[wuunderbar]

How do you account for people inflating or lying about their work on their CV?

I think those sites you mentioned only get you to the point of actually having your skills vetted. It's not a solution to the proposed problem of interviewing.

[jenscow]

It's not just the liars, they're usually easy to spot.

It's those who genuinely believe they're good... they do well in an interview, because they have been working as a "developer" and can talk the talk. But as soon as they have to write a piece of code that's beyond a basic CRUD application you're basically code reviewing a bowl of spaghetti.

Google one of their variable names, and guess what site pops up.

And then there's the ability to debug something - they'll either pester other people, stare blankly at the screen, or start asking on forums.

I know this may sound bad, and some will dislike this, but: no matter how much "experience" or training, some people just don't have what it takes.

edit, to add:

Yes, I've worked with, recommended, and hired a few of these. That is why I now insist that I see some code first. Take it home, during interview, or github - whatever's best.

I'll also give a piece of sample code understand and improve. No brain-teasers or gotchas, just something I believe someone with their experience should easily do, accounting for interview pressures.

If I scare off some prima-donnas, then that's a bonus.

[mrtdex15]

How to check a lying person on an interview?

[scaryclam]

Ask them a few questions. It's pretty easy to figure out that that AWS "expert" has just clicked around on the console for a while and doesn't really understand things by simply talking to them about it. Or if someone says they've been programming in python for 10 years, make them talk about the projects they've done, how the code was structured, etc.