Today we had someone fake their entire interview via Skype - Story (r/devops) | Hacker News Reader

Today we had someone fake their entire interview via Skype - Story (r/devops)

reddit.com

65 pointsstaz41 comments

The true gem is the story shared in the first, top rated comment on reddit. An engineer found a side gig to help others that passed interviews to do their job (not knowing this initially, but realized soon). Basically a contractor who via a fake interview got a dev job in a large corporation is subcontracting specific programming tasks. Interesting world we live in.

On the other hand I've had a few companies reject my application without even giving me the chance for an interview although I was qualified. I know it happens to the best of us, but it's still frustrating when you hear stories like this.

Right! And then you have to endup in companies like Infosys and then people say it's a red flag.

It has since been deleted. Can anyone post the text of it on HN?

If you change the URL from `reddit.com` to `ceddit.com`: it'll show you the deleted comments.

Which gets redirected to: https://snew.notabug.io/r/devops/comments/askyfu/today_we_ha...

The comment is so horrible I have to post it. I highly appreciate your comment about the ceddit trick.

>The real DevOps scam : ( must read) Few months ago I was contacted by a person on linked in from India Hyderabad he said I could work remotely for few hours and will get good wages, asked for my resume and then he called me on my phone and said I need to provide job support to Indian students in US who are working in IT Companies on their job tasks... This confused me and I was curious to know everything about it. He then set up a conference call and here I meet this girl named V ( a finance student from India in US) she shared her screen and said she needs help with a Python script to update DNS entries... She was reading the Jira and I got to know she does not know computers beyond uploading selfies to insta. She gave me access to their dev account aws keys and per jira story I wrote the script for her.. And later guided to push to git... Here she was paying to the guy who found me on linked in and that guy will pay be weekly.. 200 usd per week. More than the money I wanted to understand what's the whole scam about. Later in few conversations with V I got know that she is on a student visa and does not know anything about IT.. She paid a job consultancy to get her a job who set up a fake interview and got her the job of a devops Engineer and her route to stay in the job was through paying someone in India to do her job.... She was working for a really big company :) as a contracter in NY... Everyday she would go to work and share her screen... I will work remotely on their computer chat with their team mates in slack lol and get money... Later she also got her boy friend through fake interview in the same job and I was doing his job support too .. Lets call him S... V and S would share their sprint tasks and login credentials with me and I would work them and send it to them via email I did tell them what they Re doing is out right wrong and must quit to which they said they can't get job because they have no real skills and fake interview and job support from India in rampant in US They said they have several friends who are working as fake engineers... They both got fired later on and in few months again via fake interviews got the job.. This is happening only with contractor jobs in US .. Let me know if u want to know more

When I saw Infosys I knew what was up. The last company I was at was an IT sweatshop and I was a naive college grad. You couldn’t be in IT and be called a developer or software engineer, those positions were only for India. I could write a blog post about the crap I saw, not sure why I stayed so long.

Anyway, I had exactly one Indian developer I trusted. She wouldn’t cover for other Indians bullshit, called people out, and generally asked questions. She would usually do the first line interview and then it would come to me. The clear amount of absolutely fabricated resumes by Capgemini, Accenture, Infosys, and the like was staggering.

One person couldn’t answer questions and then hung up due to a supposed internet connection issue. 5 minutes later they dial back in with near perfect answers. Another was clearly a Project Manager but had develper stuff all over their resume. Most were just complete BS.

We wanted to try coding exercises but the India dev said they would get someone to do it for them. Glad I left that place last September! Best decision I’ve ever made.

When I was in grad school, I applied to a lot of companies but didn't here back from any of them. Getting desperate a friend suggested I should try signing up for Dice.com. From my perspective it seemed like just another LinkedIn. So I signed up. Within a week I had a plethora of recruiters contacting me from companies I had never heard of. Not being too picky back then I took a few of these calls. Most were largely Indian run companies. One of the recruiters asked for my resume. So I sent over a pdf file. The next day she calls me and asks for a .doc version of my resume. Naively, I thought may be the recruiter isn't tech savvy so unable to open a pdf file. I told her to download Acrobat reader. She said but she wants to edit my resume before showing it to the clients. I promptly ended the call and deleted my dice account.

Oh wow...

There is a legit explanation for this. Sometimes recruiters just want to remove your contact info. The idea is that this makes it harder for companies to avoid paying the recruiter.

You could offer to make the edits as requested.

Yup - I've had this with legit recruiters in Australia.

I know they're legit as they're people I've worked with in the past. It's frustrating, as often times you've worked to make your PDF in local page size (A4 here) fit 'just so'. I've seen the resultant print-outs on the desk during interviews, and they're not pretty - so I'd also much prefer to supply modified PDF's.

Weirdly, in the age of web search and linkedin, this still happens -- despite it taking all of a couple of minutes to bang in someone's name, and a couple of their previous roles, and being pretty confident of finding out how to contact that person.

OTOH it's nice to see that some recruiters trust their paying customers just as much as they trust their candidates.

We've had this happen as well, with that same company.

A different company tried to pull a bait and switch on us: excellent screening interview, but they sent an entirely different person to the second round.

It's crazy out there.

I don't hire Indians as freelancers or employees. Whenever I post a Freelance role, I can be sure that I will get at least 1-2 generic applications from Indians. Usually they are part of some cohort of other IT workers - so even if I accepted their offer, I would have no idea who my information was being exposed to or who the work was actually being done by.

Cheating and dishonesty is part of the culture, sadly - to the extent that parents will even climb school buildings to pass cheat notes to students during exams:

https://www.huffingtonpost.in/2015/03/19/en-masse-cheating-p...

Part of this is the bodyshop-encouraging nature of the H1B and other 'skilled' visas around the world. Limits should be placed to ensure that only 20% of all visa types can be given to any country, to avoid one country completely monopolising the visa type, and creating positive feedback effects (ie. Indians hiring other Indians or helping eachother game the system). Right now 76% of all H1B visas are taken by Indian workers which I think partly represents the scheme's failure.

If some people cheat, doesn't make it a universal trait of that culture.

Would you hire someone with an Indian name who was born and raised in Canada? Just trying to gauge the cut off.

What you call "cheating and dishonesty" most of the world's population thinks of as nothing other than valuing the good of self and family ahead of that of strangers.

Adults who treat strangers as well as family are scarce indeed in this world, even within societies where the principle is universally inculcated in children by all of church, school and family.

If what you say of Indian culture is true -- well, such is the world norm.

Are you really equating dishonesty and valuing family over strangers? Do you believe there's no way to value family over strangers, without cheating and being dishonest?

Sources, please. This sounds like bullshit to me.

Sources for what? Parent didn't make some scientific or factual claim, just shared a point of view.

When taken to an extreme, self-preserving behaviors may be considered enablement - something actually harmful to the growth and ultimate potential of an individual in certain contexts. The ultra-wealthy dynasties to an extent practice both nepotism and meritocratic beliefs within their private lives. People rarely seem to think that coddled children (aside from perhaps literal royalty) are a net positive across cultures and history, for example. I have “people of means” relatives but they have not been a material factor in my successes (nor failures) and while they may help family to some extent, it is well understood how entangling money and family can ruin both things and the policy is to assist where it makes sense long-term but that earning your place is important for both family honor and sustainability. Lying / cheating has a time and place (primarily to save one’s family from peril or to correct injustices and wrongs against the family) but when it comes to measuring raw merit at least my family to my understanding, despite many old world tendencies, does not compromise here.

>What you call "cheating and dishonesty" most of the world's population thinks of as nothing other than valuing the good of self and family ahead of that of strangers.

And who said that that's noble?

If everybody did the same and had no moral limits of putting "the good of self and family ahead of that of strangers", then society would be a hellhole.

In fact, it would also come to bite them and their family in the ass too, because society would be a hellhole for them as well. Others can play the game of putting "the good of self and family ahead of that of strangers" as well, and to them its yourself and your family who are the strangers.

>Adults who treat strangers as well as family are scarce indeed in this world

You don't have to "treat strangers as well as family" to not cheat in exams.

You can still give your money to family and none to strangers, take care of family members in sickness and not strangers, protect family members when they're under attack but not strangers, give house and shelter to family members and not to strangers, etc.

Cheating exams and stealing someone's place (that they were actually worth it) doesn't imply you have to "treat strangers as well as family".

And how about caring about your family and kids enough to give them principles, and not make them cheaters, liars, cowards, and beggars who only value themselves and/or their family, and are otherwise useless weight to society?

What you're saying makes sense.

What is unfortunate is that making moral decisions has a price. If you are trying to give the best life possible to your children, the price of honesty may be too high.

Instead, you may try to give your children a good enough life so they will be able to be the person you wish you could be. Children, here, can mean literal children, nieces, or close family friends who you want to be better than yourself.

If your legacy to your children is dishonesty, you are giving them the largest possible handicap I can imagine.

Handicap to what? Certainly not material wealth. Morals aren't the first thing on your mind when you are trying to claw your way out of abject poverty.

Just saw this. The legacy to your children is to sacrifice for them, be honest with them about what you did, and trust them to do better than you were able to do. Hopefully, the advantage you give them will be enough they can start making the system more fair.

It's ugly, but honor and honesty are things you need to be able to afford.

If your choice was to cheat on an arbitrary test or not be able to afford medicine for your child, it gets sticky.

You can not generalise the whole India by reading one post. There are many Indians CEO's who are running the big companies and are well qualified.

Generalising the whole culture based on post is not right. You should give some one chance and some Indians are very talented and extremely hard working than anyone else you find.

Every business is gaming system even Amazon is gaming the system.

Its not one post. Indians favour other Indians, to the exclusion of Americans and Europeans in general. I've seen it in IT, in retail, in trucking, in America and in other mass-immigration previously European societies (Australia). Even the largest companies (Infosys) engage in Visa fraud and discrimination:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/08/india...

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/infosys-says-settles-whist...

Indian CEOs and managers are popular with boards because they will often ruthlessly pursue a corporate agenda without a brotherly spirit for (American) coworkers or citizens.

Americans and those descended from Europeans have been living in open, civil societies for thousands of years. Most of the world is not like that - in-group preference and close kinship rules. Outsiders will exploit our societal structure for their benefit, and we need to be at least aware of it, and penalise it as necessary. China's current corporate espionage effort (and the resultant trade war) is another example.

Have you ever been to India? Have you ever travelled anywhere outside of US/Canada/Western Europe?

Perhaps you ought to give it a try. You might be surprised at what you learn.

My mother was there in the 80s (with my father, on a holiday) and complained about being groped and harassed by men, and the poor quality of food and water. No desire to ever visit or to have much to do with the people from there. The Indian men I've met in clubs and bars have been as unwanted as the job applicants.

People said the same thing to me about Morocco. And Cuba. And Bolivia. That I would be harassed by men and get sick from the food & water. Everything I had been told was wrong. They were some of my favorite places to travel because they were so different from anything I had experienced before.

Whenever I post a Freelance role, I can be sure that I will get at least 1-2 generic applications from Indians

One web site I worked with didn't even have to post a job. It had a public upload form for people to submit travel pictures. It was overwhelmed by photos of Indians holding their resumes.

I assume some clever person wrote a script for this.

Under the license raj/socialism, before Indian opened doors for liberalization, the only way for 99% of Indians to make a good living was to get a government job. As Indian population boomed, the competition for even sweeper jobs (which provide retirement, decent salary, even free housing) became fierce. So, the government started a new rule: every candidate who applies for any govt job has to pass 10th grade (these exams are conducted by every state government).

This has led to new minimum for anyone who wants a job: pass 10th grade exam. Hence, cheating. Why do insist on 10th grade for sweeper jobs? Why insist on 10th grade for army soldiers?

This is like in America, where every one insists on BA/BS. Then you see lots of shitty colleges who are making like bandits through loans backed by the government.

Overpopulation. Too many people, not enough resources to support them. 600m Indians without proper access to water. Better access to contraception and changing social attitudes needed - the expectation that if you are impoverished you should have no children and save your money to improve your wellbeing, for example.

Empirically speaking, poor people (and the super wealthy) have more kids than the middle class do.

It is thanks to racist attitudes like this that I changed my name from an Indian one to an American-sounding one. And whaddaya know, my callbacks shot way up.

I'm not cheating anyone, just trying to do an honest job, but attitudes like this hold minorities back. Because when you say this about an entire nationality so freely, what do you think about blacks? What about Chinese? What about Mexicans? It is much more politically incorrect to hold stereotypical views of visible minorities who have fought and are fighting for their rights in American society. Indians? Too many people feel free to shit on them both on anonymous forums as well as in popular culture.

> It is thanks to racist attitudes like this that I changed my name from an Indian one to an American-sounding one. And whaddaya know, my callbacks shot way up.

Ah, brings tears to my eyes :)

It's amazing how true this is (applies to most minority groups). With my native name, a lot of companies don't even seem interested in sparing a second look.

With the Americanized version, I've had no problems at all landing interviews (and getting hired!).

I've the Indianest sounding name possible and I can get 10 jobs in a month. Maybe, just maybe, it's because of your skills and experience?

If you're willing to hustle/keep at it, yep, the name isn't much of a problem.

Having the Americanized name instantly lowers the difficulty though. Anecdotal, but I've seen this myself as well.

Good on you mate. Is it possible that we have had different experiences and have applied to different companies at different times? I've worked a lot in the Midwest in the medium-sized sector where there was a definite stereotype of Indians, and it was not a positive one.

Someone who is applying to Google in current_year is obviously in a different position. Not to mention other variables like a degree from Stanford etc, or being born in the US etc.

Obviously I am not saying that having an Americanized name is a requirement. I'm just saying that in the absence of other redeeming factors (I am no genius and have no patents to my name) it was a speedbump in the early selection process.

You should be doing this anyway as part of your integration into the culture. East Asians are smart - they name their children Jason Wu, Lucy Wang, Winson Ho from birth.

> East Asians are smart - they name their children Jason Wu, Lucy Wang, Winson Ho from birth.

Most examples I know of that actually have both a westernized and a non-Westernized name, and quite a number that I've known who used the Westernized name primarily in public as children now use the non-Westernized name as adults.

(Also, a few that I know that use Westernized names have stereotypically Black Westernized names, which retains the advantage in parsing/pronunciation of Westernized names in general, but not the social advantages of stereotypically White names.)

As an Indian, I completely agree. I don't consider anyone with Infosys, CTS, Wipro, etc on their resume. If they worked at startups in India, I'll consider them. I'm usually very skeptical of the technologies and skills they list on their resume. Most of them don't write any code and just do project management. They try to bullshit their way to full-time jobs to escape from the company that's holding them hostage in the US.

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