Comment by austin-cheney

Comment by austin-cheney 16 hours ago

12 replies

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So, again, the answering to this and most every other hiring ill in software over the past 15-20 years is… licensing.

So, let’s think about this logically. There is no baseline of candidate identification or competence in software and the jobs pay very well in physically comfortable conditions. It makes sense that unqualified liars would apply for these positions. Why shouldn’t they? I am honestly curious how far the fraud and incompetence can go and devalue the industry before someone cares enough to tackle the problem l.

bigfatkitten 10 hours ago

The answer to this is for companies to do even a modicum of personnel vetting.

At the very least, make your remote candidate show up in person for their onboarding. A plane ticket and a few days of accomodation and meals is cheap in the grand scheme of things, and giving the opportunity to meet their team is good relationship building.

Sight their ID before you issue them with an account, give them a laptop etc.

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  • austin-cheney 10 hours ago

    > The answer to this is for companies to do even a modicum of personnel vetting.

    They do. That is clearly not enough.

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    • bigfatkitten 10 hours ago

      They generally make no enquiries at all into the applicant’s bona fides.

      The candidate sends in fake or stolen documents where the picture on the drivers license doesn’t even vaguely resemble the person who appeared on Zoom.

      When you have an applicant who says they were born in Tennessee and that they’ve apparently lived in the U.S. for their whole life, you would normally expect them to speak English with native proficiency and at least have an American-sounding accent.

      If they say they live in, say, Seattle, you’d expect they could carry on at least a basic conversation about their local area.

      Even this basic level of attention to detail nonetheless escapes many HR departments and hiring managers.

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      • austin-cheney 7 hours ago

        I have known many people born in the US who learn English as a second language with a think accent. Employers have to use legally qualified means to discriminate applicants to avoid violations of various laws.

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      • cyberax 7 hours ago

        > If they say they live in, say, Seattle, you’d expect they could carry on at least a basic conversation about their local area.

        When I was working at $LargeCompany, we were encouraged to NOT engage in small talk with applicants beyond the regular politeness. It's too easy to ask questions that would open the company to discrimination lawsuits.

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hollerith 15 hours ago

Irrelevant to the OP unless you explain why North Koreans would be prevented from obtaining these licenses: it's not like there aren't competent developers in North Korea.

If your explanation is that the license grantor will verify that the applicant is a resident of a Western country, than the employer can just do the same verification of job applicants, dispensing with the need for the occupational license.

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  • acdha 13 hours ago

    The way these people are being caught are things like dodgy LinkedIn profiles or refusing in person meetings so I would think a licensing process designed around things which would be expensive to fake: in person government ID checks, periodic exams, peer evaluations, etc. The trick would be actually doing that in person, which could be a useful thing for conferences - treat an afternoon at PyCon or re:Invent as the cost of renewing your professional credentials if you don’t live near a major city or university.

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    • bigfatkitten 10 hours ago

      Even an in person ID check would suffice.

      For most of the West, this is an extremely difficult bar to clear for a North Korean national working out of China.

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      • acdha 9 hours ago

        Yeah, I was thinking that if you were looking for an industry license it would probably be more useful if it also covered skills or work experience in some way since that helps multiple weak points of the common hiring processes but you’re quite right that it would raise the bad considerably if they had to basically run everyone like actual spies with robust fake identities.

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  • austin-cheney 12 hours ago

    I recommend researching what comprises professional licensing. If you have absolutely no frame of reference I can understand why you would be so confused.

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