[aleph_minus_one]

> If I look at a candidate that spent 2-3 yrs as a Software Engineer at some company that I'm relatively familiar with, and they seem to have 2nds and thirds to people I know in the industry, then pretty good chance they aren't lying.

The problem is: there exist a lot of companies - you can only be familiar with a very small fraction of them. Also, for many big companies, the differences between departments or groups can be a lot larger than between companies of similar size and sector.