Criteria
Criteria
199 comments
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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.
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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.
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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.
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It's only wrong if you get caught!
I find it entertaining that the criteria for neurodivergence includes telling the truth.
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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.
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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.
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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."
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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.
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Lying by omission is still lying. And if they weren't hard requirements, they should say so. So many job listings I've seen word it like those are the minimum requirements.
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Then those criteria souldn't go under "Required" then.
"Required" has a clear definition.
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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.
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This is when you call them directly and tell them that. They can override the automation.
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and if they won't/can't, then there's an easy answer as to whether it's worth working there at all
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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.
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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.
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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...
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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".
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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).
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Hit them back with "why do you want to hire me?"
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Or even better: “why should I pick your offer?”
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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”
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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.
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Why yes, I do thrive under pressure. It's why I use a weighted blanket.
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I’d like to be
Under the sea
In an octopus’s garden
in the shade
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Those HR people who make the listing don't understand most of it anyway.
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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
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Maybe they have a ton of different machines and need an app that works in any environment?
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Agreed, why haven't we killed java off? It's terrible and there are replacements. At least with JavaScript it's terrible but a monopoly.
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"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"
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Yes, and then don’t provide “real” answers at the interview, make up stuff they want to hear, be friendly and create small talk with a complete stranger, act like you actually GAF about the company when all you want to do is just get a job and start working, screw all this people-interaction stuff.
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For me, getting the interview is the hard part.
I've never interviewed for a job where I didn't get the offer. I can't say exactly what works for me, but I can explain my process a bit.
First off, I go in confident. a lot of that probably had to do with my history with interviews, but that's the first part.
Secondly, I look at it as me interviewing the company. I want to know the company is right for me. To that end, I ask a lot of questions about the position and the team. I ask if they're looking to fill a hole or are willing to have the role reinvented.
Obviously, that last bit is for taking a unique role in the comment, not just as cashier number 23.
I am also clear that I'm not looking to remain in that position forever. I want to work at it a few years and move on, wither within the company or elsewhere. I won't bail in 6 months, but I also won't do the same job with no evolution for 10 years. My career needs to grow.
Essentially, I try to interview in a manner where they're trying to win me over instead of weed me out.
I'm my current job, I was relaxed, got the interviewers talking family and casually about the projects, started giving feedback on issues as if I was already on board, and essentially changed it from an interview to a group meeting.
It turns out I was asking for about 30% more than my competition, but they gave it to me anyway, and it all came down to making myself feel like a member of the team they wanted to hold onto rather than just someone looking for a paycheck.
And I'm absolutely there for the paycheck. I liked my old job a lot more, but I got like a 60% pay bump going to the new job.
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Years ago when I was applying for my first job I actually had to pretend that it always been my dream to work as a shelf stacker. It was such a weird game because everyone involved knows that it's a total lie, they know your just telling them what they want to hear, you know that they know that you're just telling them what they want to hear, they know that you know that they know you're just telling them what they want to hear. But it doesn't matter, you still have to go through the charade.
If you tell him the truth, that you'll disappear as soon as you find someone prepared to pay you more than minimum wage, they won't hire you. Despite the fact that everyone involved knows that that is the case, regardless of how honest you are about it.
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yes that's the point
they want someone desperate enough to lie to them and to themselves that their childhood dream is to become a shelf stacker, they want someone out of options, they want someone who will stay with them for a long time without even as much as a whimper of a complaint about low pay or the working conditions
if you have ambitions, you're not who they're looking for
best believe the same company will keep a ghost job listing for a shelf stacker up at all times, just so that the current employees feel replaceable and don't dare to step out of line in fear of losing their job
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Half of the requirements listed aren't even actual requirements; they're just listing their tech stack. For example, if I see NodeJS, I know I'll be deploying web apps, not coding them. I don't even read the requirements most of the time. If the title matches and there's no security clearance required, I'm applying.
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I swear my company has one list of requirements for all jobs. Every time I am part of the hiring process I have to correct it
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That whole routine doesn't magically make sense to neurotypical people either.
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I think of myself as a neutodivergent person but I am annoyed by neurodivergent people who act like everything is binary yes/no black/white full volume/absolute silence. Like, everyone in the world knows that the gas pedal in the car is not an on/off switch and believe it or not but other things in life are like that.
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Black and white thinking is pretty common in ASD though isn't it?
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Yes, and this is why it's a disorder and can be a disability despite people saying things like "autism is my super power ". It's not funny when strict rigid thinking runs up against fluid reality. People make absolute rules in their heads and when the real world doesn't align with those rules they can suffer real distress.
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And depression
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What I've learned from Lemmy is that everyone is neurodivergent.
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Get out of here with your smart and reasonable take!
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I have a stable job that I like.
Sometimes I think I should go to interviews just to make recruiters feel insecure, "your business is not up to my expectations" "what do you mean you don't provide flexible remote working?" "Your paycheck is just too small for me, sorry".
I would get a laugh of of it and probably would help some fella by lowering this fuckers ego.
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Your motives are horrible. Hiring managers in any org larger than a few hundred people have very little control over anything you mentioned. So you're just taking time away from other applicants and time away from the needs of the people who already work at a place in order to satisfy your pettiness.
If you actually did this rather than just wanting to, you would be the bad guy in the situation.
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I don't understand why op thinks they are special for going through this workflow. Women are way less likely than men to ignore job requirements when applying for jobs and many many people have to be reminded that job requirements are fluffy. Are all these people "neurodivergent"? We seem to want to apply this term everywhere for some reason.
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I think most people are like this but neurodivergent people have trouble coming to terms with breaking the rules. As in they see an incongruity between the stated rule and the way everyone behaves. What OP is talking about is textbook neurodivergence behavior though I’m sure other people experience this to some degree.
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As a neurodivergent, this. Exactly. I couldn't have said it better myself. I literally cannot because I'd quickly ramble on and talk about seemingly unimportant things for like, three sentences, but only use commas, so that it looks/reads as a single sentence, then ultimately say what you said, but I would say it worse somehow.
I'm ADHD. AMA?
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I don't think that op thinks they're special by going through the workflow. I think op thinks that the workflow lands differently on them because of their condition. I think op thinks that it's related to their condition because no one else seems to be complaining about this and so maybe neurotypicals aren't as bothered by this.
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Yeah, this is an oddly common sentiment amongst those that make neurodivergence their personality; which is funny because it’s more common to be neurodivergent than neurotypical. While it’s usually said that 20% of people are neurodivergent, it’s actually more than 50% when you include everything that constitutes neurodivergence and even account for significant overlap.
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I think “neurotypical” by now means “I wanna say ‘normie I look down upon’, but I don't want to sound like an incel”
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Nope. I'm neurodivergent, I know a lot of neurodivergent people. We all kind of gravitated to eachother over time. Some are ADHD, like me, some are on the spectrum for autism, and there's a bunch more that I simply cannot list because the list is pretty long.
I can tell you that zero of the neurodivergent people I know use the term "neurotypical" to mean anything like what you suggest. In every context it's meant to exemplify the lack of mental struggle that some people have in their daily life in contrast to what most neurodivergent people experience.
Eg, anxiety and paralysis when contemplating or engaging in anything remotely social. For some neurodivergents, such activity evokes a very strong reaction. Some neurotypicals also experience something similar, usually less severe at least; but the experience is not unique to us.
The most common derogatory use of "neurotypical" that I've seen is regarding empathy, or the lack thereof, from people who have not experienced a major mental health event, and are so neurotypical that they cannot even fathom the struggles of people who are neurodivergent.
You all don't understand, then victim blame us and call us lazy, when our brain chemistry literally prevents us from making any useful progress on stuff. Then there's a whole swath of you that shames us for using meds to help correct the discomfort of being wired differently in a world that isn't designed to accommodate, or even sympathise with us.
Now we're being, more or less, accused of using "neurotypical" as a slur to hide that we're incels?
Seriously?
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It's not lying as much as it's advertising. If they're asking about your greatest weakness, tell them. Just don't neglect to mention how you mitigate that weakness too, and are improving. Don't let your answer end on "I'm a disorganized mess", end it on "so in the last year, I've started building and using checklists and it's been really effective".
In the same way, be up front if they ask about the criteria you don't meet. But consider your entire answer, again, you can say something like "I actually haven't worked in that language before, but I've done lots of work in Python and Java, so I'm confident I can pick it up quickly as needed". If they don't ask, then it probably wasn't really that important of a criteria to them, so you shouldn't waste your interview time talking about it either.
Don't volunteer all your worst traits, you only have an hour, so focus on describing your strengths as often as you can. Nobody expects to completely understand you as a person in one hour, they're specifically asking you to come in and advertise yourself. Instead, read between the lines in the listing (I.E. Things mentioned in the job description or title are likely more important than something in a single bullet point. Look for repetition, or how much they talk about each requirement.). Figure out what the "customer" wants that you're good at, and ensure you emphasize it, repeatedly. Define clear takeaways and make sure they know what you're offering, and will actually remember it too.
And practice your answers to many questions. Come up with your best anecdotes for "a time you resolved a conflict with a coworker" and all that nonsense in advance, so that you can confidently segue into those stories that best emphasize your takeaways when asked. Do some research on the company to come up with a good answer to questions like "why do you want to work here?". The answer doesn't have to be your top priority, which is obviously "a paycheque", but just append an unsaid "instead of somewhere else" and answer honestly, because people are good at detecting insincerity. You likely haven't applied to every company on earth, so tell them why you chose them.
Lastly, like an advertiser, don't be afraid to segue from other questions into your prepared answers. "Yeah, I've always loved X, that's why I wanted to work here actually, I'd heard a bit about how you were getting involved with X, but with this interesting twist, and thought that sounded like something I'd really enjoy working on". The interview questions are designed to get you talking about yourself, it's not a survey where the strict questions are all that matter, and you can simply joke about it if the question comes up later.
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A lot of this is tied into rhetoric. Rhetoric is a skill. You don't need to lie. You need to tell the truth good.
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saving this for future reference. I've told this to many of friends over the years, but you've laid it out more beautifully than I ever did
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Even if you don't qualify, job hunting is just throwing your resume to the wall and see what sticks. You got nothing to lose by applying.
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You got nothing to lose by applying.
Nothing to lose but your sanity.
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Yeah except then they make you fill out a really long form to actually apply because no one accepts CVs anymore
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Eh, fuck em.
Send it anyway. One of em might read it.
Maybe even call you bold for applying that way.
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As an autistic person I relate to this so hard it isn't funny.
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As a non-autistic person, it's also incredibly annoying. Job hunting has always been a really stupid system with lots of really stupid rules of thumbs.
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the hiring managers, senior executives, and especially the owners-- don't give half a flying fuck about the
worker dronesemployeesas such, you're only hurting yourself if you're not telling them what they want to hear out of "principle." fuck that. "principle" won't stop them from tossing you to the winds the instant you become any sort of liability, e.g., prolonged sickness, otj injury, pregnant, etc
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A lot og questions can be answered diplomatically and show that you are able to handle yourself:
Q: do you like the colour red?
A1: I hate red
A2: I don't like red
A3: Not my favourite colour
A4: I prefer blue
In this entirely made up and pointless exercise you hate red and are asked if you like it. Real world applications converging on zero.
On a scale of lie to truth, where are you comfortable with representing your thoughts of red in an interview?
And remember, only Sith deals in absolutes🙃
*Edited layout
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The thing is, they are treacherous with their questions. Because the question itself doesn't matter, what you answer is not the question itself, but the hidden question behind.
This means they don't trust you to answer honestly, and yet, once you know how the process goes, they actually encourage people to be treacherous too.
This is a lose-lose strategy that they're using. They are selecting treacherous people instead of qualified people. Probably because they are not qualified themselves, and because qualifications don't matter to most companies. What matters is appearances and selling an idea.
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I don't consider myself neurodivergent but I do consider this issue one of the greatest barriers with my finding employment. I was raised to despise lying, and enough bad experiences have made me consider 'massaging the truth' to be the exact same thing.
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It's because they're actually lying about the criteria, its more like a wish list than actual requirements. In the interview just say oh I only know a little about criteria x but I'm keen to learn or whatever
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Also if you lie on the application, aren't they able to use that as an easy out to fire/lay you off without needing anything further?
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If you actually lie, sure. But since you seem not to have applied for a job before: Typically you provide a resume. Your resume is supposed to be a true representation of your career focusing on what they say they want but without lying. Then they compare their wish list against what you have and see if the match is close enough then they talk to you. There is no "lying on the application" unless you lie on your resume.
And if you lie on your resume in a provable way (ie not "I said I knew this tool but really I just watched someone use it once" but more "I worked at this company and decided voluntarily to leave when in fact they fired me") yes it could be used to get you out, but that's well into stupid territory.
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I dont know why they do it and I dont care to find out. I just know I apply even if I dont match the complete criteria. If I tick off 60-70% of what they want, I'll apply. We are people, not machines. If something doesnt match but is close to it, we try and make it work. This is how the real world works. There are multiple factors at play and they can work in your favour.
I got my first job which required a college degree and some experience. I had personal (non-professional) experience and no degree. Showed an interest in the work they did, told them I work on my own things from time to time and got hired. What probably worked in my favor was a lack of other applicants showing the same degree of interest. I even told them I'd graduate in a year and we made it a requirement. Never got my degree and worked there for 7 years. No lying, some luck and showing an interest. Same strategy worked two more times (out of two), 1st interview and "wanna come work for us?". Its easier the second time since experience is built up already. And im not some extroverted silver tongued devil or anything. The right interviewer at the right time.
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Ah, the beautiful awful hidden rules of human society...
You see, birds can fly thousands of miles/kilometers across entire continents, surviving through stuff that Mother Nature makes available. No need for bureaucracies, no need for Walmart, no need for "money", no need for "being useful to aviary society", just following the natural and evolutionary flows.
However, for some reason, humans can't do the same, humans need to try and detach themselves from Nature. Yet we can point out exactly what's the reason: the curse of sentience. Once upon a time, Dubito ergo cogito, cogito ergo sum, and humans became their own predators (Homo homini lupus est), yearning for something bigger to save them from themselves... (perhaps some "Leviathan"?)
Suddenly, they conceptualize the "free will", yet they realize that existing, being a being, implies no free will at all. Existential and societal compliance (Derren Brown has good documentaries about the latter), being tangled by an invisible spider web of lies and rules. And because they're alive, they become culprits as if existence was some kind of circle of hell to be faced by those who "dared to exist": "you're alive, so comply with your societal duties!".
So is my body hungry against my will, or it's raining over my body? I need food and shelter. Oh, but there's the catch: I'm supposed to "buy/rent" them, because "there's no such thing as a free lunch". Buying and renting imply money, which implies the need something for its exchange... Some people ("the top 1% of the top 1%, the guys that play God without permission") have golden cradles, oh, shame on me I hadn't one, so I'm supposed to do the alternative thing: dedicate myself to a company's brand, doing my efforts to make the company functional.
But there's another catch: I can't simply "be part of a company", I need to be "hired", but I need to "be qualified" to be hired. Oh, I'm not "qualified" enough in the eyes of their HR? I'm not going to be hired. Am I qualified? I'll going to talk with a "recruiter", which will ask me rhetorical questions ("So why do you want to work for this company?", but I can't answer "to not starve" or "to afford a rent") which I'm supposed to reply in a "proper" way (i.e. pretending, but without being so evident that I'm pretending). I couldn't pretend enough? I'm not hired.
No company is required to hire me, for they're "private properties", so I need to seek another company where I'd "qualify". So I'm supposed to "distribute" my "curriculum vitae" across several job vacancies, waiting which one will "stick first" (as per someone's reply here, in this very thread). Oh, but there's another catch: job vacancy services are only good enough if I paid for them, I'm supposed to pay them in order to my curriculum to really be known to some HR... you know, so I could be "hired" and "work" and exchange my efforts with "money" so I can pay things, such as... job vacancy services. In a nutshell, I need to pay for a service so I can pay for other services. Hey, look, there flies another bird across the skies, unaware of our societal compliance complexities. They came from another country yet they have no visa nor passport! Hey, look, they're eating "freely", how audacious of them!
Apologies for my digression. The obvious shall be told about the society, and neurodivergents (I guess I'm one?) are the ones who can see those obviousnesses and write them as detailed as they can be.
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I wouldn't like to be a bird. If a bird gets sick it will probably die. If a bird is injured it will probably die. If a bird is born disabled in some way it will probably die. Not to speak about all the predators just waiting to eat you.
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If a bird gets sick it will probably die. If a bird is injured it will probably die. If a bird is born disabled in some way it will probably die. Not to speak about all the predators just waiting to eat you.
Is it really different from human reality? If a human gets sick, there's a significant probability of not affording proper healthcare, be it private or public.
If a human is born disabled in some way, they'll need to face several bureaucracies just to continue being state-supported to continue surviving. This becomes even more challenging for "invisible conditions" such rheumatic, neurological and mental ones, because no one else sees or feels it beyond the human that suffers from it.
Not to mention all the humans just wanting to pull the rug out from under you (falsehood and betrayal), be it in professional or academic relations, be it in familiar relations. They won't literally eat another human, but they won't care if others die because of prisoner's dilemma of betrayal and falsehood.
The difference, IMHO, is that there are no made-up predators, no made-up system pretending that they care for other's health, and most importantly: there's no apparent sentience among "wild" living beings of how harsh the Nature reality can be. They simply try to survive as closest to Nature's nature as possible, while humans, no, humans consciously try to make it even harsher for others to survive.
Back when humans still were simply hominids, they needed to fight or flee from jaguars, bears, snakes, etc. We had real predators, until one of them discovered the fire, which allowed them to be "fearsome" against these animals, scaring them away, "delimiting" lands and then filling the vacuum ("Nature abhors a vacuum") of real predators with made-up predators: themselves.
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The "endless" quotes are "really" jarring and make this "comment" really hard to read (and actually know what you mean, as scare quotes are generally used to convey doubt or disagreement but.. Not when it's every third word)
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Neurotypical people are more "morally flexible." Which sounds like hypocricy and corruption to me. Assume NT's have ultirior motives and it becomes a easier to read between the lines.
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Hypocrisy and corruption are easy to breed from that, true. But the NT is also get a nice set of useful tools from it as well, like choosing their battles, and not painting people into corners.
How those tools are used are basically down to core morality and how you want to apply it to your subordinates, co-workers, and management.
I suspect I'm not fully ante and a lot of those lessons were difficult to figure out.
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Or we understand that a lot of the criteria is just a wishlist, and as long as you meet a significant chunk of it, the rest can be learned in the job.
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So far, the other comments have failed to realize that this is actually some of our thought process and way of adapting to neurotypical norms.
I will say that after I get used to a person's body language and speech patterns, I tend to ease off of assuming ulterior motives (which has bitten me on the ass once or twice).
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I think this is more true than most would like to think.
Reality is more nuanced than the words with which we describe it. A lot of NT "flexibility" is about recognising that. But, it often spills over into what is, really, lying.
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They're just made of better material.
...I'll see myself out.
And for the record, I'm on the spectrum as well.
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I can see where you’re coming from. Some people do have ulterior motives or misaligned morals, so it’s good to stay aware of that possibility. At the same time, assuming that’s true for everyone might not be necessary. Instead, it can be more effective to recognize that bad actors exist and use that knowledge to look at situations from multiple angles when needed. This approach helped me to stay critical and aware at (mostly) the right times, without jumping to conclusions too soon.
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Unfortunately this did not pan out for me at all when I tried to move out of IT support. Now I make fries and sandwiches (I don't even make them, I just put the toppings on). If possible I'll probably do this til I die, not cuz I love it, but because I never want to go through with the job application process ever again.
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You have to go out and get a bullshit CompTIA certificate, otherwise no one will talk to you anymore.
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That's entirely dependent on experience. Low to no experience? Get certs. In today's age of AI powered resume screens, even with experience if what you're pursuing is a position lower on the totem poll then you will still need them to get through the AI. Probably want a higher-value cert than CompTIA if you wanna work in IT but don't want to stay trapped in the help desk (I'm talking a networking cert, a cloud cert, ITIL, etc). The most common career path is through the help desk but one doesn't need to stay there.
Once one gets a decent amount of experience certs don't really matter. In fact, I climbed up the early rungs of the IT ladder by selling my experience with stuff in my home lab and selling my ability to learn. I don't have a single cert and never have. I misrepresented nothing about myself, but I did need to eat some below-market-pay jobs at first to rack up real experience to sell. Nobody really cares about the cert, it's a knowledge industry and what matters is what you know and what you've done.
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I am having such a problem with this right now. Everyone says, "apply for this, who cares if you don't fit the qualifications?" And I'm like, "they probably care." I just have a hard time believing some company is going to look at my resume when I don't fit the criteria and then hire me. I am going way out of my safety zone on that right now, but I'm still not convinced.
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Most recruiters have no idea what they are recruiting for. It's like a game of telephone, by the time the job description reaches you, it has gone through so much dressing and corparatification it either describes a whole IT deparment or nothing specific at all.
Getting hired needs an entirely different set of skill than whatever job you will do. Well except maybe if it's marketing, because the whole process seems like a song and dance where you need to sell yourself.
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That's because you are not considering that the person who wrote that is a human.
I've written many postings. They are always a best guess. When I write mine, I try to be cautious about this and keep two separate sections and put required vs nice to have in two groups, but the place I currently work has a different template and that doesn't fit, so I have to fill in words that I hope convey the meaning I want to the applicant.
In other words, I have a picture in my head of the rough skillet I think is appropriate.
You submit your resume. If it's missing something critical (this is a software job and you've never touched software) that's an easy drop and a waste of everyone's time. But I assume you don't mean this. I assume you mean something more like "I'm looking for someone with experience with oscilloscopes, multimeters, data acquisition, and function generators" and then you say "oh well I've never used a scope just the rest so I shouldn't apply". In terms of what I wrote, the behavior is logical. But I am a human, what I wrote was trying to give examples of the skill I want, not saying "we won't spend half a day to train you on scopes".
You apply so that you can present a picture of your life that you think fulfills the need I am looking for. You write your resume to make that match as clear as it can be. Sometimes we both miss the mark, and I have to go revise the job posting to make what I want clearer. Sometimes you miss the mark and while you have enough skill to do the job you couldn't figure out how to present it. But all we are both doing is trying to see if you have the underlying hard to capture, hard to document, hard to describe skills I actually want you to have, filtered through the rigidity of the hr org.
None of this is as hard or complex or weird or, shockingly to me, malicious, as people here make it out to be.
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You are not suppose to lie - you are suppose to apply for jobs that you are insanely overqualified for. Why? Because your competition is doing the same thing.
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Apply for jobs that say you are under qualified, but that you are actually very much overqualified or at least matched for.
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A job I applied to a year ago made me do a general logic test. It's the only job that's ever made me do one. I think I spent like half the time on one question because I was so confused. I genuinely believe there was a typo. Anyways, it's the closest I've come to putting my foot down and asking for accomodations because holy shit.
So, I ace the part relevant to my job but failed that part bad. Get this: they say they want me to retake it before giving the results to the potential client. HUH? If the test is bullshit, why make me do it at all? AND GET THIS. I retake it. I've now wasted three hours of my 2023 holiday season on this. The client rejects me because I didn't have experience with some random technology. WTF??? I think I even asked before all this why don't they show my resume to the client before the test and they said because they like to give a full file. I was so angry. It's probably the most unprofessional email I've sent, but I literally sent one saying something like "Then why didn't you show them my resume before making me waste three hours???" Seriously. They didn't even talk to me. Which is fine, I'm not saying they should have to, but for the contracting company to make me waste so much time... And to make me retake it (proving the whole thing is BS). Wow.
Anyways, I'm employed now, thank goodness.
My boss's boss said everyone should be happy on Friday because it's bonus day. I'm my boss's only contracted employee. I think I don't get one. I'm very tempted to just send him an email like "was I supposed to see a bonus in my paycheck? Blah mentioned it." But I don't wanna seem passive aggressive.
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This entire comment section is a mess of people who apparently don't understand that companies are just listing out the things they want. If they find someone that meets those requirements, then fucking awesome.....otherwise, they will still take people in for interviews that meet a majority of those requirements. You think they'll really pass on someone that has only 7 years experience in this hyper specific role when they are looking for 10?
You don't have to meet every single requirement.
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I think the issue is that it's _called a requirement_ and not an "appreciated characteristic"
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Get this all the time in software development, being given "requirements" and most of them are pretty stupid wishlist items.
I constantly argue that that will not get a good outcome if they just call everything is equally a "hard requirement".
What they want to do is negotiate and start from an unreasonable anchor point. In my case I find it super tiresome because my stance is always the same, make a priority list and we'll get as far as we can. But escalating and tying us up in meetings to try to argue for stuff you are just using as a negotiating tactic only gets in the way of us doing what we can. We are going to do what fits, and people are not going to work unpaid overtime or holidays just to meet some arbitrary deadline. If it doesn't fit, well it won't be long until the next window.
My team has a very long history of ultimately exceeding the hopes of the folks asking for stuff and yet they continue to try to get us to commit to stuff we never will.
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The post has "as a neurodivergent person" right in the first line. Who do you think is in the comments?
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Point is neurodivergent take things more literally. That means the job requirements along with the some possible difficulty in guessing what an interviewer wants when they ask a question. A “normal” person would probably be fine with creatively arranging a resume to look like it matches the job requirements, schmoozing and making small talk with an interviewer, and the follow up courtesy emails. A person say who is ASD/ADHD could find the interactions difficult, especially schmoozing/small talk, and while telling “lies” isn’t foreign at all to non-normative people, being told you kinda have to “lie” on a job app and then creatively explain that lie is gonna be problematic.
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Even better I've had an interview for a company that listed a insane list of skills, spanning front-end to backend over 3 different tech stacks... Turns out your application gets sorted into very specific teams by HR, with a much more limited tech stack. They had a whole online platform for testing before I even spoke to a real human....
Being 'locked' into a limited tech stack wasn't what I was looking for at the time, so all in all a huge waste of time.
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That's not what requirement means
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Literally means figuratively, nothing matters.
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The problem is the job market has basically priced in exaggerations on resumes. People exaggerate all the time and don't get punished for it.
If you don't exaggerate, you may even miss out on opportunities and hamper your career goals whatever they may be, because they already assume you exaggerate and already account for it when reading your resume. And if you don't exaggerate? Well, they're happy to pay you less than they would've.
Certainly at least in tech in the Bay Area, fake it till you make it is the norm. I've met plenty of people with amazing resumes and references just to see them not be as good as advertised.
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You don't have to sell you up but then it's just harder to get hired.
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As someone who has read a lot of cvs, i wish more people thought like this. We didn't list the requirements just for fun. Quit wasting people's time by applying for stuff when you don't match the requirements
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As someone who has applied to a lot of jobs, I wish more job posters thought like you. It would take me 1 minute to find you a job posting for an IT position where they ask for a minimum number of years using a technology that hasn't even existed for that many years.
I think this happens because some manager says "we want an expert in this technology" but then the job poster slaps some arbitrary number on that like "oh 5-10 years should be enough for an expert" with no awareness that it's a brand new technology.
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Blame all the companies with ridiculously high requirements just to hire people who don't meet all of them. It's a common advice to apply even when you don't meet all the reqs, because it works out so often.
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Yeah fair, that's a shitty behaviour as well
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In every instance where I've been reading cvs for a job, the requirements have always been requirements. If we had nice to have features, they were listed as nice to have.
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I work at a university. When hiring, if someone doesn't have one of the "Required Job Qualifications", they are immediately disqualified. We can wiggle a little if we can infer one of the qualifications from other experience, but that is pretty frowned upon.
If we have things that we'd like to have but are not required, they are listed as "Preferred Job Qualifications". We then create a rating scale for each based on their relative importance and grade candidates one each of the preferred qualifications. We use the resulting rankings to determine who we will interview. We MUST interview every candidate above the lowest ranked candidate we interview.
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When I have hired people, I rarely find someone that meets all the requirements. I think a wishlist is a good way to look at it. If someone hits 9/10 things at best and I need someone for the job, then they get it.
Ultimately, there is no standard way to do this as it is up to the person doing the hiring.
I'd also add that someone once specifically applied in a way that I said not to apply, but I was wrong and receiving the application through those means was actually very helpful and they met the other reqs so I hired them.
So much of this stuff is just based on intuition and your ability to demonstrate certain technical skills.
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