Rant: Generation Y: Please stop lying on your resumes

[SarcasticDwarf]

Can I be the first to say:

JESUS F'ING CHRIST!!!

 

[shortylickens]

Can I be the first to say:

JESUS F'ING CHRIST!!!

What?
The OP?
The hiree?
Or all the rest of us? 😛

 

[Rage187]

That reply was epic.

 

[AreaCode707]

That reply was epic.

I've spent way too many hours in meetings trying to fix the problems that come out of lack-of-HR-process. :/ HR creates a ton of problems for sure (some more than others) but there are worse problems that happen without HR. The MS co-employment lawsuit is a great example.

 

[SarcasticDwarf]

I've spent way too many hours in meetings trying to fix the problems that come out of lack-of-HR-process. :/ HR creates a ton of problems for sure (some more than others) but there are worse problems that happen without HR. The MS co-employment lawsuit is a great example.

The problem is finding (and more importantly, keeping to) a middle ground. I think the above is a good example of too much process that is too rigid and centralized.

 

[OoteR02]

..

PHP people who don't know what the name means??? I have only dabbled in php and even I know it stands for PHP Hypertext Preprocessor...

 

[sourceninja]

..

PHP people who don't know what the name means??? I have only dabbled in php and even I know it stands for PHP Hypertext Preprocessor...

I never cared to find out. All I cared when I got into it was that I was getting paid and it was easier to read then my co-worker's perl scripts.

 

[Kanalua]

I hate State jobs where they have to post and go through the motions of "searching" for a candidate for a position when the agency/department already has a candidate selected to fill the position. Sucks having some bureaucrat call and you can tell he's just going through the motions with no interest in your "interview" just so if he/she's audited they don't get into trouble.

 

[ultimatebob]

That reply was epic.

Yep, he nailed the process right on for large corporations. For small corporations, the process is slightly different:

1) We submit a requisition to the management team for an additional worker, and have it rejected because funds aren't in the budget for a new hire.

Three months go by...

2) Management screams that their projects are 2 months behind schedule. We remind management that we're understaffed, and that we requested an additional hire three months ago. Management reluctantly approves hiring an additional person.

3) We submit a job description to HR, which then goes to Dice and a few outsourced recruiting firms.

4) We then start getting job applications from Dice and the recruiters. Most of the applicants aren't remotely qualified for the jobs. (i.e. System Administrators with no database experience looking for DBA jobs, or junior level programmers looking to fill a development team lead position). The recruiters also send us a few dozen candidates, many of which aren't even remotely qualified for the position. For an example, if we asked for an Oracle DBA, they would send us every resume they had on file that had the word Oracle on it.

5) The technical people (like myself) weed out the worthless candidates, since the HR department isn't technical and doesn't understand what is on these resumes. This takes awhile, since the technical team is already overworked. Remember, the manager was complaining that the project is two months behind schedule, and that was a few weeks ago!

6) The technical team ends up wasting a lot of time explaining our requirements over and over again to the recruiting firms that send us these lousy candidates, only to get another batch of resumes that have little in common with the job requirements.

7) The technical team starts doing phone screenings, and finds that many of the candidates lied on their resumes. See my prior rant about people with UNIX on their resume not knowing how VI works, or people who say that they're experts in SQL and not knowing how to do a multi-table JOIN.

8) We then bring in people for an interview. The HR department starts by giving them a standardized math and English skills test that only a moron would fail. Amazingly, 25% of the applicants that somehow made it past the phone screen fail it.

9) The technical team finally gets a chance to interview the candidates. At this point, they probably have a good chance of getting the job unless they say something stupid (like excessively whining about their prior employer) or fail to answer some basic technical questions. Quite a few of the candidates succeed at doing just that.

10) Our management team then interviews the candidate that make it past the technical team. The rest of the team hopes that our managers don't scare the candidate off when they explain our crazy development schedules and meager benefit packages.

11) If the person did well in the interview, HR sends them an offer. Unfortunately, that low-ball offer will probably be 20% less than the average salary for that position. Some candidates will counter offer, but some won't even bother replying. If the person accepts an offer, it's safe to assume that they're getting paid below the industry average, and that they were desperate just to get a job.

12) The new person starts, and we start training them on our products. It takes about three months for them to become productive. By six months, half of the new hires have already left for larger companies with higher salaries and better benefits. Back to step 1.

 

[Phokus]

12) The new person starts, and we start training them on our products. It takes about three months for them to become productive. By six months, half of the new hires have already left for larger companies with higher salaries and better benefits. Back to step 1.

6 months? How the hell does that happen? You'd figure that would be a red flag for those larger firms not to hire someone who jumps around a lot.

 

[TridenT]

6 months? How the hell does that happen? You'd figure that would be a red flag for those larger firms not to hire someone who jumps around a lot.

Maybe those larger firms are what they were searching for for long term? 😕

 

[ShawnD1]

6 months? How the hell does that happen? You'd figure that would be a red flag for those larger firms not to hire someone who jumps around a lot.

Depends. The first company had the problem of not having any suitable candidates for the job. They had a take a guy who didn't know enough then train him for 3 months to make him useful in any way. Company B doesn't have that problem. They want a guy who knows what he's doing, and this now-trained guy knows what he's doing. Instead of dicking around with another untrained candidate who might leave in 6 months, you take the already trained guy who also might leave after 6 months. At least the trained guy will be productive for the entire 6 months he is there.

And that's why you treat your employees good. If you treat them like shit, they leave. It's not even a money thing really. Some places have 10, 20, 30 year employees because the work environment is relaxed, the boss is a good buy, vacation time is well managed, and people don't ride your ass if you need to leave an hour early to pick your kid up from the hospital.

 

[ultimatebob]

Maybe those larger firms are what they were searching for for long term? 😕

Yeah... some of these people have been unemployed for six or more months. At that point, I'd imagine that you would be willing to work at a job that doesn't pay that well long enough to find a job that does.

 

[Axon]

Have to agree with a lot of the comments here. I'm 31 and in generation Y (I suppose), and let me tell you, these kids think they're entitled to something.

I'm an attorney. I came out of school with a judicial clerkship in state court - low paying but valuable experience. It was a long commute and occasionally annoying hours, but I took it. Other kids passed up similar jobs looking for "more money" or "more prestige." It made my head hurt. What makes you think you should get more money? Because you took a big loan? News flash: that was your decision and your decision alone. No one gives you anything these days unless you've got that big trust fund. But employers don't owe you jack.

 

[SaDiZTiKStyLeZ]

If the laptop was manufactured in the last 3 years, they partition a portion of the drive with the original image on it. As soon as you boot the laptop, you'll see what key you need to press to bring up the recovery option. They don't include recovery discs nowadays.

Oh, yeah. Been a good year or so since I last had to do it that way. I usually just skip straight to formatting with disc...

Here is another tip for your interview. Get a list of all the people you'll be interviewing with and google the hell out of them. Find out where they went to school, what programs and conferences that they have spoken at. Get details. Know who you are talking to and you'll do a better job in the interview. Whatever you do, don't brag that you virtually stalked them, that is not the point.

One job I applied for was doing software support. I went through the company's public website and found all the support procedures and followed it to the letter during the mock call.

The goal of the call was to have you work on something you likely knew little about. It is to see that you are creative in your troubleshooting and that you don't give up easily.

It is all in how you prepare for the interview, do your research and you'll rock it out.

I usually do look up info and stuff before hand. Have had several interviews with companies that have little to no online presence. Especially when my career services person sends me out to interviews blindly, when he doesn't even know anything about the company past names and position being filled. I kind of like to have some preparation beforehand, and an idea of what to expect.

The technical questions companies throw at me most of the time, usually go over my head. Like when it comes to server/networking details. Classes weren't designed to do heavy in depth networking tasks and practices. Most of those classes we just had to half ass and and wing it because that's the best we could do. That gave an idea of how to do things, but didn't feel enough to be prepared to put to use in a real business environment. I did really well in those admin classes, even though we couldn't do everything we were supposed to.
I can usually answer basic user tasks, but most of the times I just do it without thinking about it, so I don't always remember the exact technical name paths to get to whatever.

 

[SarcasticDwarf]

Other kids passed up similar jobs looking for "more money" or "more prestige." It made my head hurt. What makes you think you should get more money? Because you took a big loan? News flash: that was your decision and your decision alone. No one gives you anything these days unless you've got that big trust fund. But employers don't owe you jack.

I dunno, you see this as entitlement, I see it as more "getting whatever you can in this screwed up world." I don't see anything wrong with getting the most you can in a job, even if that means turning down other jobs.

 

[IGBT]

what do you expect?? they cheated on their tests all the way through school and adore and worship the Liar President Bill Hayseed Clinton. Lies are part of their behavioral characteristic. If you really want some fun make em take a drug test.

 

[ConstipatedVigilante]

As a Gen Y guy I can say you hit the nail right on the head with my generation. I worked really hard to get where I am right now and more then a couple other Gen Y people at my job I just want to punch in the face repeatedly. They lie/cheat/stretch the truth just to win favor and/or not get in trouble. On the flip side I've always been a hard worker and am blessed with my current job as it's much much easier then my last and I'm so thankful for that. But I just wish my boss would hire more of the all type people then the nothing type people no matter what generation they are from.

I can echo this. I'm still in school, but I notice the same phenomenon in my classes. Half the class just sits on their asses all day and whines when they get bad grades, and the rest goes to the library and studies to do well. There are also a lot of people who cheat on tests, but then they get screwed when they have to do free-form work (ie, compositions, group projects).

 

[ShawnD1]

If you really want some fun make em take a drug test.

lol totally. If I ran a company, I would do drug tests on all new employees. Earlier in this thread I already explained that drug tests are mostly useless, but it would sure scare the shit out of people and keep them on their toes.

 

[shadow9d9]

what do you expect?? they cheated on their tests all the way through school and adore and worship the Liar President Bill Hayseed Clinton. Lies are part of their behavioral characteristic. If you really want some fun make em take a drug test.

Could be worse. They could follow George Bush and his lies which led us into an endless occupation of a foreign country or that tax cuts for the rich will help everyone else.

 

[shortylickens]

Could be worse. They could follow George Bush and his lies which led us into an endless occupation of a foreign country or that tax cuts for the rich will help everyone else.

At this point I'd like to motion for lock, or transfer to P&N.

I'll go ask the mods right now.

 

[2Xtreme21]

what do you expect?? they cheated on their tests all the way through school and adore and worship the Liar President Bill Hayseed Clinton. Lies are part of their behavioral characteristic. If you really want some fun make em take a drug test.

Haha what?

 

[alkemyst]

what do you expect?? they cheated on their tests all the way through school and adore and worship the Liar President Bill Hayseed Clinton. Lies are part of their behavioral characteristic. If you really want some fun make em take a drug test.

shit son, in high school over the last 20 years or so most probably don't know who the president is when in it.

 

[alkemyst]

lol totally. If I ran a company, I would do drug tests on all new employees. Earlier in this thread I already explained that drug tests are mostly useless, but it would sure scare the shit out of people and keep them on their toes.

Fortunately the only thing you will ever run is the deep fryer or some carnival ride.

 

[ShawnD1]

Fortunately the only thing you will ever run is the deep fryer or some carnival ride.

*points at engineering degree* :whiste:

What is your job exactly? You post all kinds of retarded shit around here and I have no idea what your profession is. Like in that one car thread you didn't even know what size of ground wire a car has. That's something that could be checked on google in 3 seconds.