foregone conclusion that the social revolution would happen,
but its not clear when or how it would manifest.

Later on, even if he made a misstep Facebook wouldn't blow up. If he tried
deploying Beacon earlier on, for example, FB might not have proliferated.

"He could have sold Facebook for billions of dollars at any point. If he felt
like he was riding on luck, he should have expected his luck to run out at any
moment in the last five years or so, and thus have a strong incentive to
sell."

That's true of many people, including the Digg people.

------
ianstallings
The beauty of the software industry is it truly is merit-based. The degree
might get you in the door but they will test you immediately to see if you are
capable of handling the position. So don't lie. Tell them the truth, because
there is nothing to be ashamed of. I'm going on my 17th year in this industry
without a degree. If you have "it", whatever that may be, they will take
notice. And if they don't then it's just a bad fit, no big deal. There's
another one down the street.

------
kevhsu
As a computer engineering undergrad with a < 3.0 GPA at a top 5 CompE school
with 1 more semester to go, I've felt a lot of pressure to lie about my GPA on
my resume just to be above the 3.0/3.3/3.5 cutoffs that so many jobs have.
It's a little tougher to score an interview without a GPA on my resume, but I
feel that once I'm in an interview, I'm at little to no disadvantage compared
to anyone else since I think most places will prioritize actual problem
solving skills over a number with 3 significant figures...

Currently unsure whether it's better to blurt out "2.6" or "don't worry about
it" when recruiters ask me what my GPA is after seeing the rest of my resume.
Either way, I sleep way better at night compared to lying.

~~~
gcp
Round it to 3. You did say engineering, right?

~~~
Evbn
My school has a one page policy document in acceptable ways to format the
significant figures (up to 4) and rounding (down only). Violations can lead to
excommunication from career services office.

------
vorg
At one stage it seemed it was easier to get an IT job if there was an obvious
lie on your CV. The manager interviewing you would more likely employ you if
they thought they could bump you anytime simply by doing a CV checkup.

------
toomuchcoffee
Oh I agree, "honesty is the best policy."

Thing is, it'd be nice if it were something more of a two-way street. The same
companies that would be incensed at the slightest fib on a resume will quite
often lie to the candidate, at some stage or another in the selection process
-- or like as not hire through recruiters to do the lying for them, as if this
absolves them of any ethical responsibility.

Not to mention the lies that start trickling on down from on top, once they
start the job. But that's a different topic.

------
dinkumthinkum
I just want a little bit of a reality check. How many of you that are
dismissing CS degrees or saying if you go to college don't study CS because
you already know it .... How many of you really know what you're talking
about? I don't mean that in a derogatory, you may be the foremost experts on
things for all I know. I just don't think either a) this phenomenon is that
common or 2) it is a very deep knowledge, if it is common.

I'm well aware there are expert CS people that don't have degrees. I know some
myself. But I don't think it is as common as you all are saying.

I've met plenty of undergrads, sophomores, etc that were self taught before
college and think very much the same about their skills aa many here do and
only takes a few classes for them, if they were honest with themselves, to
disabuse them of this notion.

I've also met a lot of self-taught people that are good at a couple things but
lack a lot of fundamental understand, and many think they are great because
they are whipping out PHP spaghetti farms like nobody's-- most are not like
this though.

I'm not sure following a YouTube tutorial on creating a Web blog engine in RoR
is an epiphany that means "I'm self taught, I don't need no stinking college."

While there are brilliant, intimidating self-taught computer
scientists/programmers, I'd say there are a lot more that fancy themselves in
this category but don't know a Lamport clock from loop unrolling. I have no
idea about anyone's individual situation or knowledge level, I just think
there is a lot being made this self-taught phenomenon than bore out by
reality.

------
justanother
No degree here, but never lied on a resume either. It was very difficult
landing my first job (in my teenage years), but eventually I got into the
industry by starting a company and going bankrupt two years later. Frankly it
was a wonderful way to get going, and nobody has significantly questioned my
credentials since then, and especially not now that I have 20 years of
professional expertise. Seriously, just start a company, and if you fail at
age 16, nobody really cares, and you've got something on your resume. To get a
few hundred (or thousand) bucks, get out MS Word (or Google Docs), type out
several dozen pages of detailed business plan, and show it to all family,
friends, and ex-teachers (but stay away from banks and VC, because they don't
care and you're wasting their time). Now that it's 2012 and all, you only have
to beg (or mow lawns for) $500 to land an iOS developer license. Then you can
write a resume, show your first year of experience, and talk about your app in
the App Store.

That said, I'm not going to tell you that I'm just so special that I couldn't
have used college, and the people who do say that, seem to have chips on their
shoulders. There is certainly an appreciation for design patterns and the
humanities that any college would have taught me, that I had to learn I
needed, and go and seek out on my own, and that's hard. But then again,
college students today are faced with the prospect of a lifetime of debt, just
to land a career with an average (I said average, not you or me) 15-year half
life. It hardly seems appropriate.

Anyway, point is, you never need to lie if you have the enthusiasm. With
enough enthusiasm, the experience eventually builds to a point where nobody
questions your formal education.

------
emmelaich
I've had the recent experience of interviewing for a Java programmer with some
devops experience.

In all the interviews academic achievements were neither considered nor
mentioned.

However, it was astonishing to me how much the candidates own opinion of their
programming skills differed from the actuality as evidenced by their
performance on a skills test.

No trick questions, just Java basics like the immutability of strings and some
basic inheritance questions.

------
hippich
I hated time wasted on college, but I did it. I did it via distance education
course to save a lot of time and now I have diploma saying I am masters. It is
not A grades, but rather just above pass level. This adds zero to my knowledge
or my abilities, but I pass all these stupid filters put in place by HR
people.

------
gggggg
I do lie on my resume. I write that I have a master in engineering which is
also true except for never doing the thesis. At the interview I tell the
interviewer straight up as the first thing that I lied and don't have a formal
degree but it was a necessity to get the interview in the first place. I then
tell them that I completely understand if they want to turn me away and I
apologize.

I have never been turned away. No one have ever really questioned why. I am
very skilled at what I do and the rest of my resume reflects that. I am far
better than most people I met who program with or without a degree in my
field.

Never having finish my degree makes this a necessary evil for me - I wish I
could go back (life at this point does not allow me to).

However I feel no remorse for lying and frankly it's the loss of the company
if they assess my entire character based on this.

~~~
toomuchcoffee
_I have never been turned away._

I don't believe you.

~~~
gcp
Once he's in the interview? Of course nobody does that, it's too
confrontational. He might not have gotten hired because of it but there's no
way to know.

~~~
toomuchcoffee
Just that when he starts off his post by saying "I do lie..." then the
question becomes "so what is he _not_ lying about?"

------
buro9
I only recently got an MSc in Computer Science, I'm in my late 30s.

Before this I never put an education section on my CV. I was homeless when
others were doing their A levels and Bachelors.

What I found is that every employer simply filled in the gaps and assumed that
I had a degree.

The choice I faced usually came much later when sat a lunch table one day
someone would bring up a "What did you do at college?" conversation and it
would eventually be asked of me. At that point do you answer to sustain their
idea of you based on the assumption, or do you answer honestly and change
their impression.

In the early part of my career it was simply best just to change the
conversation (very easy to do, people love talking about themselves). In the
latter part of my career I chose to just be blunt and open.

Being honest never hurt me, but I strongly suspect that lying would've hurt me
hard.

------
jsjohns2
I'm really skeptical of the "honesty is the best policy" lesson being taught
here. The reality is that being dishonest (on a resume or otherwise) can be
very advantageous. Why else would people lie?

Be honest because you believe it's the moral thing to do, not because you
expect to be rewarded for it.

~~~
gcp
Might be because the benefit of lying is immediate, but the drawback much more
distant (getting fired in the future). People aren't always very good long-
term thinkers.

You might be right that pathetically lying on resumes in the end provides a
career with a higher average income or whatever. Given that many of us here
are probably honest and/or having to hire off resumes, I'd guess we're all
collectively hoping that's not true.

------
toomuchcoffee
_"Why don’t you make something up."_

Aren't recruiters precious.

------
rebelnz
Our company hired a promising recruit who as it turns out had 'embellished"
their resume and it caused a lot of friction and general bad feeling for both
parties when they couldn't complete some relatively simple tasks. I took
responsibly as I had hired them - although next time I will probably implement
the obligatory whiteboard! As it is a basic web dev shop I don't place too
much value in a prospective employee with college degree(s) for the work
involved - it would almost be overkill! However working effectively in the
respective domain is what I would consider important (for this particular job
anyway).

------
wtvanhest
I guess the question then would be; what if he didn't have the ability to put
Mensa on the resume?

I don’t intend to be rhetorical; it would be great to hear some other
suggestions.

~~~
gridaphobe
My impression was that he wasn't actually a member of Mensa. That was his lie,
but he didn't try to cover it up.

~~~
troels
That's odd. That's not my impression at all. I figure he would have put
anything that would draw some attention - Had he been a boyscout, he could
have put that down, but since he happened to be a mensa member, he put that
instead. I definitely don't think it was a lie, as that would have undermined
the entire point.

~~~
patrickambron
My impression was since he didn't have any college degrees, he was being
turned away from jobs. He contemplated the idea of simply lying, but instead,
thought of another way to draw attention to his credentials that would help
people overlook the fact he hadn't gone to college. Rather than make up a
degree, he highlighted the fact that he was in Mensa, which ended up working

------
calydon
What this post really brought home for me was the importance of 'knowing your
shit'. Steve didn't have the degree, but he had the knowledge and could
basically prove it. Lots of graduates with the paper couldn't do that.

If you have gaps in your knowledge that should not be a life-ruining situation
but it needs to be corrected, hence Udemy, Coursera, and the new wave of ed.
startups coming down the line.

~~~
herdrick
_Steve didn't have the degree, but he had the knowledge and could basically
prove it._

That's not really what happened. Steve had specific technical knowledge and
experience that he wouldn't have gotten in school anyway. Also it sounded like
most of that technical knowledge was irrelevant to the new position.

I imagine most of what happened is that the interviewer decided to trust his
own judgement and gut about Steve's raw brainpower and ability to learn. And
there's the issue of not having a degree - you rely on people sizing you up to
be competent at it.

------
robomartin
There's another element that hasn't been covered in this discussion. I've
you've been out of school for more than, say, five years, it is quite possible
that quite a bit of what was taught and covered in college is outdated in
today's marketplace. That's certainly the case if you go further back, say,
ten or fifteen years. Under that scenario, you definitely want people who are
very comfortable shifting gears and learning on their own. I can safely say
that virtually none of what I do today I learned in college. The basics, yes,
but not the specifics. The languages are different, the technology is
different, the patterns are different, project management is different, etc.

I have worked with a lot of people without degrees doing work at fairly high
levels. In my experience, this seems to be a category that self-selects based
on real-world competence. Some have been absolutely brilliant. I have seen
people without degrees dig into new subjects with an intensity that cannot be
taught or trained. I have also seen people with degrees get flustered and
give-up or fail to perform despite their years of formal schooling. I have
hired folks with degrees that have been a complete waste of time.

I do understand the need for an easy filter. This is particularly the case at
larger companies where it is very, very hard to be open to anything outside
the norm. It can take a lot of work to hire someone without a degree. And,
yes, it can be risky. At the same time, I've found that most people without a
degree are very confident and sure of themselves and are more than willing to
prove their knowledge and worth. I have met people with degrees who got
offended when challenged. It goes both ways.

There's also the issue of how and why someone went into college. There's a
huge variance here. In my own example, I had been doing electronics as a
hobby, building all kinds of analog and digital circuits, and even wire-
wrapping my own microprocessor boards way before I hit college. In sharp
contrast to this, once in college, I met a lot of people who had never touched
a soldering iron yet somehow decided to go into electrical engineering. You
could tell the difference between hackers and students. Those of us who had
been hacking the stuff for years before college had a very different
understanding and attitude about things. The kind of thing that connects
calculus class with physics lab in your mind instantly whereas others are just
good test takers.

If you get a no-degree hacker or interrupted-degree hacker --and they are
good-- you are likely to have someone who has far more understanding, drive an
passion than someone who just up-and-went to engineering school one day
without having had skin in the game prior to that.

I personally don't place a degree at the top of my list. I've been burned by
that before. I take the time to really get to know the person as much as
possible. Hiring is expensive and should be viewed as a long-term investment.
If someone is going to be with you for a few years it is quite possible that
during that time there will be needs to shift gears and adopt new
technologies, frameworks, etc. Among other things, I need to know that anyone
I hire can roll with the punches and actually welcome these kinds of
challenges with open arms.

One of my worst hires: MSEE, worked at Intel for several years. I needed him
to design high-speed signal processing boards (FPGA, signal integrity,
transmission lines, controlled impedance, GHz+ range). He failed miserably. It
was obvious that he did not full understand the subject beyond basic book
level. He finally admitted that most of his focus at Intel was in switch-mode
power-supply work but he really wanted to get the job. I shifted him over to
designing power management electronics and he did OK. Just OK. What I learned
from this is the opposite of the article in many ways. He was truthful about
the degree and had impressive looking work credentials, but he bent the
experience line enough to land the job. I should have done a white-board test
on him but, hell, he had a Masters, right? I was glad to see him go about a
year later. My junior engineers could do better power management design work
than he did.

The other element here was what I call "big company syndrome". Large companies
tend to have a lot of segmentation. Engineers can focus in one area and only
that area and rely on other team members to carry the rest of the weight (and
understanding) of the other areas of knowledge. In smaller companies you have
to be more of a generalist. The problem with the hyper-specialist is exactly
that. In some cases they have no clue of anything beyond their little sandbox.
This is bad. And this was the case with my worst hire. He had been one of
several hundred (or thousand?) engineers at Intel and could only see one small
sliver of the entire universe. He had no reason nor the drive to dive into
other areas and learn them on his own. That's why he failed to make a shift
into another, larger, ecosystem.

He left to grab a Director of Engineering job at a hardware startup. I knew
that he was not even close to being qualified for that job, but he somehow
managed to sell himself. Three months later he was calling me to see if I had
any contract work I could throw his way.

~~~
16s
___I've you've been out of school for more than, say, five years, it is quite
possible that quite a bit of what was taught and covered in college is
outdated in today's marketplace._ __

Perhaps for people who went to vocational school, but not for liberal arts and
sciences majors. The math behind much of Computer Science, for instance, has
been around for decades and it does not change. Sets, hash tables, queues,
etc.

~~~
guyzero
On the other hand I took a network course that spent most of the time covering
the OSI networking model. Some parts of CS are timeless, some are not.

------
jonbishop
Would adding Mensa to your resume really help you get a job? I talked to a
hiring manager friend about this a while ago and he felt adding things like
that don't make sense unless you have some achievement related to Mensa. One
caveat - he wasn't in the tech industry.

~~~
mquander
IQ is strongly correlated with job performance, so yeah, providing evidence
that you're in the top 2% by IQ is a really valuable indicator.

My Dad was in Mensa, and reading their national magazine as a kid I was not
exactly ever inclined to join, but as a quantifiable, generally useful piece
of evidence about a candidate it's pretty hard to beat.

------
xiaoma
In contrast, Neil Gaiman's famous commencement speech in which he admitted
lying about his resume to get work early in his career:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikAb-NYkseI>

------
radagaisus
In Israel jobs usually ask for a BSc degree OR service in the army's
intelligence unit. People go out of the army here with 3 to 5 years of
experience in highly difficult subjects so tech companies usually care less
about your degree.

------
michaelfeathers
My first thought on reading this is that it should be probably be called
"Breaking NDA" rather than "Lying on your Resume." That said, businesses to
vary on what they consider confidential.

------
seanp2k2
I dropped out of community college and I have no problem getting offers in the
valley for six figures.

It's what and who you know, not where you studied.

------
bithive123
Anyone stupid enough to lie in writing deserves what they get.

------
known
Doesn't every salesman lie?

------
ucee054
I have experience of interviewers routinely either lying or not knowing what
they're talking about, and _expecting_ the candidates to lie and be as
dishonest as they are.

One interviewer even got _offended_ when I was truthful about one of my
weaknesses - a skill I believed not to be a requirement because the company -
a large, reputable French bank - had lied about the job description.

In fact I had previously _specifically_ asked his boss (the hiring manager) in
person about that area of work, and he had lied with such a straight face that
he deserved an Oscar.

------
nirvana
I think the college degree hiring issue is all about confusing a symbol- the
diploma- with reality- having the skills. So, Steve's anecdote is about
getting hired by someone smart enough to test him to find the reality.

I have similar situation as Steve. I was studying physics, working for a
nationally recognized lab under a guy who should have gotten a nobel, when I
got a job as a software developer and realized that was what I really wanted
to do with my life.

I used to put down that I studied physics, but eventually, I just dropped it.
My resume now is one page, with a summary at top of my skills and a list of
the places I've worked taking up the rest.

I find that this is a really good filter. If someone won't hire you because
you didn't go to college, you know that this is someone you don't want to work
for. They are expressing a prejudice-- assuming you lack a skill based on
their own assumptions, because they probably _needed_ college to teach them.
Many times people rationalize this by saying "college shows commitment". Well,
keeping a job for 4 years shows commitment. Outside projects that are a lot
harder than college was shows commitment.

The real reason I didn't finish college is that it didn't make mathematical
sense. It costs a lot, delays your career and doesn't deliver sufficient value
to cover these costs. I think that situation has gotten a lot worse.[1]

So, the right thing to do is look at the education section skeptically. Did
they work their way thru college? Why did they go? Did they think they were
getting more value than the cost?

I hear companies won't hire people without degrees. I see "BS requires, Master
preferred" a lot. I never let that stop me from sending my resume, and back
when I was willing to work for others (rather than myself) I tended to get
interviews, and 4/5 of those interviews would result in an offer or another
step in interviewing (for companies that had a multi-step process.) I learned
quickly to send all my resumes out on one single day, and have interviews
scheduled close to each other, lest I get offers from some companies before
I'd had a chance to interview at others.

None of these companies cared whether I had a degree. (And the ones who did,
probably never called me in for an interview, but there's no way to tell which
jobs have already been filled vs. which ones were at companies with that
prejudice.)

But I consider that a blessing-- this filters out companies that confuse the
_symbol_ (eg: the diploma) for the _reality_ (eg: having the skills.)[2]

I've met a lot of "smart" people who think they are so smart that they don't
realize how much smarter other people can be. This limits their world view. It
even interferes with their ability to comprehend or think logically. They let
prejudices and ideology get in the way of perceiving reality.[3]

The last thing you want to do is work for a boss who believes his fantasy over
reality.

And filtering out the ones who think you're not qualified because you don't
have a diploma is a useful tool for that.

Epilog: I express strong feelings here. I am unabashedly opinionated, but I
think it is critical in hiring to hire people who think differently than you.
I think its critical to give the benefit of the doubt, allow a wide variation
and then focus on what's really important- the relevant ability, their
capabilities. I think "cultural fit" is often used to exclude good candidates
for unfair reasons. I think I'd hire someone I disagreed with all the time if
they were qualified (but haven't put this to the test yet- only having hired
someone who disagrees with me most of the time.)

[1] I am very willing to hire people with degrees. Even though college is
often a waste of time and money, and _could_ show bad judgement, they can also
show other things-- like the need to spend a couple years finding yourself
outside the overwhelming influence of your parents, or the need to figure out
what it is you really want to do with your life, etc. Some do it out of a
commitment to their parents because it means so much to their parents, and I
respect that. I don't think that someone turning 18 magically means they've
figured everything out.

[2] I have found, however, that hackers (eg: people who taught themselves when
they were young) right out of highschool are about as equally prepared for
employment life as (most) people with CS degrees right out of college. Either
way its going to take a couple years before they're really productive. Hackers
shouldn't go to college.

I am assuming that hackers are generally auto-didects and not the kind of
people who need to be trained, while college is for people who need to be
trained, the kind of people who can't just pick up a new language over the
weekend, or can't just read a college textbook to get the stuff they hadn't
learned otherwise.

[3] In fact, I think that the fact that so many of these people who focus on
degrees are people who went to college because they needed to be _Trained_ ,
means that they are people who generally simply don't understand that some
people self train. They don't see the advantage of the auto-didact who will
learn things that seem ancillary (eg: economics) or irrelevant to someone who
has been trained.

I think the training in college teaches a narrow way of thinking, or maybe it
just doesn't expand the mind, while the autodidacts will expand their own
minds.

Companies would be much better off hiring autodidacts and making sure at least
one is in the interview loop, to ensure that the trained people don't exclude
someone based on their own narrow thinking.

"Oh, your company has written your product in Haskell? That's nice. No I've
never written any Haskell in my life, but I learned Lisp when I was 14 and
write a long of Erlang, and pick up languages easily. I'll have no problem
picking up Haskell."

I think this above conversation sounds like nonsense to a trained person,
because a trained person doesn't "just pick up" a language.

~~~
bcantrill
Actually, it's not about just showing "commitment" -- a university computer
science education shows me (1) how you deal with a hard problem that you've
never seen before, (2) how you deal with being around people smarter than you
are and (3) how you perform under deadline pressure. Your four years at an
employer doesn't necessarily show me any of these things, at least not without
a ton of hard, specific questions from me -- indeed, I think that that's what
Ben was trying to drive at in his interview at Steve. In my experience, it
also happens to be true that top software engineers have learned quite a bit
from a computer science education (especially when coupled with several years
of practice), and when I find bright people who have dropped out of school or
studied other disciplines and ask them tough, direct technical questions, I
often find that they have wild misconceptions about the way computers actually
work.

Now, you might very well be the exception to that rule, but the cost of a mis-
hire is so astronomically high to me that you can expect that if I ever
interviewed you, I would expect you to greatly outperform a top new computer
science graduate -- and I would interview accordingly. This is possible, but
not likely: a top computer science graduate not only has the same intelligence
and aptitude that you had at 22, but also four years of formal computer
science education and some top internships to really send the principles home.
Of course, it would be a mistake to imply that you'd actually want to work for
me: after all, I'm the kind of employer that won't hire a software engineer
who doesn't have a university degree in computer science...

~~~
sktrdie
You only hire people with degrees? I couldn't afford a degree, that's why I
never got one, but have tons of experience. You still wouldn't consider hiring
someone like me? Why?

This just seems like you're limiting yourself from hiring people that couldn't
afford college, but that are still extraordinarily valuable to your company.
Which is just wrong.

~~~
krschultz
I don't know what country you are in, but in the US, they will extend all
kinds of loans to you. (That really is the problem). In fact, the less money
you have, the better the deal for the loans. At some point in college my
girlfriend and I wished our parents had less money because it would have made
our cost (which we were paying) so much lower.

Do 1-2 years at a community college, 1-2 at a state college, and you have a 4
year degree at a reasonable price.

I got a merit scholarship, that lowered prices for me quite a bit. Others have
noted that although advertised tuition has gone up, the average price paid by
students hasn't changed nearly as fast. I.e. the rich people are paying
sticker price and the poor are getting subsidized 'need' based loans. The only
people getting screwed are those in the middle.

------
angry-hacker
It's difficult to start if you don't have a formal paper or don't want to lie
about it... if you have proven yourself somewhere already, it's not a problem
anymore.

I had very slow start because I didn't want (or know how) to lie about my
education, I'm doing great now don't care about it anymore.

