Hacker News Reader

Comment by hn_throwaway_99 | Hacker News Reader

I work in a remote company, and have hired a ton of people remotely. How many folks do you know who are hired remotely without ever having even a phone call, not to mention a video/zoom call?

View on HN

Younglings may have no idea what’s normal, right? I don’t know anyone who’s been hired without a call or interview, but that isn’t necessarily relevant; it doesn’t mean that scam is obvious to someone who’s never been hired anywhere before, or is too excited about the prospect of a decent job to question the process. Lots of scams are somewhat based on people’s general reluctance to challenge someone else, especially when there’s a prize or benefit on the line, this is a human trait.

Since a lot of interviewers conducted interviews from their homes during the pandemic, I am not sure just being able to see a person would provide enough assurance.

I was on a Zoom interview panel where it was clear that the interviewee had someone else on an earpiece and was being fed answers.

When we conversed about non-technical things, the interviewee spoke clearly and fluently. But when we'd ask a targeted technical follow-up to something on their resume, they would always repeat the question slowly, and then robotically with several pauses say their answer back. Another interviewer said they could hear the voice in the earpiece talking in between their pauses.

I'm not sure what their end goal was with getting hired, but we ended up cutting the panel short.

Don't disagree, but that didn't happen in this case.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com