Jobs where liars excel(bbc.com)
bbc.com
Jobs where liars excel
http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20190625-the-jobs-where-liars-excel
66 comments
Scotty: Oh, you didn’t tell him how long it would really take, did ya?
Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge: Well, of course I did.
Scotty: Oh, laddie. You’ve got a lot to learn if you want people to think of you as a miracle worker.
Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge: Well, of course I did.
Scotty: Oh, laddie. You’ve got a lot to learn if you want people to think of you as a miracle worker.
[deleted]
Not a lie, still an estimate, estimates are not contracts.
> you should be worried by the turbulence
Routine turbulence is about as dangerous as driving on a road that isn't quite smooth. It's well within the design capability of the airliner.
Pilots, ATC, and weathermen work pretty hard to avoid turbulence bad enough to be worrisome.
Routine turbulence is about as dangerous as driving on a road that isn't quite smooth. It's well within the design capability of the airliner.
Pilots, ATC, and weathermen work pretty hard to avoid turbulence bad enough to be worrisome.
You'd make a good pilot - I almost believed you!
FWIW, I don't recall any aviation disasters (certainly in recent years) that were attributed to turbulence.
People are seriously injured in turbulence incidents from time to time.
E.g.
https://billingsgazette.com/news/local/flight-attendant-rema...
E.g.
https://billingsgazette.com/news/local/flight-attendant-rema...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_587
Turbulence from a 747 that took off before this flight and “unnecessary and excessive” use of rudder inputs tore off the tail fin.
Turbulence from a 747 that took off before this flight and “unnecessary and excessive” use of rudder inputs tore off the tail fin.
Wind shear is an extreme form of turbulence, here are some sample accidents: http://www.aviation-accidents.net/tag/windshear/
> Hiring managers acknowledge that nearly all job applicants exaggerate their qualifications, for instance.
Is that an expectation now?
Is that an expectation now?
I think that is the point of interviews. Sure I may not have worked X years on a project but I can answer any question my potential supervisor ask then who cares?
I would say my CV is 90% accurate and 10% lies, enough to get some glances from hiring managers, but not enough to blow an interview due to sheer ignorance if they ask me about i.
For some people, yes. I once got some feedback that my CV is incomplete, mostly because I didn't mention some stuff I consider I don't know good enough to mention. Turns out people with less experience on that topic were putting it on their CVs.
So.. Better safe than sorry?
So.. Better safe than sorry?
It's sad fact of human societies. It's a game of seduction, not about precision and truth (unless rare contexts).
I'm like you. Unless I have near complete over a subject, I don't list it. I'm thus jobless.
I believe it all depends on how ~structured the industry is. For small gigs for instance, you get direct view of the tasks and problems to fix. You can rapidly tell the customer if you know or not. In highly layered places, you get to talk to many HR that don't know what computing problem solving is, and will react negatively if you're not inside a box.
I just passed some technical tests for a job. The questions were very basic. Compared to this, I should list it as senior skills. Actually that's the only reason I'm interviewing, to get a sense of what people want and how they grade it.
ps: I also wonder how many people get angry at interviews due to that.
I'm like you. Unless I have near complete over a subject, I don't list it. I'm thus jobless.
I believe it all depends on how ~structured the industry is. For small gigs for instance, you get direct view of the tasks and problems to fix. You can rapidly tell the customer if you know or not. In highly layered places, you get to talk to many HR that don't know what computing problem solving is, and will react negatively if you're not inside a box.
I just passed some technical tests for a job. The questions were very basic. Compared to this, I should list it as senior skills. Actually that's the only reason I'm interviewing, to get a sense of what people want and how they grade it.
ps: I also wonder how many people get angry at interviews due to that.
I'm routinely seeing postings for "Senior XYZ developer" and generally list "you must have at least 3 years of XYZ". I don't recall it being quite this bad 20 years ago, but... the market was different. There's a few "stricter" posts that I see that will list 5 or 7 or minimum 10 years of XYZ, but the most I see (when time experience is listed) is 'minimum 3'.
Outside of something like nodejs, I'm not even sure 3 years will get you through the experience of a version upgrade with some tech stacks, let alone "senior" qualifications. But it will all come down to how you define "senior".
Outside of something like nodejs, I'm not even sure 3 years will get you through the experience of a version upgrade with some tech stacks, let alone "senior" qualifications. But it will all come down to how you define "senior".
I also have a dilemma. Spending 3 years in a project using <tech> doesn't mean much to me. Unless it's a serious gig with regular problem solving .. but if it's mostly management hell, documentation, ... you might not know much more than when you came in.
I know a lot of things I learned in python on my own wouldn't happen in a job because you don't have time to play with everything in the language.
I know a lot of things I learned in python on my own wouldn't happen in a job because you don't have time to play with everything in the language.
That's so close to classic Prisoner's Dilemma that it makes me sad. When the majority of others "defect" (lie, exaggerate, or embellish in this case) your individually-rational best choice is to defect as well. So you get the job, which is (usually) better than not getting the job. And you're surrounded by other defectors, which is worse than being surrounded by cooperators.
From game theory, the "solution" is to favor cooperation anyway, but not absolutely. So you might miss out on some jobs, but the one you get will be better. Then again, there's a reason it's called game theory. ;)
From game theory, the "solution" is to favor cooperation anyway, but not absolutely. So you might miss out on some jobs, but the one you get will be better. Then again, there's a reason it's called game theory. ;)
Most of the time you actually know more than you would assume. Even if you barely touched something, if you know about it you at least know what it is, what it can be used for, were to start learning... That's already much more than what average people can quickly pick up.
The sister of my wife looked for a new job. Started to talk to friends, colleagues etc. All of them lie! Not a single one didn't lie on there cv. So she lied too, to get a job..
In that regard, from what I hear on forums and now live from the sister of my wife, us became a low trust society for job applications..
In that regard, from what I hear on forums and now live from the sister of my wife, us became a low trust society for job applications..
What do you mean with lying? Like writing 3y exp. with x instead of the accurate 1y or even zero? Writing that you have a cert when you really dont? Doesn't the employer check the facts?
Lying like, did stuff at one firm, which she never did there... But, as I said, everyone she knows did that... Maybe for woman in tech stuff is worse, and they need to lie to get a job, or because everyone is lying you need to lie too to get even a chance, who knows...
Let me put it this way, in a previous job, I held the title of Director of IT. That company disappeared after the first dotcom boom. Now, on linkedin, there are no less than four people that claim to hold the title of Director of IT at that company even though I was the only one to actually have that job. The others are former co-workers who have taken the opportunity to inflate their job titles by appropriating mine.
It’s part of “hustling”. If you lie and win, you are a “hustler”. If you don’t win you are just a liar.
Sadly, yes. Just a couple of days ago I saw some explicit advice to take credit for things even if you're not sure you contributed enough to deserve it. This was in the context of reviews rather than hiring, but I think it's about equally common. I consider it a form of exaggeration and I'm uncomfortable with it. On the other hand, there's a difference between taking primary credit and taking credit for contribution. Sometimes it's not a zero-sum game, and taking credit for contributing in no way harms the person who gets and deserves primary credit. In those cases it can still be deceptive, but how much that matters depends a lot on how much exaggeration the interviewer expects and adjusts for.
When I was a junior dev I used to lie and say the work was going fine, the stories were well estimated and that it would be done on time.
Now as a senior I just say it how it is, maybe occasionally embelish a piece of work if its not well described or estimated.
Now as a senior I just say it how it is, maybe occasionally embelish a piece of work if its not well described or estimated.
Because you have credibility, while a junior want to reassure.
This is a very good point, though I'd advise any junior developer to start to say "I don't know" as quickly as you're able to. From my experience under promising and over delivering has been a far, far better modus operandi than the opposite.
This reminds me of one of the major causes of famine in Maoist China. A pressure to conform with top-down expectations ("is it getting done?") at the expense of reality ("yes it is"). Often we lie just to make others happy, but then sometimes reality catches up
There's an anecdote that it's possible Saddam believed he actually had WMDs, because the penalty for his subordinates saying they haven't gotten the R&D/production done was death.
But since you've established and proven your place in the workspace, you can get away with it; if you're a freshly hired junior that has to admit they're running behind (in their own estimation), they could risk their job or a bad review in a less mature work environment (that is, one where people are replaceable resources).
As a very senior developer by some measures, I always put a strong emphasis on what's not going well. What's broken can be fixed, as long as it's known. I also believe that it's better to undercommit than overcommit. The delta between committing to and then achieving X+Y vs. committing to and then achieving X alone is fairly small compared to the other alternatives. Commit to X and achieve X+Y? Big positive reaction. Commit to X+Y and achieve only X? Even bigger negative reaction. Why put yourself in a neutral/negative space when you can put yourself in a neutral/positive one? It kind of feels like sandbagging, but I've seen it work well for all concerned too many times to do otherwise.
And they don’t mention journalism...
Well it is a list about jobs where liars excel, not just congregate in large numbers.
A lot of journalism is not straight lying, but er, creative interpretations of events. If anything it's a skill to be able to take a neutral news event and spin it towards a political goal or to sway public opinion in a certain direction.
Salespeople know the fine line between talking up and misrepresentating/misselling too. Usually...
The article here seems to miss the point a bit I think. I'd say most people don't really consider the word 'lying' to mean the same thing within an employment scenario.
If people, in general, did treat their jobs as being "real" and as a reflection of their character, rather than as a sort of different 'mode' of humanity, then the world would not quite look the way it does today.
If people, in general, did treat their jobs as being "real" and as a reflection of their character, rather than as a sort of different 'mode' of humanity, then the world would not quite look the way it does today.
I suppose you could replace 'liar' with amoral, or sociopathic. I don't think it changes the substance. You want your vicar to be an upstanding member of the community, and they are more successful that way.
The salesman probably wouldn't do too well with brutal honesty. And I could make a good case that a lot of people a lot of the time actually want the salesmen lying to them. Who doesn't want to be told that X they've just bought will make them a better person?
I don't. I want X that I've just bought to do what I bought it for. Unless that was explicitly to "make me a better person", I don't want X or anyone selling X to go anywhere near that.
The culture of sales - which eventually shades into law and politics, because they're all based on the same psychology - is incredibly toxic. It's also noisy and expensive, culturally and ecologically.
I'd much rather have sales operate as customer solution generation - with "Sorry we can't do that for you" as an option - than customer predation.
The culture of sales - which eventually shades into law and politics, because they're all based on the same psychology - is incredibly toxic. It's also noisy and expensive, culturally and ecologically.
I'd much rather have sales operate as customer solution generation - with "Sorry we can't do that for you" as an option - than customer predation.
This is based on a faulty understanding of what sales is supposed to be (and what it is, when it is done well) - at any level, sales is primarily a discovery exercise (what does the customer want?) and working out if you can mostly fulfill those needs. This is hampered by a few things namely 1: commission structures, 2: customers not knowing what they want (regardless of what they might tell you) and 3: customers not wanting to admit what they want.
While there are some egregious examples, the rate at which a sales interaction is based on outright fraud is thankfully very small.
As for focusing on customer solution generation, I would highly recommend you spend more time working with customers before setting others up for that sort of torture.
While there are some egregious examples, the rate at which a sales interaction is based on outright fraud is thankfully very small.
As for focusing on customer solution generation, I would highly recommend you spend more time working with customers before setting others up for that sort of torture.
Fraud wasn't mentioned.
Take for example the Pepsi challenge, in a blind test people reliably choose Pepsi, but knowing brands, they choose coke.
Coke are successfully increasing sales for something people arguably don't want. Except they do because they feel coke says something about them? They're told coke says something about them? What's the morality implications there?
Anyway, whatever your opinion that isn't about finding a customer solution, customers clearly want Pepsi, perhaps with coke branding, marketing is working against that in this case.
Take for example the Pepsi challenge, in a blind test people reliably choose Pepsi, but knowing brands, they choose coke.
Coke are successfully increasing sales for something people arguably don't want. Except they do because they feel coke says something about them? They're told coke says something about them? What's the morality implications there?
Anyway, whatever your opinion that isn't about finding a customer solution, customers clearly want Pepsi, perhaps with coke branding, marketing is working against that in this case.
Is this your first year? Because this is completely contrary to my experience.
Salespeople are some very driven folks but honesty and a desire to help customers solve needs is not a common trait.
Salespeople are some very driven folks but honesty and a desire to help customers solve needs is not a common trait.
No, but I should disclose that I am a recruiter (salesperson alert!) who works to help salespeople get jobs. Not to say I've met some terrors in my time, but I think the vast majority of salespeople are good people (just like the vast majority of devs/engineers are also well intentioned people).
Agreed. That's how you would like the world to be, not how the world is.
It's how the world could be. But first we need to stop using an economic belief system built around feedback loops that reward sociopathic behaviour.
A long time ago cannibalism was considered the norm. At some point the disadvantages became obvious.
We're about to go through an analogous transition with our economic belief systems.
A long time ago cannibalism was considered the norm. At some point the disadvantages became obvious.
We're about to go through an analogous transition with our economic belief systems.
It isn't clear to me how you would prevent sociopathic behaviour.
If current trade relies on trust, sociopaths could take advantage of that trust. If you replace it with a trustless system you take all the humanity out of it(?), which starts seeming a bit dystopian to me.
Plus to me marketing is very broad, and can basically be divorced from economics. Marketing (propaganda) still existed in the USSR.
Can you be more specific about this new economic belief system?
If current trade relies on trust, sociopaths could take advantage of that trust. If you replace it with a trustless system you take all the humanity out of it(?), which starts seeming a bit dystopian to me.
Plus to me marketing is very broad, and can basically be divorced from economics. Marketing (propaganda) still existed in the USSR.
Can you be more specific about this new economic belief system?
I disagree with this - the system we have is based on money and trust, which while gamed easily, is much less violent, brutal and inequal when compared to other systems that we've tried in the past - such as communism/socialism (the USSR still had a market, but it was based on how much political power you had, rather than pure money - a much more violent game), or feudal systems where it was all about how much land you were born into (or possibly conquered for yourself). Of all of the systems we've tried, this is probably the least sociopathic yet.
Which bit do you disagree with?
I said I cant imagine a system more hostile to sociopaths. You've provided historic examples that are less hostile.
I said I cant imagine a system more hostile to sociopaths. You've provided historic examples that are less hostile.
I wonder if there is some evolutionary mechanism that rewards sociopathic behaviour in a small percentage of the population of any group.
I suppose what I'm saying is that when an individual human, in a social capacity, tells you they saw X at the bar yesterday (when actually they didn't at all), that's lying, there's an intention to deceive, it's an abnormal interaction; out of the ordinary.
What salesmen do is not really lying in the same sense. It's more of an eternal waffle, the words required of them fall out of their mouth in smoothly flowing paragraphs, a distortion field where truth and falsehood blend together.
They'll say what you want to hear, which can be both better or worse than lying, but it's quite a different thing.
People talk about this in the context of politicians quite a lot. It's quite rare for them to outright lie, it's more about the waffle.
What salesmen do is not really lying in the same sense. It's more of an eternal waffle, the words required of them fall out of their mouth in smoothly flowing paragraphs, a distortion field where truth and falsehood blend together.
They'll say what you want to hear, which can be both better or worse than lying, but it's quite a different thing.
People talk about this in the context of politicians quite a lot. It's quite rare for them to outright lie, it's more about the waffle.
"The words required of them fall out of their mouth in smoothly flowing paragraphs."
This made me chuckle. I see what you are trying to point out, and generally agree, but it's sort of a way to make a fundamentally negative behavior seem almost endearing.
"the sword was deployed in smooth swipes and swift thrusts to achieve victory over the enemy" sounds different from "make the enemy's guts spill and blood gush in torrents until they flee in terror".
This made me chuckle. I see what you are trying to point out, and generally agree, but it's sort of a way to make a fundamentally negative behavior seem almost endearing.
"the sword was deployed in smooth swipes and swift thrusts to achieve victory over the enemy" sounds different from "make the enemy's guts spill and blood gush in torrents until they flee in terror".
Agreed, except "but it's quite a different thing".
Is it? The person that says they saw X at the bar, is probably the same kind of person that will say black is white at work. Whereas the person that tries to maintain integrity at work isn't likely to be the type to go home and lie.
There are times at work where the way I've felt comfortable presenting something hasn't matched what the company would like me to present it as. I can see how someone with less scruples would go further than I were willing to.
Is it? The person that says they saw X at the bar, is probably the same kind of person that will say black is white at work. Whereas the person that tries to maintain integrity at work isn't likely to be the type to go home and lie.
There are times at work where the way I've felt comfortable presenting something hasn't matched what the company would like me to present it as. I can see how someone with less scruples would go further than I were willing to.
> You want your vicar to be an upstanding member of the community
Part of a vicar's job description is "claiming something to be true for which he has no evidence", a.k.a. lying.
Part of a vicar's job description is "claiming something to be true for which he has no evidence", a.k.a. lying.
I've never been to Australia, on some level the existence of Australia is an article of faith. Nevertheless I have evaluated the evidence, and claim with a clear conscience that Australia does indeed exist.
I'm not a religious person, but I have no problem believing that others believe he exists. It isn't lying if they truly believe what they are saying.
I'm not a religious person, but I have no problem believing that others believe he exists. It isn't lying if they truly believe what they are saying.
> ... I lie. A lot.
Stopped reading there, as the author literally just explained how valid the rest of the article likely is.
Also, all future articles from this author can be skipped as well. Bonus. :)
Stopped reading there, as the author literally just explained how valid the rest of the article likely is.
Also, all future articles from this author can be skipped as well. Bonus. :)
Is Christine here trying to tell us that we should be worried by turbulence?
Yeah I don't get that either... by all accounts I've heard you really shouldn't worry about most turbulence.
Well depends what we mean by turbulences. Seatbelts are there for a reason. But there is a "winning the lottery" probability to encounter bad enough to be dangerous turbulences on a flight.
I don't think that epsilon probability was what the article was referring to as worrying about turbulences in general?
I’ve been a passenger on a plane coming in to land from a long haul flight, in heavy crosswinds. The pilot aborted the landing just before touch down on the first attempt. You could see the plane rolling back and forth if you looked out of the window. The plane went up into a holding pattern before attempting and aborting a second time.
We were told there was some mild turbulence. I wouldn’t say it was mild, it felt pretty dicey the first time around. With the plane safely on the ground, I asked the crew and they confirmed as much.
We were told there was some mild turbulence. I wouldn’t say it was mild, it felt pretty dicey the first time around. With the plane safely on the ground, I asked the crew and they confirmed as much.
I would add politics, but also nonprofits. The world of nonprofits is murky and filled to the brim with con artists and people who basically lie for a living.
I remember being told about a study done by the air force to determine what made a good leader. They studied school age children, and had them tell lies to their peers. The ones which could most successfully convince their peers of the lies were ultimately the best leaders.
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As a programmer, I have sometimes been called up to make the salesperson's lie become true.
It's sort of a symbiotic relationship, the one between coders and sellers. We each need the other.
It's sort of a symbiotic relationship, the one between coders and sellers. We each need the other.
i guess you can blame on the interview process... i usually ask deep questions on the first random items the interviewee puts in bold on his/her C.V.
so lying shouldn't help.
i.e. say when you don't know. if you say you know - we will likely check if it is important to us.
i.e. say when you don't know. if you say you know - we will likely check if it is important to us.
Add to this: BBC 'Journalist'
[deleted]
I never lie on resumes or in job interviews. In this field you don’t need to puff up your resume to get an interview, you just need to ignore job “requirements” — those are almost always a pile of broken dreams and desperate hopes.