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Comment by sgpl | Hacker News Reader

I was recently watching a commencement address [0] by Neil Gaiman (author) and he talks about lying about writing for certain publications to get writing jobs. In a similar tangent, he mentioned that he made it a point to write for those publications after the fact.

Off the top of my head I recall Tom Ford (fashion) also kind of lied to get his first job in fashion.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OwRUyZMKwI

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I have friends who lied in their resume about the technologies they have experience with. They learn on the job. 9 times out of 10, this seems to work out.

I never did. Those who lied are doing better than me.

Now I feel like an idiot. I guess these kinds of lies are not that bad in the long run? This is more of a problem with the system than the candidates. This is a chicken and egg problem...

Think of your resume as a list of things you can learn quickly, not a list of things you already know.

Yup, I learned that lesson very late in my career :(

This has a long history, Leonardo Da Vinci did the same thing with his letter to Ludovico Sforza (the Duke of Milan). Almost nothing he said he knew how to do were things he had done before (or would ever do).

https://www.openculture.com/2014/01/leonardo-da-vincis-handw...

How does this work, do they only interview at places that don't already have anyone experienced with the technology?

Many places use some stupid software that will reject resumes if they don't contain certain keywords. So people stuff their resume with keywords. Interviewers may not have time to ask questions on all the tech (even though they were listed in the job ad), so this might not matter, as far as the interview is concerned.

Once they have the job, they can learn on the job. Obviously this wouldn't work for "big" lies, but for smaller ones, this seems to work out.

One of many morality-related shocks for me, joining adult life, was that cheaters often prosper. Gaming systems against the spirit of rules, lies of omission, outright deception—all are kind of a great idea if you want to succeed, and, as one might expect under those circumstances, are basically normal. It's only suckers like me who have a hard time with them. Go figure.

It's because you take it seriously. Most of our money making culture is fake, it's a role play game of some sort where people make important faces, speak important speeches, buy wooden boxes and moving carts only to see it all turning into dust at the end. From military generals to burger flippers, it's one big costume party. Things that are real exist, but aren't valued in our society - I mean those boring rules given by saints thousands years ago.

Oh, there have been a lot of other shocks that aren't strictly morality-related, and how much economic (and other) activity is wasteful, or even harmful, play-pretend has been another. Like, damn, it's a lot. No wonder people sometimes look at a market economy and go, "surely we can do better..."—even if they end up being wrong about that, the motivation for the idea is evident.

Most people not actually being as amazing at their jobs as you might imagine given their titles, background, or organizations they're associated with (though a few are! But this seems only weakly correlated to expectations based on context), and most (but not quite all) famous people (especially in academics and business, and to some extent in art) becoming famous not because of what they personally did, but because they're great at taking credit for things, is another. Oh, and nepotism. Lots and lots of that. This is all related to the above, about much of adult life being a show, where people's roles are largely based on stage-dressing and expectations. "There but for the grace of god..." is the rule, not the exception. So much circumstance, chance, and external validation of same reinforcing early luck or fortunate circumstances into patterns of apparent excellence that's not actually more than bare competence plus positive expectations and support.

Hell, anyone who's switched employers with a significant title-bump in the process, and abruptly had shockingly more respect and deference in meetings has seen this stage-like reality-behind-the-reality in action. Same person as last week, totally different treatment, and all it took was a scenery & costume change. All eyes on you, people deferentially raising points plainly seeking validation, and your words carry actual weight. Days earlier, you were on the other side. No change on your part, you're just playing a new character.

Overall, the world of adults is just way less different from the world of kids than I'd thought it was, when I was a kid. The main differences are that you're a bit freer to choose the company you keep, and that if life gets very very bad for you it will be entirely "your fault" (if you're a kid that can still happen, but it's at-most only partially your fault, as folks judge it).

Same for me.

That said, there are different levels of cheating. If I knew Laravel but I lie in my resume that I know Zend, that is not a big deal. If I lie to a patient that I have done brain surgery when I haven't, then that is on a whole another level.

I know someone who used to be a QA person. She had a baby and didn't work for a few years. When she went back to work, she said she was a business analyst before, got the job, did very well. Now she is doing BA work for multiple teams at the same time. Was it wrong for her to lie? Maybe, but she didn't hurt anyone and everything worked out in the end. So maybe not?

Also note that a lot of people are forced to lie, because employers are not flexible. Say I want to code Ruby but I only know Python. It is not a big deal for me to pick up Ruby, but most employers won't even give me an interview if I don't lie in my resume about Ruby. Blame the system and not the players?

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