logoalt Hacker News

DrBazza • today at 4:18 PM • 3 replies • view on HN

Anec-data - as an interviewer, last year, I had my first sketchy, perhaps 'North Korean', candidate.

The name on the CV, was, for the sake of privacy, Michael Smith, from Australia, and ticked the right boxes.

We'd expect a fluent, Aussie-accented English speaker. Instead, we had a candidate with a webcam that wouldn't work (weird!!), with clearly accented English of a East-Asian background. I suppose there's a vanishing chance they really were Mike Smith of Adelaide or wherever, but we couldn't take that chance. We tried rescheduling, but tumbleweeds...


Replies

pants2 • today at 5:30 PM

Haha I had the exact same interview experience, the candidate was named Connor Wood, from Austin, TX. I actually told them we couldn't continue the interview unless they turned on their webcam. Cut to a meek east asian man in a dimly lit room. Are you sure you're the Connor Wood that played on the UT Austin Lacrosse team?? LOL I don't know how they expected that ruse to work.

jedbrooke • today at 5:49 PM

I’m sure there were other signs of sketchiness, but in case you weren’t aware there actually IS a sizable Chinese population in Australia (esp Melbourne)

debo_ • today at 5:05 PM

I'm waiting for companies to start running remote screens like "OK, in this exercise, we need you to write a program that efficiently generates insults about Kim Jong Un."