Resume Inflation 5

[jfpe]

I came across a former junior coworker's resume on a networking site. He had vastly overstated his achievements and job responsibilities. For example he said he "managed" one job where I recall he couldn't read any of the drawings or even talk intelligently to the electrician.

Has anyone else seen this? Do I just ignore it? I'm a little concerned about what will happen if we ever end up competing for the same job.

John

 

[PeterStock]

The reviewed them, they just did not check them. The resume showed what looked like the correct qualifications or he would not have been interviewed. Unless the guy is local and there is no cost involved for travel, HR should have done some verification of those qualifications.

Peter Stockhausen
Senior Design Analyst (Checker)
Infotech Aerospace Services

 

[drewp29]

HR SHOULD check references for any resume that is put in the stack of 'qualified' candidates, because quite frankly, of the hundreds of resumes received how many actually get placed in the 'qualified' stack?

It is surprising to me that the diploma mills were active in 1990 . . . that seems like more of an internet-age type of fraud. But I am young, and may be naive in thinking that those types of activities were much less common before the internet boom. Not that fraud wasn't prevalent, just not that particular type of fraud.

 

[IRstuff]

Fraud is probably the 2nd or 3rd oldest "crime" of man. MIT's director admissions was recently canned for not being qualified, after serving with great distinction for more than 20 yrs.

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[jmw]

Interestingly, Sir Alan Sugar, who hired Lee wahtsit as his chosen apprentice, despite his having lied about his education on his CV, is now to become a Lord and be the governments Industry Tzar which sends out -what kind of message?

And yes, Sir Alan has been a "lender" of money to the labour party but, we are told, there is no question of this being a "cash for honours" deal.



JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[RossABQ]

It's a screwed-up system, thanks to lawyers or more correctly, idiot jurors. When another company's HR calls me for a reference on a former employee, I can't say anything except that he worked here from Hire Date to Termination Date. Of course, how you say it can give a hint, but an honest discussion (which could just as well be favorable as not) is cause for MY termination if discovered.

Example of embellishment: A Engrg Technology grad I hired stated in his CV and in the interviews that he was very adept at Excel spreadsheets. He showed me some examples that appeared to confirm that. Once on board, I tasked him with a simple electrical room cooling load calaculation (6 loads). In the spreadsheet he created (over a 12 hour period!), in the BTU column he had the units as well as the values, and some were kW, some BTU. I asked how he was able to get the spreadsheet to add the column with the units in the cell, and with the units being different. (Yes, I know you CAN do it, but...). Well, it turns out, nothing was being calculated in the spreadsheet, he did the calcs on his calculator and simply typed them into the cells! After much discussion, it developed that the only reason he used Excel was because it drew nice little borders around each cell.... He literally was unaware of the functions. Gone after 2 agonizing months.

 

[MacGyverS2000]

Ross,

Not sure where you're located, but in the US you do not have to limit yourself to "He worked from date 'X' to date 'Y'...". The hiring company is allowed to ask specific questions, such as "Was he punctual?", "Did he ever knowingly falsify information?", and "Was he competent in his work?". As long as you provide truthful answers, there is no actionable material for a lawsuit to work with. If the kid is really pissed off and he convinces a lawyer, you may get to pre-trial stuff, but once it comes out that you truthfully answered questions asked by the hiring company without leading them, it'll be dropped.

Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

 

[jmw]

He literally was unaware of the functions.

And he was an engineering graduate?
Not able to use properly... maybe, but unaware?
Where did he get his degree from? one of those junk email places?

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[patprimmer]

Unfortunately truth is no defense in a slander suit in Aus. If you criticize someone, they can sue you for real damages even if the statement is true, but they must prove real loss of money one way or another, ie, if you slander them and their business declines, they could sue you for the loss, or if they miss the job they could sue you for lost wages.

Here you do not have to lie, but you are often wise to reply no comment.

The only defense in a slander case is to provide evidence that your intent was the good of the public. They are judged on balance of probability, not reasonable doubt.

Regards
Pat
See FAQ731-376 for tips on use of eng-tips by professional engineers &

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm

for site rules

 

[MacGyverS2000]

Pat,

So telling the truth about someone's incompetence would probably be acceptable in the case of someone designing bridges or buildings, but probably not acceptable in the case of a secretary or CAD jockey... interesting.

Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

 

[casseopeia]

jfpe,

If I understand this correctly, you saw a former coworker's trumped up resume on a networking site where people with his qualifications advertise for work.

1. Your complaint is that he said he ‘managed’ a project where you think he did something less, maybe ‘assisted with’ or ‘participated in’ the project.

2. You want to do something, perhaps make a formal report, to let others know that it is your opinion that he did not manage the project and that your former coworker is less than competent.

3. Your motivation for this is that it may possibly impact your ability to get a project for which you are both competing.

4. Or, he may have gotten a project on which you submitted a bid, or fee estimate, and now you want to get him off the project.

If you are in the US, you may be opening yourself up to a legal claim by your former junior coworker for tortious interference, especially in the case where he won a contract. You, a third party, is attempting to interfere with someone’s business or contractual relationship with another even though you have no legal claim to the contract for the project.

And so what if he said ‘managed.’ You can manage a job well, or you can manage it badly. In the end you will be arguing semantics. Maybe this former coworker considered what he did to be a managerial role and the people who you considered the true managers, he is calling supervisors, or overseers. He wants to be called the ‘manager’ for the project and you want him to be called ‘assistant incompetent junior almost engineer’.

My suggestion, drop it.

If competence is important to the people doing the awarding, they will look for someone else. If they hire your coworker because he is cheaper and don't care about the competence, it's their decision, not yours.





"If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance!"

 

[RossABQ]

And he was an engineering graduate?
Not able to use properly... maybe, but unaware?
Where did he get his degree from? one of those junk email places?

He was a Engrg Technology grad (4 yr program). He literally did not know how to sum a column, was unaware of the Sum() function. His solution was to do =C1+C2.... His degree is from a program at a state school that appears (in hindsight) to have low standards.

Macguyver, I should have stated that my company's policy (not federal law) prohibits me from saying anything. I am supposed to refer them to HR. The company's policy is driven by past lawsuits.

 

[SNORGY]

My approach:

The resume gets you in the door; the interview determines what side of it you stay on; and performance determines how long you stay on that side.

When I interview a person, I am always more interested in having that person tell me how they have solved a problem in their past - it doesn't even need to be work-related. I have interviewed lots of high-calibre engineers with great credentials and experience, but knowledge and experience are worthless if at the end of the day the only thing delivered is a theoretical encapsulation of the problem and a well-backed opinion, when all you really wanted was the phone calls from the field to stop.

I have a small department now; there is one particular individual - very much my junior - who I just "inherited" one day, because management said this person was a "mechanical engineer". So, since this person allegedly worked for me, I figured I ought to introduce myself. I knew nothing about this person. I assigned a few tasks, consulted with the person maybe three times on matters of how and who to interface with, and so on, and within a couple of weeks things went dead quiet. It turns out the person was so effective that nobody came to *me* any more. It made me look incompetent and brilliant at the same time.

It's pretty cool when problems come up and all I need to say is "No worries, I'll assign (Person)", and that's pretty much the last I hear of the problem. What's even better is when the questions more frequently come to me in terms of, "Do you mind if we have (Person) look at this?".

The other (Persons), even more junior, are turning out to be the same. Now I just sit in my office and eat doughnuts. It's a wonderful career.

Regards,

SNORGY.

 

[HgTX]

I had a similar conversation about this kind of thing with my mother just last night.

Mom (telecom IT project manager, ex-engineer) was upset to see what a former colleague put on her resume. In essence the colleague listed everything that had been in her extensive job description, lots of responsibility for this and that, lots of mention of the complex nature of the project, how many people affected, etc. Looked very impressive and very important. Except she was only there for two months. As my mother put it, "After two months you can barely find the ladies' room." And some of those tasks Mom knows for a fact the colleague didn't do, because Mom was doing them. Maybe eventually the colleague would have done them if she'd been there longer, but she wasn't.

So Mom looks at these things and is in turmoil about what she should put on her own resume. She can't bring herself to do anything she thinks isn't honest, but she feels she's at a significant disadvantage against people with lower scruples, and wonders if she's just looking at things the wrong way, and maybe she needs to revise her notions of relevance etc.

I said that hopefully someone looking at that colleague's resume would note the two months and disregard most of what she'd described of what she did, but in truth I'm not so sure. I do not believe in karma, do not believe that what goes around comes around. I believe that more often than not the sleazier people are the ones who get ahead because they have a set of tools available to them that non-sleazy people do not.

So how does one promote oneself all the way to the edge, without being dishonest, but without selling oneself short by even a centimeter? I don't know that the line is really all that clear. I've had people tell me, from within an organization I was applying to, to bump up my self-assessment on certain skills or other knowledge items on the job application. To me, "knowing" means one thing. To someone else, it might mean less. Et cetera.

I suppose the key is to find someone else who does have a good sense of how to do this, and just go ask them each time...

Hg

Eng-Tips policies: faq731-376

 

[IRstuff]

I think that it really depends on the interviewer. I've seen similar bits of inflation, but it was clear that the interviewee was not necessarily even qualified to do much of anything, except possibly throwing BS.

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[MikeHalloran]

If BS is a job requirement, then a certain amount of puffery is justified.

Which makes technical people easier to interview. In just a few minutes, you can question them about specific factual claims and directly evaluate whether they wrote the book, read the book, or didn't know there was a book.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[IRstuff]

Our own companies are often at fault for poor screening questions.

Example:

"Are you familiar with ProgramX? Invariably, one can convince oneself to answer in the affirmative.

During interview, "So what have you done using ProgramX?" "Oh, I didn't actually use it, but I looked over the shoulder of someone who was."

The interviewee didn't lie; he was "familiar" with the software, just never actually used it.

A more useful question might have been, "What level of expertise do you have with ProgramX?"

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[MacGyverS2000]

If a candidate is always answering with short or yes/no responses, the interviewer is not doing their job. On the same token, the candidate is not very impressive, either. During interviews, I respond to such yes/no questions with my comfort level with the application, as well as any pertinent examples of such use. Obviously this is more difficult during the early years of someone's career, but even using it at school is useful experience.

It also helps to document work on your resume as it is performed, not two years after the fact. If your resume is worded well, the interviewer(s) can ask more intelligent questions.

Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

 

[IRstuff]

The question was a screening question placed on our website.

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[MacGyverS2000]

<psh> If that's the case, I'd Google the app, read a few sentences about it's use, then answer the question affirmatively, as well. Sounds like HR could use some help writing the questions...

Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

 

[IRstuff]

The app was NVThermIP; you're welcome to give it a go ;-)

Might be an interesting experiment...

TTFN

FAQ731-376