I haven't ticked off anyone in a little while. So I guess it's time to open this can of worms that's been sitting on my desk ever since I started ...
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Hey Adam,
This was an AWESOME article. I really loved the way you phrased everything and I totally agree with you. I have a question tho about the education part. I am ALL ABOUT lying to the bots about education and telling the truth to the person but most applications don't have drop down boxes that ask about degrees but instead have you list the school, degree, and graduation date. So, do you think I should just add a random school to my resume and then explain to a recruiter that I had enrolled but never finished the degree?
I think that makes sense. I wouldn't put down a school if you've just never been there. But if you went somewhere for a few years, I think it makes sense to put that data in the form - and explain the details to the recruiter/interviewer if they ask.
Oh you'd be surprised. I vividly remember interviewing somewhere that insisted that a degree in Computer Science was a requirement. I'd talked to the recruiter about this ahead of time, since I'm entirely self taught. I even did their online coding challenge.
They rejected me, because, and I quote, I didn't "comment the code enough" - my response to the recruiter? Phew, I dodged a bullet!
Later, after a promotion to being a dev manager myself, I happened to interview someone for a senior position. I genuinely wouldn't offer them a junior seat based on the things they know. But that company that refused me, was more than happy to give them a senior role.
After that, and talking to a lot of CompSci post-grads, that's now my only "knock out"... Do you have a CompSci degree? Yes? Goodbye!
Wouldn't that basically make it the same as the other company? Rejecting people based on a trivial question instead of skills? (Just from the opposite side of the spectrum)
Indeed, it would!
We like your attitude and style.
You've done an excellent job exposing that many systems are designed to whittle the candidate pool down with knock-out questions, but I'm not sure that I wholeheartedly agree with the splitting of requirements into even thirds directly.
That even-thirds technique is dangerous when, for example, the company has a basic job template and the hiring manager adds their real position requirements to the bottom of the list. I've watched managers do this. A candidate following your even-thirds split would lie outright about the most important requirements on that type of job post.
Perhaps a strategy to complement the even-thirds would be to reorder the list of requirements by specificity. Something generic like "object-oriented programming" should fall to the bottom, while requirements like "Enterprise Java Beans" or "Web Framework: Spring, Jersey" should rise higher in the list. I figure that the more specific a requirement is, the more likely it applies to that position. (And on that note, I would run the opposite direction of anyone talking about EJBs in 2021.)
Now for a personal story: Much earlier in my career, I recognized the knock-out questions in an online application system. One of the knock-out questions asked for "A degree in computer-science, software development, or related field, or at least 6 years of experience in software development." The degree that I hold is in East Asian Studies, and I had less than 6 years of professional experience in development at that point, but I indicated that I satisfied that requirement. I got through the HR interview, programming aptitude test, panel interview, background check (including degree validation), and all other stages.
Finally, I got a call from the head of recruiting: "We were just performing a final review of your application and noticed that your resume lists neither 6 years of experience nor a degree in a software-related field, but you indicated that you satisfied that requirement. Are we counting incorrectly? Or did you forget to include some experience?" I responded that I had more than 10 years of experience and the question didn't indicate the experience had to be professional. (That was completely true: I have been programming since elementary school.) I also told her that part of the reason I decided to pursue a non-technical degree was that I had initially taken some software classes, was correcting the instructors in certain areas, and had absolutely no trouble completing programming assignments that students in higher-level courses showed to me. (All of that was completely true as well.) I told her that instead of spending my time in classes for a subject that I already felt I understood, I wanted to broaden my skills and learn something I didn't know much about yet.
She didn't seem too pleased at the time, but thanked me for explaining my application and hung up. I received the job offer the very next day. Either my answer was satisfactory enough for the company to decide that I hadn't lied, or I had done well enough during the interview stages that they decided to overlook the lie they caught me on.
I agree that my "even-thirds strategy" is a bit... coarse. For every job description (and potential submission), you gotta apply a little bit of common sense to the equation. And yes, it is possible that the most important stuff is at the bottom (although I feel this is somewhat rare).
But I don't necessarily agree with your point about specificity. Here's why:
I've seen multiple occasions where an HR person is trying to put together a job listing to be posted online. They know that this job will be with, say... the dev ops team, so they talk to the dev ops manager and they ask that person for a list of all the technologies in the dev ops environment.
If that team/company has been around a while, they probably got a little bit of dang near everything lurking around. A stray VB.NET app over here, some ancient legacy Websphere sever over there. And of course, if you're in dev ops, you might need to "touch" all those different technologies, but that doesn't mean that you need to be functionally knowledge about nearly any of them.
I've literally seen job postings where they list a half dozen specific programming languages, and a half dozen specific database engines, and a half dozen different operating systems - but no one actually has to know all/most of that stuff to do the job.
As for your story - yeah... that's a classic example of what I'm talking about. In my experience, it's extremely rare that you ever get called out on such a detail - although it's obviously possible. And just as the process seemed to end favorably for you (even after getting "called out"), I believe it almost always ends up favorably for others who apply the same "creative truths".
Thank you for the detailed feedback!
The annoying part is that the system* is broken. We're looking for new people to expand our team. We are looking for interesting people with certain skills. But we cannot enter this into the system. The system cannot judge on people being interesting, or have certain skills. What we can insert in knowledge about tools and frameworks. These are then used to filter the pool, by the system, but often also by the people themselves. Skills are the valuable part, having used a tool or framework not so much. If you have the skills, you can learn those tools and frameworks on the job in a couple of weeks. To judge if somebody is interesting we need to figure out what drives people in life. Having a person who likes to build furniture in their spare time can be a worthwhile asset to your development team.
The problem also goes into the other direction. Most job postings are simply bad on describing the work and workplace. It's basically always the same few lines. Like, "you will work in an agile team using scrum". Really? in what way? Maybe describe an average week of somebody in the same position as the application is about. Maybe explain how the system is build/maintained, rather than what tools do you use.
*) the system is the recruiting system composed of HR, recruiters, and the technology they apply to match.
I was in this boat, so I changed the system*.
Now, I personally review all applications, and if needed personally talk to potential candidates before they apply.
Sure, it sucks my time up... but I don't know a better alternative.
Lie in a manner you can always defend with a nice backup 😉....nice article 👍
Truly enjoyable! It's rare to find this level of honesty on the web. Thank you so much! 😁
Great article! I agree with all your points.
Thanks Adam!
I worked with a guy who later confessed to me of making up nearly all of his professional experience. I don't think he was ever found out.
Bingo! And while I wouldn't necessarily endorse "making up nearly all of your professional experience", I would endorse crafting a "story" about your experience that reflects your skills. In other words, that guy was never found out because he actually knew what he was doing. If he fabricated his resume - and he had no skills - he would've been quickly found out and it would've ended poorly.
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Have you ever thought about moving your posts around stuff like this on another website? It could become an extremely useful resource to reference.
I'm not necessarily opposed to the idea, but I don't have any particular target in mind. So for now... they're all just here.