I have an old friend who worked in advertising for decades in Montreal. I talked to him about career advice once and I remember him saying something like this.
He said he just jumped into a low entry level position as a young 20 year old in the 70s, worked like a dog in a bunch of positions and eventually became a high level manager. He had a small college degree and he said that in his first position, they were just looking for someone … anyone … and he got in. No one ever checked his background or education … no one ever asked for documentation or anything. From that start, he just worked day in, day out and after about five years, he becomes a leading manager. After that point if anyone asked about his education, he pointed to his track record working for the company. 40 years later he retired with a wealthy pension.
Meanwhile today data brokers and background checks walk hand in hand with hiring screens at any established tech company. I still have to verify my degree when applying for new jobs even though I’ve been out of college for over a decade and even if I’m not, I know they are still checking with a data broker of some kind or another. I know this because I’ve also been a hiring manager and had the recruiter drop people off my roster when their silent background check fails. Candidates don’t even know they are being dropped or which data broker may or may not have incorrect information on their degree status
Counter-experience: I don’t have a college degree, but I have ~25 years’ experience in tech. I never submit anything in the “education” section of applications but typically haven’t had a problem getting interviews - including with the big name co’s. Admittedly, it’s possible I’m getting dropped silently from some applications but the only people who actually ask about my education at this point are recruiters looking to popular their database fields.
That would be nice… If companies still promoted people beyond the levels of, “beginner peon” to “senior peon.”
Companies don’t promote peons to management, only managers in peon roles get promoted. Just because you’re the best button pusher doesn’t mean you can succeed leading the button pushers.
you have companies that actually hire people instead of commissioning them as freelancers?
He’s talking about an MBA, not an actual degree.
I remember once borrowing a friend’s MBA textbook to see what it was all about. I opened to a random page which turned out to be in a chapter on negotiating strategies. There was an offset bit of text that read “your skill at negotiating will affect the outcome of the negotiations.”
Had to go find a Table of Contents for an MBA textbook
For this thread start at chapter 18
LOL “Leading from the Middle”. AKA “Sucking Up and Punching Down”.
I mean, the textbook wasn’t wrong…
It should be DUH rather than MBA. Maybe “Doctorate of Unabashed Hyperbole”.
Video game loading screen tips but textbook form.
“Shoot the bad guys before they shoot you.”
i onced followed someone profile on linkein i was with in my las semester almost a decade ago, and he was totally bsing his lab experience, because he told me before hand he dint have much or any lab experience, then every semester i saw him adding 1 years to his resume, then after he added 2 years, he was eventually hired. yea you have to bs your way.
What if I already have a master’s but still can’t find a job?
Just keep adding master’s degrees until you get an offer, I guess.
overqualified
If you keep adding enough master degrees eventually the HR system of some company hiring you will overflow and you’ll be CISO in no time.
Good old Bobby Tables, the master in every field known to man.
“Employers hate this one powerful trick!”
Message people in your field on LinkedIn who may have a possibility of hiring you. Applying for job postings does approximately nothing.
Have you considered a doctorate?
Do you think there’s a correlation between those who process further up the academia tree; and those who enjoy masochism?
Add a PhD
Tried that, doesn’t work
Try adding an MBA. Money people and managers seem to think that makes you one of them.
just add x amount of experience to your degree, they look more into the bullsshit experience you faked(but they also likely wont verify your experience, unless you are incompetent than they start to question your resume), and most of the time they dont question it. assuming your degree is one field they will scrutinize. had a friend with MS in the science gave up searching, i dint do it either with just a undergrad. just add like 1 year experience to see if anyone bites, if nobody bites in a month, add another year(i think 2 year is when you see offer starts to come in.
ALso some jobs may request LORs, fake them too.
they tend to stay away from cv/resume with 1 or less years of experience, also they use software to automatically screen out certain keywords.
Career pro-tip: Lie on your resume!
I’ll be honest that’s what I’ve done. But they weren’t lies of stuff I can’t do. More like “oh I made this small coding project”, “I’ve replaced phone screens before”, “I know how to debug code”
Yeah; those are reasonable. Not overly-checkable stuff like the school you went to and degree you obtained.
It’s why I’m stuck in a factory. I just don’t have it in me to bullshit/lie. I have a friend who worked his way into his career by saying whatever he needed to say and he makes 3x my salary.
I wish I had no morals or anxiety…
Aww
Hey silver lining though?
You’re not gonna get fired and be embarrassed in ten years then go broke and lose your property and be unhireable etc etc etc
There was a US story or few too - someone goes back and checks ancient claims, then it’s all bad
The way I see it is that they’re looking to exploit me for as much as they can get, so I have no obligation to treat them with any more respect than that. I don’t lie, but I have no problem taking a single instance where I worked next to a couple newbies for an hour and gave them pointers and turning it into “trained and oversaw new hires to ensure proper workflow protocol” on my resume.
Yeah. Embellishing the truth is a much better strategy for job seeking.
i hate working with people like this
you can fool HR but not your coworkers for long and I sure as fuck don’t want to carry the new guy moreso if he’s making more than me
Carry the new guy? If you’re lying on your resume to say you have skills that you don’t really have, then you’re not doing it right. You’re supposed to figure out what your skills actually are, then embellish your resume to make those skills shine on paper. I’ve never had anything but glowing reviews from my employers because I made sure to apply for jobs that suited my skills, and formatted my resume to help me get hired. I’m good at training newbies, but my first employer didn’t trust me with that responsibility, so I embellished a bit on my resume to make sure my second employer trusted me enough to let me make use of that skill, and pay me accordingly.
Maybe I should lie about being a sous chef so I can work at a Antarctica base as a chef…
I make higher than the median salary working at a factory. I left a job that required a college degree and professional licence that payed less than what I do now. Higher education requirements doesn’t always mean higher pay. You might just need to find a unionized factory. The lowest wage at my workplace is $25/hr (CAD). Local minimum wage is $17.20/hr and median wage is $21.83/hr.
That’s kinda the spot I’m at now, just no union. I’m “stuck” in that the wage isn’t horrendous for my background, but the area I live in is so expensive that it kinda evens out. If I want any kind of savings I need to stay in this garage I rent.
I’ve wanted to make a move for the last 5 years, but COVID came along so i waited it out, then it was “omg recession is coming, recession is coming!” So I waited it out. Now we’re “blessed” with the Mango Mussolini who is hell bent on destroying the economy so again I feel like the only smart thing to do is wait it out…
unionize and try to switch workplaces every year to a higher paying one.
Um, if you switch workplaces you switch unions.
I think the point is to unionize every company
Depends if your union is regional or just your workplace.
Most of the manufacturing unions in my area are just that, the area. All the trade unions are as well, and probably the teachers union too.
I once had a coworker whose CV said she had a BSc from Oxford University.
Clearly neither she nor our hiring manager knew much about Oxford.
I’ve got a BSc from Cambridge.
Apparently the graduate still looking for it wheeeeyyyyy
DMs from who, though? Recruiting agencies? Those aren’t job offers, those are people who want to doctor your resume even further and some it at companies going they’ll get paid for it
How do you think staffing agencies work?
Exactly like I described. They shotgun doctored resumes at companies, hoping a few stick and they get paid for it. Getting DMs from these doesn’t mean you have job offers. It means someone wants to include you in their barrage-which means they identified you as having a pulse
Ah. There are two types of these. The national ones that put up a few hundred “local” listings for the same job, skim off the top, and hope to make a cut. Then there are actual local ones that build relationships with companies with businesses in the area and actually find proper talent instead of playing a numbers game. The way they make money is the same, but the former is definitely much less of a sure thing.
And I’m guessing it’s the former which would be DMing people in LinkedIn
Is anyone gonna tell him that they just check after messaging people ?
On my latest three jobs I’ve never been asked about proof for anything. But my CV is also not impressive at all. Harvard is sure to raise some questions, so be prepared to know every detail about this place and your story. Especially if you meet actual Harvard attendees at the company.
We had a university hire a professor here that taught for a few years before they figured out they lied about credentials - only because they had no idea what they were doing, so it’s not an unreasonable strategy to throw as much shit against the wall as you can and see if any sticks.
My college had a professor of communications with a degree from a supposedly ancient (like, 13th century) Italian university. He only got exposed because we had a big ceremony for the newly-hired President of the college, with a procession that featured faculty and alumni walking in an order determined by the age of the oldest institution they were associated with. One of our alumni was a very famous author who was on the faculty at Harvard, and he was like “why am I not the first in line?” He looked up this comm prof’s “university” which turned out to be basically a prep school that wasn’t even close to being 700 years old. Comm prof was promptly fired, which was kind of a shame because he was actually a really good teacher.
Every element of this anecdote is awesome. It’s like a mix of a joke, a logic puzzle, a ragebait, and a true crime.
It might be even more entertaining if I said who this famous author was. But on the other hand, it might punctuate your equilibrium!
We don’t check. I don’t really care as long as they can do the job. But believing they have a degree is useful for telling clients who specifically sometimes ask about the degrees of the people they’ll be working with.
We also don’t DM people trying to recruit people tho.
I swear being on linked in is like a dating app.
If you’re a male in IT, the recruiters that DM you are always hot but likely bots. When you interact with them, they always want to steer you toward jobs that have nothing to do with what you want.
They blue ball you until you get through the interview and then ghost you.
Dude in iT, never had that problem and even doubled my salary through linked in. Anytime I actually interact with a recruiter I lay down my bare minimums and won’t even bother responding further/block if they can’t hit that.
That said, LinkedIn is a shit hole not worth touching more than once every couple of years if you’re not looking for a gig. I don’t even really interact with people I actually know in there because the platform is terrible and 90% of public posts are from sociopaths who despise work life balance.
believing they have a degree is useful for telling clients who specifically sometimes ask about the degrees of the people they’ll be working with
I used to work for a company that provided programming consultants for the US military and for defense contractors. The hourly rate we could be billed out at was entirely dependent on highest degree attained, so PhDs could be billed out at the highest rate, followed by Masters, then Bachelors of Science and then Bachelors of Art. It didn’t even matter what field your PhD was in, so my company was chock-full of useless people with advanced degrees who got put onto every project and told to just stay home. The worst thing was when they insisted on showing up and doing something.
I’ve had a job sorta like that where I was paid more to do the job and given better hours than some people with more relevant coursework just because I have a degree and they didn’t quite have one. Like, I wasn’t gonna complain and I was actually quite good at my job, but it had nothing do with the “BS” in my resume. No one was totally incompetent at the job at least.
They eventually switched to paying primarily by relevant experience primarily rather than degree level, which seems like a better predictor of being good at the job from what I’ve seen.
Are they hiring?
Desperately. And it’s a decent gig, or at least it will be until they decide AI can do it, at which point we’re going to get a bunch of flattened children.
I am a useless person with a PhD…
This could never go wrong
Even if you don’t agree with this guy, you have to admit his credentials are impressive!
I’m pretty sure this is the opening plot to the TV show Community.
I thought you have a bachelor’s from Columbia?
And now I have to get one from America. And it can’t be an e-mail attachment.
But my MSc was fully funded and I got to spend a year in cheap accommodation with subsidised beer, free fibre internet, and local Counter-Strike opponents.
Lucky. I lived on about 30 quid a week because my parents were deemed rich. I never got any aid from them lmao
My unpopular opinion (and I’ll eat the downvotes) is that CV fraudsters don’t get prosecuted nearly enough.
It’s not just faceless billionaire companies you’re fucking over, it’s the other candidates who actually put in the effort to become competent at the job you lied to get.
I’ll never get my head around the popularity of the idea that lying on a CV doesn’t make you a liar.
Job candidates didn’t start this war. Companies want ever more ludicrous requirements (so they’d have to interview fewer people), so the average CV expands to match it.
And while you may get caught with claiming to have a degree, you can certainly embellish the rest of it. Used an Excel spreadsheet? You’re now a data analyst. Dabbled in Access? Congratulations, you’re now an experienced database administrator.
And if you get found out and fired, so what? So did hundreds of people who did have all the qualifications and experience. You now have a bit more, so you know what not to do next time.
Take what you can from corporations, because they’re certainly trying to take all they can from you.
There’s a difference between inflating your proficiency and claiming a degree/license you literally don’t have.
Used an Excel spreadsheet? You’re now a data analyst. Dabbled in Access? Congratulations, you’re now an experienced database administrator.
I feel personally attacked and simultaneously validated by your analysis.
When you are starting out in an hiring environment like this, you pretty much have to do this, but you should also be prepared to back it up.
25 years ago during a major tech downturn I said I had experience with C for my first programming job (I didn’t, but I knew others). Before I started I studied my ass off and learned it so I wouldn’t look like a fool on the job.
End result was that when I started, I knew C.
Don’t lie about stuff that is easy to verify like a degree from Harvard. That is just asking to be blackballed.
Lorne Lanning, the creator of Oddworld, did something similar with 3D animation back when that required super fucking expensive computers. He “ilegally” photocopied the manual of the software he was expected to know about, spent the night reading it, then, during the interview, did some bit of animation that amazed the interviewers.
I don’t recall the exact details, but you can get his account from his Ars Technica interview. Almost 3 hours long, but it’s a great listen
That’s actually pretty crazy. I could read a manual front to back twice but still look like a bumbling moron the first time I touch a piece of software.
I mean, honestly, this shit won’t let up until the companies that hire them are fined. Advertising for such a requirement should carry with it the obligation to check. Would also cut down on those companies that demand such but won’t pay accordingly.
What’s the consequences of not lying on your resume? you can’t get a good job.
What’s the consequences of being caught lying on your resume? you lose your good job.
What’s the consequences of not getting caught? You get paid to do the job that didn’t require the degree to begin iwth.
The consequences are the same whether or not you do it. The benefits greatly outweigh the risks.
What’s the consequences of being caught lying on your resume? you lose your good job.
I used to work as a trade union officer representing people at disciplinaries. I’ve represented several people over the years who were sacked for lying on their CVs.
Not only did they lose their job, but they’ll get a “sacked for gross misconduct” reference from that employer making it much more difficult to get another job. Those in regulated roles also ended up with gross misconduct records with the regulator, making it essentially impossible to work in that field again.
So no, it’s not a risk free game.
And it shouldn’t be too difficult to avoid getting caught. Most won’t bother checking, but if they do, you can always pick some accredited university that went defunct some years ago. It might be impossible to check if even if they wanted to. Then avoid giving details about anything from your college days, and hope a coworker doesn’t show up who actually went there.
you can always pick some accredited university that went defunct some years ago
Harvard is not one such school.
You took a game theory course didn’t you? Cause yup!
What’s the consequences of not lying on your resume?
You pass your background check.
Harvard and other major schools make it fairly easy to vet graduates with a call to the registrar’s office. Most schools have electronic portals to handle the requests in bulk.
This is an extremely low bar for an HR department to pass.
Sure those are all well and good ideas. My wife works in HR and she’s yet to work at a company that calls the registrars office. They do criminal background checks all over, but rarely do they go beyond that. We’re in mass, so we’re entitled to a copy of our background check performed by the business, if you’re in a similar situation i’d recommend checking it out.
That being said, if you’re applying for a job you’re never gonna get an interview for (Director or Manager roles without an MBA or BS) then you have quite literally nothing but your time to lose.
My wife works in HR and she’s yet to work at a company that calls the registrars office.
It’s SOP over here. I even got bothered about it when I was in the final stage of hiring, because I graduated in December and put graduated in 2005 on my application despite officially getting the diploma in 2006.
That being said, if you’re applying for a job you’re never gonna get an interview for (Director or Manager roles without an MBA or BS) then you have quite literally nothing but your time to lose.
Reputation matters and you won’t get love in your industry by lying like this.
If you do get fired, and your employer flags you as “not eligible for rehire” that’s a big chunk of your career you can’t reference anymore because its now a black mark.
This is a big risk for anyone who isn’t simply scamming as a career.
If you do get fired, and your employer flags you as “not eligible for rehire” that’s a big chunk of your career you can’t reference anymore because its now a black mark.
Legally the business cannot say anything whatsoever about job performance or any reason behind hiring in terms of employment verification, at least where I am in Massachusetts. Employment verification here can only say dates of employment, starting job title and ending job title. Nothing else. If they say more is a massive liability and absolutely anybody can call up asking for employment verification, there’s no vetting… so getting caught telling more information is very possible.
Being banned from employment from one employer doesn’t usually do anything, and again, if you didn’t have a job to begin with and needed that foot in the door, and old small-midsize company that has zero real power, influence or clout beyond their domain will have zero impact on your job prospects. If you never get past offer phase it’s unlikely.
If you’re in a highly specialized field where there’s only a handful of people who can do your job then yes, EVERYONE in that field probably knows just who you are! But you can’t fake it till you make it at that level. low level managers and early-mid career white collar roles? Yeah you can bullshit your way through a lot of those.
Legally the business cannot say anything whatsoever about job performance or any reason behind hiring in terms of employment verification
Saying “no eligible for rehire” is enough to poison your reference.
Most not have worked with hr much. Low bars are still way to high and AI is reading resumes that aren’t stuffed with keywords
It’s not that unpopular of an opinion lol if you claim a skill set or training you don’t have, most people aren’t going to be happy to learn about the deception.
It’s not that unpopular of an opinion lol
Go take a look at the downvotes I got, versus the updoots that the people are getting by justifying it as “corporations bad, defrauding them good”
Bro you’re net 35
It’s a shame you have any upvotes at all. It’s a moral and ethical imperative to lie on your resume. Evening the playing field is not fraud. Your cutesy dismissive retort is inappropriate because corporations have all of the power, turning job hunting into a totally atomized activity. The recruitment process is fraudulent, not the attempt to remedy it.
You’re not wrong, but I’d want to see more prosecution of job posting lies at the same time. Employers frequently add impossible requirements so they can hire H1Bs instead.
If the education provider no longer exists can you just claim what ever you like?
Because genuinely the provider of the apprenticeship I have got busted for fraud and they collapsed incredibly quickly. Can I just make up the qualifications I got with them?
Totally. I was the Executive Vice President of Radio Shack, so you know you should take my advice.
I was on the Board there, before becoming the CIO of Circuit City!
Have you heard the story of Darth Brianna Wu the Wise?
She did that, except people found out later on.
Brianna Wu
Never known anything but I have seen the name. So I’ve skimmed her Wikipedia just now. So she was harassed during GamerGate. Is Pro-Israel and claims the left is letting down their Jewish allies. Had a few congressional bids.
Oh, I see her with something with Cenk and Rebellion PAC. Not gonna lie, I gave up on Cenk ages ago and it seems things haven’t gotten much better for him (especially lately with him and Ana apparently attacking the left?).
I’ve probably skimmed too fast but what specifically are you referring to? I see she didn’t get a full degree from the University of Mississippi.
There’s also a Dead Domain video, that goes into great detail of her other shenanigans, like lying about being a cis woman.
I mean in an age of overt transphobia, I can’t fault someone for hiding the fact. I do hate when people weaponize their own identity to attack others in the queer community
been meaning to watch that but I already hate Wu so I don’t know if I can take it. really like dead domain though. very cool person.
A while back on Lemmy, someone mentioned Hassan Piker. I finally got around to looking him up, today. What a wild read! Apparently he’s Cenk’s nephew.
I was a hiring manager in aerospace for decades. We for sure checked transcripts before a start date.
I also just don’t get people who lie on their resumes. That would cause me so much anxiety. Even for things I have training or experience with, I always worry people are going to expect me to be more proficient than I am. I had I guy put that he was fluent in a computer language that I’m not sure he’d ever seen, so everyone was always frustrated with him and he eventually got laid off.
My partner’s dad lied on his resume long ago and held that job for years before anyone checked.
The reason he lied was because he knew he could do the job because he had enormous experience (I’m not sure what it was something related to agriculture and he had grown up farming) but the job required a degree. He did the job well.
He is an argumentative person though and I guess he finally pissed off the wrong guy who finally looked into his background and got him fired.
Why the fuck would they fire somebody who did the job well for years?
You piss off the wrong person, it doesn’t matter how good you are at your job. I can also say from personal experience, he is not an easy person to get along with.
I guess some businesses and industries check more than others. Where I worked, you had to submit your transcripts, plus they did background checks for criminal records.
I’m pretty sure people lie on resumes because you’re more likely to actually get a response that way, rather than using whatever credentials you actually have.
Well sure, of course. I’m more likely to hire a painter to paint my house if he says he’s been in business 20 years, but I’m going to be pissed off it turns out in his first job and he’s bad at it.
That’s the whole thing about “fake it till you make it,” though. You fake it to get your foot in the door, pray like a mother fucker you can actually do the job, and pray like a mother fucker you keep the job. I don’t know how folks actually make it like that, but, hey… In the current dark times, gotta do what you gotta do.
Wouldn’t be worth the anxiety for me.
On the other hand, I’ve long been a proponent of the above board fake it till you make it approach. There were many, many times in my career that my boss needed something done and I told him I could probably figure it out if he keeps his expectations low. Got to do a lot of interesting things that way and learned some really cool stuff.
And every promotion was like that. They knew all of my experience, but were putting me in a new position. Managing people for the first time is always a fake it till you make it situation.
I think it’s super dependent on the industry and you as a person.
I used to have a fake degree on my resume and I attribute a decent amount of my career success to that. But I am in IT where experience is a lot more important and there’s a lot less risk than engineering haha.
But it was just some random bachelors degree from a community college in my home town. I would explain it away as “just some online BS program so I would have a degree on my resume” and that was really all the background checking anyone did. I’m also very charismatic, had a bunch of professional references, and a couple certs so that helps a ton
I don’t have it on my resume anymore because I’m at a point in my career where it just frankly doesn’t matter, but back when I was just a baby help desk tech it genuinely got me a couple incredible opportunities. I didn’t feel bad because the hiring process is such nonsense and employers made candidates jump through so many hoops I just figured it was fair. They
liecreatively explain benefits and pay, so we canliecreatively explain our history.I had a 25-year career as a programmer. Not once did I ever have a company I worked for verify my academic or employment histories or even contact my references. I could have put down anything I wanted and it wouldn’t have made the slightest difference - my continuing employment was based on my ability to actually do shit.
I’m now a school bus driver and they checked out everything. And of course threw in drug testing and a criminal background check for good measure.
The school bus thing makes sense.
This, I was also a hiring manager in sciencey fields. We also verified education, even with a robust job history. I share the same sentiment and could not embellish on my resume because it’s pretty hard to lie about technical expertise in science and engineering. Also, the labs I’ve worked in have very expensive instruments, not a good idea to ‘wing it’ with those things.
Dunning-Kruger perhaps. You sound like med. I have a master in thermodynamics and 20 years in the field of energetic materials, but I know that there are lots of stuff I don’t know nearly enough about.
