I think we need to have a conversation about fake resumes and fraudulent interview practices. I am a software engineer and this affects programmers in general. I had heard about fake resumes in the CS field for a while but didn't know to what extent and today I want to discuss it.
I apologize for the long post, please go to the bottom for the TLDR.
Recruiters
Most recruitment companies are extremely helpful for people hunting for jobs and where there is good there are people who take advantage of a situation. This post is about those recruitment companies that take advantage of people who are
a. Entry-Level experience.
b. Largely or completely foreign work experience.
c. People with H1B or Student visas.
These people are some of the most vulnerable and desperate people looking for a job or work. This point is important because if these recruiters find out that you're a citizen or a permanent resident they will cut-off the call and not move forward with the person.
First Interview
In the first call the recruiter will ask you what kind of experience you have and how many years according to their work requirements. If you're a few years short of the level of experience according to their requirements they'll invite you to join a class valued around $10,000- $20,000 by their own “Course”.
Course
At this point the recruitment company hires the person as their employee who will be paid hourly if/when they get hired.This course is a ploy to get the person into debt and teach the students methods on how to lie, manipulate and succeed in the interview. This largely teaches the students the basics of the interviews, how to answer the questions and to constantly use support during the interview.
Support
This is the person who will be assisting you and helping you throughout the interview. This person has real experience, has a computer opened up on their side to look up the answers or already knows the answers to most if not all of the questions.
Marketing
Once the “training” is done, years of fake experience is added to the resume. The more experience they add the better because the recruiters percentage of the salary. This is why they need someone down on their luck, they push ridiculous contracts which are pretty much non-enforceable and try to take a bigger percentage of the hourly rate. The recruitment company takes advantage of the and lack of knowledge of the the job-seeker.
Interview
Once a company accepts the resume now's the time for the interview. The first interview is pretty much confirmation of work experience and usually done by the recruiters. The second or technical interview is where the support comes in. The recruitment company arranges a meeting with the support and what method works best with the interviewee.
This is where some of the best tricks come into play.
1- Telling the company that they're not in the same city as the company. Face-to-Face interviews are immediately cancelled. So the company is forced to interview remotely.
2- Keeping the cameras off at all times and/or “break” the camera so the image is not clear.
3- Use voice-to-text software like otter.ai or wear an earphone so the “support” can give the answers to the interviewee.
4- Use software like TeamViewer to control the interviewees machine if there's a written section.
5 – The interview is done completely by the support because the camera isn't “working”.
Background Check
Congratulations! You've passed all the interviews and now comes the background check. You can't lie now right? WRONG.
In the background check the recruitment company first checks which BG checking company they're working with and how stringent they are. After that they fill up the form, what about the missing 8 years of professional experience? The recruitment company simply lists their own company and when the background checking company calls for verification they simply lie and get away with it without issues.
First Day At Work
Once you're in the company surely now the person is in trouble as they don't know anything or have real experience?
The recruitment company's got you covered.
That's still what support is for. The recruitment company will charge their “employee” extra money for the support but it's that support who's going to be doing your job from now onwards. Yes, people sometimes get caught and fired, some stay to learn and be productive and others just keep living the lie as is because they don't have to do anything and they keep getting paid.
Effect
You might be saying “good job screwing the big corporation out of their money” or “they're paying for the value the person is providing” or something like “It seems like it's the company's fault for not asking the right questions”.
If that was it, I would've not made the effort of writing such a lengthy post.
If you've observed ridiculous requirements for job applications, it’s not just because the recruiter is out of touch. It’s most probably because they’re getting an extremely high number of applicants who just don’t seem very capable at interviews and tests so they increase the requirements in the hopes of finding the right candidate and also as a way to use the requirements to have an upper hand during salary negotiations.
If people who lie and game the system keep filling up those positions it just means that the person who is not lying, studying and working hard is being rejected not because they’re not capable but because someone else cheated.
One might also think this as a win for the little guy, but it is the recruitment company who’s gaming the system and taking the majority of the money. Remember that I mentioned desperate people? Well now they’re underpaid and even if they now have a legitimate experience now “owe” the recruitment company and because of their lack of experience might slow down the entire team's task deadline because of constant mistakes and delays.
TLDR: Some recruitment companies use fake resumes and fake interviewers to game people looking for employment and companies creating problems for legitimate people looking for work.