You don’t lie, lying will get you into trouble. You just don’t mention it if they don’t ask. And if they don’t ask it’s probably not that important. Most job descriptions are like Christmas wishlists anyway, they will be happy if they get half of it.
These days you’re called different with a sexy word neurodivergent when you tell the truth.
Like this person I also find this strange. And like this person I also have problems during job interviews. I mean, I’m not bullshitting you and I expect you to do the same. But alas, it’s often bullshit and lowballing all the way.
You are looking at job applications from the wrong perspective. You are seeing the job description and seeing minimum requirements, when in 90% they are describing the ideal candidate that will probably never show up.
And I want to emphasise, you shouldn’t lie, you shouldn’t pad your résumé, but you should also not volunteer to testify against yourself.
My wife is super bad at not volunteering information.
She’s partially deaf and a few other issues that make phone conversations hard, so she often asks me to sit in and listen to explain anything she didn’t catch, and make sure she heard everything correctly.
I’m often making the neck cut “stop talking/mute mic” motion to get her to stop saying things the other people don’t need to hear.
For instance, she quit a previous job over an employee basically stalking her while she was on the property, and screaming in her face over any imagined sleight. This employee was a problem with others as well, but who you know is more important than how you work in some places so nothing was ever done.
The other places she interviews with don’t need the whole back story of why she quit. “Safety concerns” is completely correct, and leaves out the possibility that the new job might think you don’t work well with others. She does. The other guy didn’t.
So every time she starts telling the potential employer about it, I cut her off to remind her of that.
I’m very much the “ALL my information is need to know and you don’t need to know” kind of person when it comes to things like that, and she just kind of vomits words all over the place when she feels uncomfortable.
Yes, minimum requirements are not actually minimum requirements. So silly for people taking things literally.
It’s only wrong if you get caught!
I find it entertaining that the criteria for neurodivergence includes telling the truth.
I’m autistic and lying is always an option for me too. I’m extremely good at it. I just don’t do it, because it’s wrong and harmful.
I’m not telling you not tell the truth, I’m telling you to consider that list of skills on a job description is a wishlist and only answer what is asked in the interview.
I’ve interviewed more people than I can count, leading to more hirings than I can count, and I don’t remember any case where the candidate met all the checkboxes on the ideal skillset. Because what goes in the job description is the perfect candidate not the minimum.
When I found out the list of qualifications could be filled on the job it made applying a lot easier because I was no longer worried about bring ‘found out’ for not being fully qualified on day one. I blame the position wording making it sound like day one requirements and HR treating them as day one requirements
I’m my experience, even if you get caught. The exaggeration to get your foot in the door is expected, and everyone is expected to represent themselves deceptively well. Honesty in the interview when everyone can deal with nuance can work and might be appreciated, but definitely a little exaggeration in the resume unless you have ungodly actual credentials/connections.
In my case, early in my career a contracting company lied on my behalf without telling me.
So I’m in the “skills assessment” meeting and I’m confused when they started rattling off experience from my resume that I didn’t have. I asked if I could see their copy of my resume and said “ok they made this section up, but the rest appears the same, here a printed copy of my resume unmodified”.
I was shocked and figured that was a way to tank any chance I had at the job, but they “hired” me and said people and contracting companies did it all the time, so it didn’t phase them, but admitted my resume as it was from me wouldn’t have even gotten an assessment.
Also, if you think enough about what a lie even is you can rationalize a lot. Am I a self motivated and highly organized person? Well, nobody’s ever described me that way before, but maybe I could start being one right now, stranger things have happened. And if it all blows up a few months down the line because I couldn’t manage to get my shit together, I’ll take my couple of paychecks and tell myself “well, I meant to do better” and that will be at least 51% true and I will have a couple of paychecks I wouldn’t have otherwise.
Alternatively, just find a way to sell your weaknesses as strengths. e.g. “I’m not always super organized, but I’m real good at dropping in to a chaotic situations on short notice and getting the essential things straightened out quickly because my disorganized nature has forced me to learn those skills. I’m not self motivated, so you don’t need to worry about me undermining your plans and vision for this place with my own, making decisions makes me nervous so you do that stuff and I will see that your decisions are carried out.”
Those HR people who make the listing don’t understand most of it anyway.
“I’m looking fora Data Analyst”
“Gotcha, we put up an ad for Data Science”
“No, Data Analyst, that’s diff-”
“Here, we already got some applicants”
“They’ll be very disappointed to learn that I’m not interested in their AI skills”
I’m learning how many names there are now for “person who can shoot and edit video” since I last needed to look for a job in my field. To the point that I suddenly find a new keyword and there’s like 10 more jobs I can apply for.
Oh lord, as a 25 year industry vet in everything audio and video, that’s been with my current company for a looooong time, this bothers me. Out of interest what kinda whacky names are you seeing for this kinda roll?
It’s also ridiculous how often I see „Java“ instead of „JavaScript“ in job listings.
Edit: Not trying to judge Java here, this is purely about recruiters not knowing the difference, posting jobs for Java devs when they need JS devs
Before I graduated I was encouraged to apply for a job that required a four year degree.
Don’t worry about it - we know you, they said.
When I submitted my application online it was automatically rejected because the application program correctly flagged that I didn’t meet the requirement of having a four year degree.
This is when you call them directly and tell them that. They can override the automation.
So, what do you do? The problem is it’s also difficult from the hiring side. Every opening has dozens to hundreds of applicants, most of whom are not qualified. No one can keep up with that, and recruiters/hr are horrible at it. Automation sucks, but it’s the quickest, easiest, fairest way to identify a smaller group that you hope are the ones who are qualified
We can put someone like an intern at the top of the pile because we know them, officially.
Sounds like you need to rotate your technical staff into the recruiting process.
Do they spend any time speaking with recruitment/hr?
Of course we all give feedback to recruiters, and typically ask for a new pile with the adjusted criteria. There’s even been times when we asked for everything, no filters, but we can’t afford to have technical people tied up going through piles of resumes
I do believe it’s tougher than it looks. Recruiters need to understand the field to know what to look for, and understand enough about what the company is looking for but they just don’t.
Earlier in my career it seemed like there were specialist recruiters who could do that: find the right people to place with the right company. However now it seems to have degenerated into salesmanship and quantity over quality. Or I don’t know if I’m just earlier in the process now, helping to identify who is worth interviewing, rather than just being another interviewer
Its systems like that forced me to get an expensive qualification that I don’t need simply so humans will actually see my resume. I don’t need the qualification, I have industry experience going back over a decade but because I don’t have a magical qualification, that is recognized by the entire industry as being utterly useless, that didn’t even exist when I started in the industry I had to fork out £600.
But how do they know you don’t need the qualification? I’m sure the people who know you could say, but what makes you qualified to a stranger?
It’s the same problem as standardized testing for school. Everyone seems u to understand it’s a bad idea except that you need something
Why yes, I do thrive under pressure. It’s why I use a weighted blanket.
a friend once got me a job interview with his company. he listened into the interview, and i could hear him audibly gasp when the interviewer asked, “why do you want to work for us?”. I replied plainly, “To make a living so that I may pursue my real goals.” I didn’t get the job…
I’m not technically NT but I have ADHD and I don’t have problems picking up this sort of neurotypical social cues.
When I interview people myself, I’m extra wary of catering to ND people, and for questions like this, I phrase them very carefully to mean what I want to ask:
“Why do you want to work for us? I’m sure there were other jobs out there that would result in a salary, but what made you apply for this one specifically?”
I make clear in the conversation that I want to know their motivation, their alignment to the specific role, and not the fact that they need money to live. I already know that! So I tailor the questions to give me exactly what I need even if the person is, say, autistic and takes things in the most literal way.
This post has, however, made me realise that in the job posting I have open right now, I’m going to add a note in the vein of “this is a wishlist of all the things the ideal candidate would have, but we acknowledge nobody is ever a 100% perfect match - feel free to apply even if you only meet some of the criteria as you might be more qualified than most applicants”.
I have always appreciated the listings that divide the list between the “must haves,” even soft ones (e.g. 4yr degree, knowledge of X tool, Y years of experience, solid communication skills), and “our ideal candidate will have most of the following” (e.g. Y+3 years of experience, prior role in management, knowledge of Z regulation).
The 4 year degree one is still never a must have. The only things that are true must haves are certifications for federally regulated jobs, like requiring a PE.
One trick is to have the mindset that you are in high demand
“Well, I enjoy doing my job anywhere but I’d prefer to do it somewhere that I want to be. I’ve checked out this company and didn’t see any red flags, but later on when you ask me if I have any questions, I’ll be asking about what it’s like to work here and if there are any unique challenges that come with working here”
I see what you mean, but you have to read in between the lines a little bit. When they ask that question, they want to know why you’d rather work for them than anyone else hiring in that space.
Your answer makes it sound like you have zero interest in the company. I’m sure that you’d rather work for them than a myriad of other places if you actually applied. Think of why that is and focus on the positives. It’s not lying unless you literally had zero reason to work there as opposed to anywhere else.
Oh? I am not supposed to take a question at face value? I need some form of, wink wink, unspoken knowledge of human interaction that was not specified in the job offer? jfc
You’re supposed to lie. Because everyone who is not a true believer in the cause - of the product, the company, the industry, the economy, capitalism, whatever it may be, is also lying. Because the whole system depends on everyone going along with it, otherwise it all falls apart. That you have to slave away at your shitty job with shitty managers so that one day you can become the manager and be shitty because it happened to you, all in service of the exploitation of natural resources and people and society to make line go up and make the people who managed to step on the most amount people on their way to the top that much richer.
Yeah they don’t specify every parameter of human interaction in writing before you have a meeting. I’m not saying that it’s easy, but it’s just one of the challenges of dealing with people. Best of luck with future interviews though. The whole way we hire people in the corporate world has this crazy song and dance to it, but IMO it’s better to learn it a bit. Try not to let it influence your style so much that you’re not telling the company about yourself at all, but learning what kinds of answers the company is looking for can make it much easier to know what the heck to talk about when asked these weird questions.