[rainyMammoth]

And yet the sad conclusion is that even though that hire lied on his resume he might very well be an excellent match for that job given he passed the interviews and everyone seemed to love him.

If I was the CEO (author of the blog) I would ask myself why I put so many artificial barriers. Why does it matter that he got a similar position for the job if he was going to be good at it anyways?

I'm getting mad at all of those artificial gatekeepers that like to also play victim because "there are not enough talents out there".

Yes that guy lied on his resume and therefore should not be hired (and he should be shamed). But this CEO should also realize that his artificial gate-keeping is the reason why people feel the need to lie.

[013a]

Ok, let's forget about the deception part.

Interviews are horrible. They round-down to being useless at actually determining whether someone will be good at a job. I think we all mostly agree with this, at least to a degree.

To be clear on why I bring this up: this cuts both ways. If someone does poorly during an interview, this is a poor signal as to whether they'll actually perform poorly at the job. But, similarly: if someone does exceedingly well during an interview, this is also a poor signal as to whether they'll actually perform well at the job. It works both ways, you see?

I love the quote from Andy Grove at the bottom of the article. We all know interviews suck, from both perspectives. Its easy to just jump to a conclusion there: Well, lets kill the interview, they're pointless, why do we do them? Its a signal. Its not a very useful signal, but it isn't useless.

There are two signals that are, generally, characteristic of a much higher signal-to-noise ratio: references and work history.

This isn't bullshit gatekeeping. This is prioritizing the signals that have the highest probability of accurately predicting how well a new hire will do. He wouldn't have gotten an interview had he told the truth. That's probably because, at this point, there's very little information at the hiring manager's disposal to conclude that the hire would be a successful one. Even at the end of the interviews, he probably wouldn't have gotten hired.

It is gatekeeping. But its not bullshit.

[zodiac]

It's true that he passed the interviews and everyone seemed to love him, but would you hire someone who lied to the extent that he did?

[rainyMammoth]

Of course I would not hire him, but I left this comment because this artificial gate-keeping that pushed the hire to lie is a ridiculous trend.

Let's say that this hire didn't lie on his resume, he would still successfully pass the interview but he would never get to that point anyways.

[UseStrict]

I don't think it was just the resume inflation, it's the fact that he meticulously went out and created a number of fake individuals with fake references. That's not something a normal person does when looking for a job.

Beyond that, the back-channel check where he "wasn't a culture fit" becomes a lot more alarming once you learn that he went through that level of effort to lie to get the position. I had a boss like that at a previous job. He always had an answer, confident, well liked by the higher ups in the company. But a menacing sociopath to all of his reports. Calling employees on weekends, micro-managing, belittling. It took the entire team quitting for the company to realize its mistake.

And that was just some mid-level manager, not a VP of Engineering whose behaviour may impact the entire company.

[Austhou]

Because it's a VP position and not an entry level job?

[rainyMammoth]

It is a VP position for a small, medium startup. The equivalent of a middle manager anywhere else.

[frenchyatwork]

The problem is not that there are barriers, but that the barriers are artificial.