February 04, 2004

Interviewing People

So, today I'm interviewing candidates for a clone of my position. I have too much to do, or, more precisely, too little time to do it in. So I need a helper, but not one that I have to train up in the ways of RH OS whacking and perl mangling.

When I look at what it would take to replace me, and what they have to know how to do, or at least fake up something that works, I realize that a year ago I would not have been able to pass the interview that I am giving. Before I worked here, I had never build an RPM from scratch, re-engineered a kickstart CD for a new OS version (from 4 down to 1, and a format changge for a critical file.) or hacked source on CPAN modules to get them to build for single OS only.

So I look at these resumes, and I am thinking, "If they're like me, they don't put it down unless they know it well." Well, that apparently isn't the way the game is played anymore. They get someone else to puff their resume, count their college course as work experience, and put down that they "did" projects that they only contributed plugging a CD in and installing to.

This is the first time I've interviewed people who don't match even half of their resume. It's a shock, and yet the others here tell me it's real common these days.

Now I know why I got very few calls when I was looking for work - people assumed that my resume was puffed by twice or more. That's why all of the resume gurus are advocating puffing and spinning - it's the only way to compete with all of the other resume mills and baloney pushers.

Needless to say, I am not very encouraged.

Posted by ljl at February 4, 2004 02:04 PM
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