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Comment by peterldowns | Hacker News Reader

I've decided to no longer post here after the incredible amount of spam I started receiving, both in terms of direct email submissions as well as unqualified and outright fraudulent applications to my application tracking system.

By fraudulent I mean: fake resumes, names stolen from real developers who work at well-known companies but either don't have a linkedin/portfolio or do have a linkedin/portfolio without a profile picture. So easily impersonated by a scammer.

It is a real shame, but this thread is now being scraped by plenty of other sites and bad actors.

Inbound hiring for remote teams is basically cooked at this point, signal is completely hidden in the noise. Curious if anyone else has had this experience or if it's just me?

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It happens to candidates! Let's not forget what we have to go through, 6 or 7-stage interview processes, that requires a lot of preparation, as if we don't deserve the time to have a life too. Fake jobs, scammers, dodgy "take-home tests" containing malicious packages, cancelled interviews on the day, cancellation of the role in the middle of the hiring process, change of hiring plans, requests to record videos before talking to someone, ghosting, interviewers not interested in interviewing, zero feedback, etc.

Companies that have a 7 round interview process are not serious in hiring in general. Sure if some super-genius comes along.

But no, it's just a performance. The director can claim they're behind on projects because they don't have enough staff, but everyone they interview isn't qualified (because the interviews are impossible and nearly everyone trips up)

I started seeing this pattern recently.

The companies that are serious move fast. A chat with the hiring manager. A couple technical interviews, maybe on-site for 2 hours. A chat with someone higher up. Done, offer made.

If you add the initial HR call, that’s 5. The difference between that and the 7 is the chat with CEO and CTO etc. 8 step offer, a no or a low ball. A complete waste of time.

Yep. There was a quote here a few weeks ago, I can't remember from whom now, but the gist of it was that if you have more than a 4-round interview cycle, you're just play acting and being performative, not seriously hiring.

Plenty of this happening on the other end too. I've received the same exact spam e-mail about an open position from 3 different e-mail addresses / names. It's nuts.

On an unrelated note, your localias project is really cool! Going to give it a spin tonight.

Hiring outside your network has always been difficult. A rigorous hiring process should be able to withstand the bad actors. Some people have a good eye for candidates, others do not. Impersonation should be the easiest problem to solve, i.e: if someone is claiming to be someone else based on their LinkedIn profile or website, you can ask that they verify it is theirs. If their profile itself is fraudulent, it will be obvious from their lack of connections and registration date. If you cannot confirm the person is genuine, move on to the next candidate. A good hiring process doesn’t pick people based on where they have worked.

I want to learn more about this.

As a job seeker, I see the chaos from my side of the table, I feel like its well known and discussed.

The other side of the table however, the recruiters and hiring managers, I want to understand this more. I feel like I could assume the struggles your having, but I would love to see more discussion around this.

This rule needs to be expanded to include top level comments:

> Commenters: please don't reply to job posts to complain about something. It's off topic here.

I have gotten so many fake recruiter contacts, it's not funny. At this point I don't know who is real and who is fake. I talked to real recruiters at Big Tech companies and they said their entire profiles have been fraudulently copied to steal candidate information or to get them to pay to get "favorable attention" during the interview process.

LinkedIn is doing nothing to stop the fraud at this point. There's almost no way to tell if you're talking to a real person unless you meet with them personally at their office.

I dont get a ton of spam from posting - the only thing I can think of is my email address isn't in the comment and instead I direct people to my resume. Maybe the scraping is lazy and grabs what's on the hn page only.

It's not a problem with HN, it's universal at this point. We had a ton of fake candidates like you described come through multiple channels.

It is absolutely painful for interviewers and candidates. I used to be able to email managers & founders directly and discuss what they were looking for... today everybody is navigating a deluge of spam and the interview process is becoming dysfunctional.

It works both ways, looking for jobs is full of IA spam too.

I think the best is loot at the companion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48357724

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