They are currently very easy to spot and the applications go directly into the trash, so the freelancers aren't doing themselves any favors using them.
It is increasing the noise floor a lot though.
That's crazy to me. Why would someone put ANYTHING on their resume that is not factually correct? That in the end is a disservice to yourself and to your potential employer, not to mention the pressure it puts on job seekers to push the envelope on embellishment.
What I am on the fence about in my own resume is including a skillset that yes I have done but maybe a couple years in the past. Right or wrong I have decided to keep them on their knowing full well that it might create a bit of a challenge for me during the interview process.
Because it works... They get the job and the person who wasnt captain of the football, tennis, rowing, lacrose, bowling, sailing, cheerleading, chess and debate teams all at the same time is just some unemployable loser.
The real question is why managers and recruiters fall for it - the obvious answer is that they got where they got by inflating their CV and simply assume everyone does it too.
It would be a fun experiment to have a few shots, update my resume and then read it the next day.
Another experiment - have a friend update your resume while you take those shots, and then see if you can really object to the results the next day. ;)
The internet has caused mass insanity.
As I recall, things were not quite so bad in the 1980s. I vaguely recall seeing the odd newspaper article about the intense interest in a job, because it attracted maybe 500 applications. That was newsworthy.
It’s less the internet, and more folks using the internet/apps for processes that used to require in person physical presence. Which has been getting more and more common.
Tragedy of the commons and negative externalities. If you're applying for a ton of jobs, then lying on your resume comes with potential upsides (you could get a job that you normally wouldn't) with very little personal downside (employers don't really have a way to share which applicants falsified resume data).
Sure, doing this raises the noise level and makes it harder for people who don't lie on their resumes (tragedy of the commons), but from an individual perspective, that's a negative externality that they don't have to care about.
If their current income is $0 and the income from a successful ruse is minimum several weeks of several thousands of dollars, and the cost per throw is around a dime…
It’s not hard to see how the algebra works out.
I have dealt with my fair share of resume embellishments. I _will ask_ questions about anything that you put in your resume. Anything at all. It's fair game. That's part of my sanity check. Better have a pretty decent answer as to why something is in the resume relatively recently and you can't even give me an overview of what it was (I assume people forget details and it's fine).
However, have you ever seen 'proxy interviews'? In those cases, it's not just a case of 'embellishments', the candidate interviewing has zero experience and the resume is not even his. Had this experience a few months ago.
People go as far as lip syncing. It's horrendous.
I remember exaggerating a bit when applying for my first job. I was fresh out of university and really needed that job. I spent the following 2 years miserable, I just didn't fit in that well.
Nowadays I'm brutally honest with my application and the following interviews. I see it as me choosing where to work rather than the other way around. If they pick my application then I more or less know that I will fit in rather well. It has served me well over the years.
I can understand people being desperate and in need of that first job or having to start over due to different reasons though...
Desperate people do desperate and unpredictable things though. Case in point:
> I remember exaggerating a bit when applying for my first job. [...] I spent the following 2 years miserable, I just didn't fit in that well.
Every now and then I have to investigate employees who seem to spontaneously lose their shit-- aside from one with an alcoholic spouse, so far every single one of them were just in over their head. They don't return calls, cozy up to security and ask questions about monitoring tools, check into mental hospitals, suddenly have internet connection issues all the time, lose or destroy their equipment repeatedly, etc. One would hop onto the IT support Slack channel and see what widespread issue was currently impacting others, then claim it was happening to her (and do the same with general/social, to see when people were getting sick and with what).
I wouldn't say it rises to the level of malingering, but it's clear they're desperately stalling, and it just creates a vortex that sucks them and everyone around them into. Contractual obligations stop being met because they become an entire sideshow and won't surrender. My fear is that one might eventually resort to sabotage; the closest we've come was a nonperformer trying to leverage workplace violence allegations against an executive.
> Nowadays I'm brutally honest with my application and the following interviews.
This is the way to do it. When you weave a web of lies, you have to maintain all those threads. Pathological liars are always anxious. Honesty makes for a much easier life.
You get what you fuckin deserve. If you can't be arsed to review applications with people, why should people be arsed to apply in person?
ChatGPT just consumes each of the job requirements, and then makes a story about how the applicant has had significant experience in all of those areas. I would prefer not to hire people who lie about their experience to get a job.
Who cares? The specifications half the time include experience that's impossible to achieve because the people writing them either are also in turn using automated software and/or because they have no idea what they're hiring for.
I am in the process right now of embedding keywords and a "shadow resume" invisibly in my resume to get past the stupid filtering software.
Employers are doing this to themselves.
It could read the job spec, then tailor your application with information that is actually true. Starting off with a company with information that is false is not a great way to start a (hopefully) long relationship.
FWIW, we review every application we receive on the freelancer sites and do not use automated filters.
Tiny barriers can have disproportionate effects.
I don't think an employer would mind a résumé that is factually correct, but edited by a LLM. In the style of "here is my résumé, emphasize the items that match this job offer, and also, fix my grammar and spelling".
Here, the candidates are using a LLM to invent experience that matches the job offer, making a fake résumé. A human doing it doesn't make it better.
We do also ask for Github, but many folks use other repositories. Linkedin is one of the best sources of credibility for us, so I would recommend continuing to try to get it unbanned, or start a new one.