Ever experience a situation like this......

You are a senior in your role, and a junior who has hardly been in the role bounces for a role not only higher level than yours but for considerable more money. Not hating, but I did find out he completely fabricated on their resume. (External position)

Is this just one of those things are is there more to it? Is this how you make the money, fabricate and fake it till you make it?

I'm kind of floored, the guy was only doing the job for 10 months, and I have been in this type of work for 4 years.......

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

amicmanzo

He probably has strong connections within the company? Only thing I can see that would give him that edge. Other than that, if he did fake it, he won't last long if another person can prove superiority.

scaredoftests

He won't last long proving karma does work. Trust me, when an important server goes down or he didn't catch an error that ran in test and shows up in production..heads will turn to him to explain.

BlackBeret

So the guy has less experience but got promoted over you? Even with an extra job on his resume he must have done something right. What other differences are there, education, other experiences, management/non-technical experience, did he apply for an internal vacancy and you didn't?

Ede890

Had to be good at something to get past the interview... Plus that individual might have something that company wants..

Simrid

Unfortunately, it's quite common. It's quite a difficult situation to approach too, as people like to keep there pay on the down low. I would say keep your head down, make a list of what you have achieved over the last few months and have a word with your line manager without through the other person under the bus.

If you don't get anywhere with this, I would say it maybe time to move on if money is what motivates you.

DatabaseHead

He went external outside the company, people here know my abilities and his. He tried banging on management for more cash but they wouldn't budge.

He didn't get promoted over me, I am higher level than him. What I am talking about is leaving the company for another company. He fabricated big time on his resume, I mean big time. So........ That's the topic.......

NetworkNewb

DatabaseHead wrote: »

He fabricated big time on his resume, I mean big time.

Find it weird you know what resume he sent to an external company.

GSXR750K2

One company's trash is another company's team lead.

CIO

I don't agree with the resume fabrication but i think he did the right thing. Look at it from his point of view; He started 10 months ago, tried asking for more money/move into a your senior level but realized that management wouldn't budge. So he left the company for another company making more money and is at you senior level.

The only thing i see here is that he's in control of his career to some degree.

There's a lot more into play here though. Are the two companies in the same industry, are they competitors, same size etc.

TeKniques

I wouldn't dwell too much on it.

1. You didn't sit in the interview(s) with him.
2. Perhaps there was no background check into prior experience?
3. Maybe he actually does know stuff.
4. Maybe he has a buddy at the other company.
5. etc.
6. etc.
7. etc.

Ertaz

A guy here was (*likely*) fired for intermittently coming in drunk over a 2 year period. He found a new job after a month and doubled his salary. The rain falls on the just and unjust...

DatabaseHead

I was curious if you experienced it, I am not worried about it at all. Just thought it was interesting......

The key take away it seems fabrication is not as risky as I once thought. Maybe fake it till you make it isn't a bad strategy, hey it can get you in the door right? If you didn't fabricate, AKA lie you wouldn't of gotten the position in the first place which means you have a 0% chance of sticking around whereas if you did lie, got the job and made it through the trials and tribulations you may have found yourself a nice little lottery ticket.

Just for the records, I wouldn't do it. I'm not wired that way, that's probably why I am not rich lol.

Interesting article in regards to fabrication.

Resume Mistakes: More Than Half of Hiring Managers See Lies on Resumes | Sounds like something that is common.....

fmitawaps

I believe in fake it till you make it. Honesty rarely worked for me.

I also don't believe people can check previous work history as some say they can. Or, put another way, maybe they COULD, but rarely DO. Especially for lower level jobs.

I am getting to the point in my IT work experience and certifications where I should be getting better jobs than I have. "Adjusting" the resume to tell potential employers what they want to hear to get me hired to gain more real work experience may not be ethical, but it is necessary.

Ertaz

fmitawaps wrote: »

I believe in fake it till you make it. Honesty rarely worked for me.

I also don't believe people can check previous work history as some say they can. Or, put another way, maybe they COULD, but rarely DO. Especially for lower level jobs.

Never let the truth get in the way of a good story bro...

Muhammed H

No matter what you write in your Cv, you have to face the interview and most of the time as I have seen so far, people in the interview board ask question based on what you wrote in the CV and about your past experience.

blargoe

Truth will catch up to you, eventually.

OctalDump

Ertaz wrote: »

The rain falls on the just and unjust...

Yep. Life can be unfair. It's entirely possible that he will continue to get away with this until he retires extremely wealthy. I don't know how much people stretch the truth generally, most resumes I've read are pretty matter of fact and don't seem to be lies, but then how would you know? I think you can probably fake your way in a lot of jobs for a long, long time. And then what happens? They probably ask you to leave before they fire you, and then you've got experience on your resume for a role that you can't do, so you go and get a better job.

I do know of one guy, quite senior, that lies about degrees that they have (possibly other things, but the degrees are easy enough to confirm), and seems to have a pattern of blaming subordinates and letting them go. He's quite comfortable lying in meetings as well. He's been in that job for more than 15 years.

BUT I think it is possible that you are also selling yourself short. The better you are at your job, the more you tend to under rate your own skills. It might be worth putting yourself out there and seeing what you can get for yourself.

DatabaseHead

Besides some lame one off's, very interesting reads, I appreciate it.

I know it's not the most interesting topic, but I find it intriguing that some folks actually have the sack to pull something like this off. I guess I am a weak person but I have a very hard time even stretching the truth.

My current manager told me to my face there are two people and then there is me. There are people who talk up their skills and back them up, then you have people who talk up there skills and cant back them up, then there is me. Someone who has tremendous skills but undersells themselves dramatically.

Not sure how to take it..... Sounds like I have a confidence issue lol.

Oh well nobody is perfect.

snunez889

Sounds like he knows where he wants his career to go and how to get there. Whether he sinks or swims is another story, but he took the risk and dove in. I'm a firm believer that no one is going to give you a higher position or salary just for sitting there and doing your job.

DatabaseHead

I guess the questions that is still pending is what happens when they can't deliver ( or more probable, deliver at a level less than desired)?

From what I have seen in certain situations these people hang around but usually never go any higher/promote. I rarely if ever seen a person fired due to incompetence.

cmztech

There is some pretty good feedback here that I agree with such as the guy sounds like he is playing the game and sink or swim it's up to him.

@DatabaseHead, I feel like you may have some concerns with how you can go about it the same way and feel justified and not guilty or something, am I right?

Think of it this way, you are a walking business. Your first and last name is the name of your business. Just like the stock exchange, your value can fluctuate up and down on any giving day depending on a number of factors. So, for a buyer (someone hiring), wouldn't you want to convince them that if you get the job your stock will sky rocket? Give them a glimpse of what you can do and then push it further for what you know you can do next. It's not lying, it's being a good salesman. Then if you can't deliver the goods afterwards, then that's bad for business. If you end up delivering the goods, then your stock increases and good on you.

that's my two anyways

Infosec85

DatabaseHead wrote: »

He went external outside the company, people here know my abilities and his. He tried banging on management for more cash but they wouldn't budge.

He didn't get promoted over me, I am higher level than him. What I am talking about is leaving the company for another company. He fabricated big time on his resume, I mean big time. So........ That's the topic.......

Yup Is weird you know what he has on his resume, you also seem very bitter about it. I say good luck to this guy, if he did lie on his resume, he still had to do well in the interview.

If you are so experienced and highly skilled then you should really have zero issue moving on and up, responsibility and salary.

Maybe it's time to stand up and be counted!

TheFORCE

How is this your experience?. I have worked in the past with managers and had managers that didnt know anything technical or what it meant to run a project, they all had one thing in common and that is, they knew how to convince other people that they knew what they where talking about and they had the mouth of a politician... blah blah blah we can get this done in 1 week for something that could take 1 month.

The point is, if you are bitter about it or jealous or curious or want to make more money, start applying. To make money you have to move, besides, maybe they understood that not everything in his resume is true but if the guy could explain that he has some experience then thats all what the company needs. A lot can happen during an interview and you dont know what was discussed.

fredrikjj

DatabaseHead wrote: »

I know it's not the most interesting topic, but I find it intriguing that some folks actually have the sack to pull something like this off. I guess I am a weak person but I have a very hard time even stretching the truth.

I disagree, it's a very interesting topic. People will always be susceptible to "confidence tricks" so lying on your resume will work to some degree because it's too expensive to check every single thing. Economists often talk about the level of trust among people in a society, and that high trust is very important because it reduces transaction costs (the Scandinavian countries are often brought up as an example of this). If trust gets too low, deals that would have been made in a high trust situation are suddenly no longer profitable.

The general consensus is probably that most people are reasonably trustworthy when it comes to a hiring situation. Obviously, people will embellish, and be liberal with the euphemisms, but outright fabrication is not assumed. That feeling of most people being reasonably trustworthy is then strengthened during the interview process if the potential employee is likable. People tend to think that people that they like can be trusted. At that point, it's difficult to scrutinize the candidate as if nothing they said is even remotely true.

People might not even check that they went to the school they said they went to, or verify that the reference that they are talking to actually is the person's former boss (and not their friend pretending to be their old boss, or whatever). History is full of known liars that successfully lied their way into jobs, and those are just the high profile cases that were exposed, imagine how many remained undetected.

I think that it's important to clamp down hard on confidence tricksters that exploit other people's trust because the alternative is that honest people lose faith in the system and feel that they too have to start bending the truth. We see this problem in this very thread. We're talking about someone that fabricated a resume, and some people think that this is acceptable behavior. He's just "playing the game" and "knows where he wants his career to go". This is not good at all, and if this person actually fabricated their resume as you said, you should expose that person to the new employer, even if it doesn't feel like a very nice thing to do. That's not even guaranteed to work by the way because anonymous claims of that type will probably just be brushed off and not further investigated.

Iristheangel

A couple things I'd like to a point out really quickly:
1) How do you know it's a job at your level or higher? Is it because of the job title he has in his new job? If so, remember that job title in IT doesn't really mean as much as it does in a lot of other industries. For example, a "senior network engineer" at one company could be a "network admin"at another. If you're basing this on his job title, it may not mean much.
2) How do you know how much he's getting paid? Even if he's getting paid more, I wouldn't stress too much about it. As others said, jumping ship to another company could help anyone get a pay bump. I've done it myself in my career because at most jobs, you get stuck in the rut of getting 2-4% yearly increases instead of sizable raises.
3) How do you know he lied on his resume? How did you receive a copy of it? Are you basing this on what you saw on his Linkedin? If so, that might not have been the resume he gave the company.
4) As other said, you don't necessarily know all the circumstances of what happened during the interview, who he may know at the job, etc. He might be doing just VLAN changes all day long and still have the title of "Senior X Engineer" depending on the company. You never know. If he is doing work that he's grossly unqualified for, it'll be discovered quickly when he brings something down.

While I do believe in challenging yourself, "faking it until you make it" will end tragically often. You'll get yourself destroyed in a technical interview or you'll find yourself destroying an employer's environment if you're unable to live up to the skills and experience you advertised. Like most folks say on this thread, it all catches up to you.

JustFred

Perhaps he didn't lie about things, but the employer saw a lot of potential and decided to hire and invest in him? Some people are not all that technical, but average and yet are extremely good with their soft skills while others are extremely technical yet cannot explain things to the less and some what non technical to understand.

You have the technical guy, explains things to the other average technical guy, the average guy knows how to translate that to MT or upper management if you can call it that. MT/upper management is happy with the work average guy puts into explaining things to them. Average guy gets more pay than technical guy. This happens a lot unless you work in a company where MT/upper management has technical guys in there who understand the nature of whats going on.

DatabaseHead

I was told by the person that the resume was fabricated, along with several of us.......

Strange how I've become the insecure one or the jealous one, sounds like I hit a nerve.

Let's break down the original post

You are a senior in your role, and a junior who has hardly been in the role bounces for a role not only higher level than yours but for considerable more money. Not hating, but I did find out he completely fabricated on their resume. (External position) This is a very basic statement/question. I am just curious if you have seen this happen, not all that complicated to understand. What would be your thoughts, would you look for a job? Would you go to internal management and leverage your situation for more money?

Is this just one of those things, is there more to it? Is this how you make the money, fabricate and fake it till you make it? Another simple question do you utilize these practices?

I'm kind of floored, the guy was only doing the job for 10 months, and I have been in this type of work for 4 years....... Just stating my opinion, believe me I am not the only one shocked. He has been very transparent about the money increase and how he went about it.

Just for the record I love this guy, I am deeply sadden to see him leave, he and I became very close. If anything, like Iris mention I am concerned he will be discovered but didn't want to expose the personal element of this dynamic until now.....

NetworkNewb

DatabaseHead wrote: »

Strange how I've become the insecure one or the jealous one, sounds like I hit a nerve.

It did kinda sound like you were doing a little witch hunt trying to figure out how this guy got a better job then you. Sounds like you know him well enough though and are friends. Guessing he found one of those needle in a haystack positions where the manager maybe willing to take a chance on someone without much experience though. I'm still looking for my needle...

DatabaseHead

NetworkNewb wrote: »

It did kinda sound like you were doing a little witch hunt trying to figure out how this guy got a better job then you. Sounds like you know him well enough though and are friends. Guessing he found one of those needle in a haystack positions where the manager maybe willing to take a chance on someone without much experience though. I'm still looking for my needle...

Agreed - Love that he is moving up believe me this is a super guy. My only concern was the fabrication, remember the Wal Mart CIO? I know it's a chicken little view point, I just don't want anything coming back on him.

Oh well I'm done with this thread, continue to carry on if you so choose. Appreciate all the good insight as usual.

NetworkNewb

DatabaseHead wrote: »

My only concern was the fabrication

Yea, I always wonder if that happens more than I think it does... I like to hope it doesn't. (probably does tho) Is what it is I guess.