Let's start with 'Bill'. Bill was a "project manager". That was his title. Bill's job was to manage 3 programmers and a content consultant. The consultant was the real project manager. The consultant came in 2-3 times per week, meet with the programmers, communicated with the client, wrote the project specs. He did it all. Bill? He strolled in somewhere between 9-10 in the morning, walked around to make sure everyone was working, then headed to get coffee. He held meetings, participated in meetings, looked busy, rubbed elbows with the executives making himself look good. He was an overpaid and under performing member. The truth is he was a 'non' performing member as all he did was take credit for other people's work. He often took long lunches, and he was long gone by 5.
Now that you know what he did, I will tell you what 'he' claims to have done as listed in his LinkedIn profile. Director. Yes, director. He claims to have managed 20 programmers. He claims to have been a trail blazer of cutting edge projects. He even takes credit for one of mine. He routinely hired outside consultants, projects were always over budget, and most of them would find their way to the "cutting floor". Bill's group was highly dysfunctional and eventually axed.
Today he's a VP for a Fortune 500 company. I can only imagine his job interview, and the references on his resume. My point is that it's difficult for his new company to validate the information in the resume. The department was disbanded, and it would be difficult to track down the individuals who can validate the information. Now if they had called me as a reference, then I'd died laughing at the 'details' in the resume. All of his references validated his resume, I'm sure. Imagine if his new employer had contacted random people from his previous job, and knew the real Bill. As an employer, you have a responsibility to find the "real" Bill, and not the lies in the resume validated by the liars they call "references."
Then there was 'Don'. Don was the CEO of a dot com. He had a big office. His office was far from everyone else. He had a private secretary. His office looked vast, and so empty. He sat at his big mahogany desk, and looked so busy. He wore expensive suits, in an industry that was made famous by people in birkenstocks, shorts and T-shirts. Unapproachable. He was a true CEO. Fancy cars. Expensive suits. Exotic art. He reeked of power and money. As the company was going downhill faster than a Super G Olympian, he managed a merger between our company, and 2 other failing dot coms. In his announcement to the remaining employees, he didn't even know the names of the other companies. Didn't know how to pronounce them, and didn't know what their products were. I was familiar with the other companies, and knew he was lying through his teeth.
The next day he was gone, never to be seen again. The company would go out of business some days later. The merger never happened, as Don was busy with his new company. We were all in shock. Curious, we looked online at Don's new company. We were all going to need new jobs, and might as well ask Don, right? Then we saw Don's profile on the company's web site. That's when our jaws dropped to the floor. He claimed to have grown the dot com (the one that was closing its' doors) to a global power house (it had 2 clients in 3 years, and one of the clients had gone out of business.) Now we knew that we were not getting any jobs. Any one of us could have blown his cover. His profile was full of "lies." Yes, lies. The only factual piece of information in his profile was his name, and the name of the company.
Then there was 'Dick'. First, it still amazes me how Dick got the job. He was not versed or educated in technology, had never worked in technology, but there he was, the "head" of technology. That happened often in the dot com days when it was difficult to find talent. Dick was someone's golf and drinking buddy, and needed a job. Dick was what I would call a jumper. He was gathering as many buzzwords and knowledge as possible to jump to a better, bigger and financially more rewarding job. Dick did not like to work. 20 hours a week would be a challenge for him. Liquid lunches were common, often along with "working-from-home" days, which we all knew he was playing golf and going to the beach. He never answered on phone on the days that he "worked from home", and management was not disturbed by it. Things got done when Dick felt like it, not when they were needed. Dick only worked on projects that he liked, leaving the ones he did not at the bottom of his todo list. He could not be bothered. When Dick realized that he was over his head, he quickly hired a tech company to bail him out. Told everyone that he was so swamped, that he needed additional help. Hard to believe that someone is getting paid for 40 hours, only works 20, then hires a consulting company to do his work. Then one day, out of the blue, he quits.
Again the team looks online for his new company. His profile is unbelievable. It was believable to the people that hired him, and that's what count. He took credit for the consultant's projects. He listed accomplishments for his failures. I remember sitting there thinking "How does he get away with this?"
Then there was Uri. His titles, from director, to executive, to director are head turning. His list of accomplishments are impressive. Created "this" at "such" company, responsible for "that" at "another" company. It looks very promising to a potential client that's looking to buy product and services from Uri's company. It looks comical to the employees who see the profile on the web site, and know the real Uri. Most refer to Uri as being over his head in a small puddle. Uri once took 10 business days to get a proposal to a client. An average consultant would get it done in 1 to 2 days. By the time the client received the proposal, they had already picked another vendor and started working on the project. Once again, the people who hired Uri took his word for the projects/accomplishments he claimed. Not one of them bothered to validate his claims.
Enough of the stories. How can we stop this from happening? How can we challenge hiring managers and business owners to do their due diligence when evaluating talent? How can a hiring manager get to the bottom of the talent, expertise and accomplishment on a resume. Of the interviews I've been on I can tell you this much. The people doing the interviewing are not talent evaluators. They are normally the person in charge of the department, and in many cases the person you'll be reporting to. Then there's the "buddy" hiring. That person is not being hired because he's qualified, he's being hired because he knows someone. I know it's the American way, but our economy is hurting, and it's time to put qualified people to work. The people in this post are not qualified to work in the information world. They are better qualified to gather carriages at a supermarket, or to run a lawn mowing business. Next time you see a list of accomplishments, exercise some due diligence, and make sure this person is who is says he is, and did was he says he did. Otherwise, you too could be hiring the next Bill, Don, Dick or Uri.
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