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by kstenerud 2337 days ago
Hang on... I'm confused here:

> Not only had he lied about his experience, he’d set up fake identities complete with LinkedIn profiles with hundreds of connections, then gotten people who were complicit in his lie to pretend to be those people on the phone.

> I sat down and tried to trace the source of my confusion. Sam didn’t have a LinkedIn profile, and when I asked him why he said he turned it off because he got too much recruiter spam, which was entirely believable. He said he’d turn it back on and send me the link, but hadn’t followed up. It wasn’t much, but it was certainly a bit odd given how reliable he seemed in general.

Why would someone who'd spent months, perhaps even years cultivating a network of fake LinkedIn profiles and confederates, not have a linkedin profile himself when not having one would immediately arouse suspicion? It's not like it's at all difficult to doctor your work links. Even his wife supposedly had a profile, faking as a VP at the company in question.

Something doesn't add up here.

7 comments

Author here. Your guess is as good as mine, but probably for the reasons other people have mentioned here. It would be making the lie in public, attached to his own name. The fake profiles aren't attached to anyone real.
What is up with you taking one of the most reproduced images in history [1], but not even linking or showing it?

[1] https://arr.am

>I took a photo that may now be one of the most reproduced images in history.

Not really on topic, but it's a meme on Justin.tv where I used to work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jocqSL3m-3U
TL;DW: Kappa
8 hours later and the author has changed the description on their website. Still no answer to my question though, I'm getting very curious.

>I took a photo that may technically be one of the most reproduced images in history.

Out of curiosity, are you sure that these numbers are correct?

>In my nine years at ZeroCater I probably interviewed around three thousand people.

That would be roughly 1.30 people per working day or 6-7 people per week.

Probably didn't want coworkers to get recommended to connect with him on Linkedin (which would blow his cover).

I remember when I said I worked at company X on Linkedin, the next day I was getting barraged with emails and notifications to connect with coworkers (which 1-2 months into the job, didn't really feel like doing) and I'm pretty sure they got those recommendations about me as well.

Perhaps because he didn't want any interviewers finding backchannel references but only consulting the references he provided. If he gave a LinkedIn profile for himself, he'd have to have plenty of connections that could be contacted as potential references.
I don't have a Linkedin profile. What's suspicious about that? Or do you mean just in the context of cultivating that network? If so, how would you know given that there is no nexus to that network?
Some people get confused and think LinkedIn is where the best networks are grown. They are wrong. It's by picking up the phone.
Depends on what you're looking for. Many of the best don't have their number in public, and they are not going to answer random calls from unknown callers because they're busy doing important or interesting stuff. But yeah, you probably can't approach them on LinkedIn either.
My best guess is to avoid the folks that he has scammed in the past from blowing his cover. Those other seemingly legit profiles presumably have no obvious link to him.
I don’t think this is a totally original story, I’ve read this on slashdot a few times in various incarnations. I think the purpose of this retelling is to make an illustrated point about his theme of feeling confused.
Author here. I'm afraid this did actually happen to me personally.

A few people have mentioned a slashdot story, I've never seen it but would love to if anyone who read it could link to it. It shouldn't be too hard to believe that there could be more than one elaborate case of resume fraud.

Is it a story about a liar by... a liar?
It would be hard for the fake profile to get connections with people that he would have had to claimed to have managed or worked with (but was lying about). A fake profile for "Sam" might make it even easier to spot the fraud.

Plus, other people who know him in real life might notice that his profile information is bogus and call him on it. (Why does your LinkedIn profile say you were a director?)