[buug] Absurd job posting?

[C. Sullivan]

On Fri, 3 May 2002, Nick Sophinos wrote:

> Hey all,
> 
> Per our discussion last night unrealistic job postings, this one struck me
> as
> odd.  John - as an embedded C developer, are you also a J2EE expert (seeing
> that
> the two disiplines are so closely related)?
> 
> See below (from Monster):

[snip]

I kinda wish I was there to relate this story.  It's much funnier in
person when I gesticulate wildly...

I once had the pleasure of interviewing programmer candidates back in 1997
for a small web development house.  We dealt with a couple of differnet
recruiters, one being a fairly well known one with a long history of
aerospace recruiting.

They actually had the balls to send us a candidate who claimed on his
resume to have ten years of Perl CGI programming experience.

In 1997.

To have ten years of Perl programming experience would have been
incredible.  To have ten years' experience with CGI would have
been.. well, it would have involved a time machine and some interesting
interpretations of Einstien's Theories.

So, we bring the guy in for an interview.  I'm third (and last) to
interview this candidate.  Nobody leads on that we're "aware" of
is resume faux pas.  He walks into my office.. I make sure that I have the
old copy of the Camel book signed by Randall (I'll tresure it
always!) plainly obvious.

Interview goes okay, he seems like a mid-level knowledge
programmer.  He certainly dosen't impress me with his Perl skills, but
then again, Perl is a language I use when I have to.. it's not my primary
language.

So, I drop the bomb.

"So, how's Larry doing?" I ask.

"Larry?  Larry who?" is his reply.  "I don't know anybody named Larry."

"Says here you've been programming in Perl for 10 years, right?" I ask.

"Yes," is his reply.

"And you don't know any guy named Larry.  Larry Wall, specifically."

"Uh..."  A slight shoulder shrug was the most response I got.


I won't relate the rest of the story (partially because I think I used
language that might not be appropriate for a family forum), but suffice to
say we hired a candidate from another agency.

-Fedl