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ot-Have you ever lied to get a job?

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art_deco_machine

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I think most of the jobs I ever had, I lied, or stretched the truth to get it.

What else are you supposed to do when they want someone with five years experience, or something like that, and you are a young guy that doesn't have any work record?

Thing is, I always got by with it because I was always able to do the job that I didn't have any previous experience doing. So they never caught on. Which brought the question to my mind; what good would the experience be?

A friend of mine called several months ago and said she was working in a chicken house, and when the eggs came down the conveyor belt, she picked them up, wiped off the chicken dudu, and put them on a rack. She asked me if I wanted to work there. I said, maybe on occasion to fill in for someone else. She tells the chicken house owner. What does he ask? "Does he have any experience doing that kind of work?" Really, what kind of experience does it take to pick up an egg and wipe s*** off of it and put it on a rack?

I guess it is just hard to find people qualified to do that kind of work.

Two questions I am always asked when applying for a job; What is your experience and what is your Social Security number? Yet, illegals seem to get jobs without either.

Well, today they have meat packers, chicken plants and contractors closed for the day. Quite frankly, I don't care if they ever go back to work. Just my cynical view, so excuse me, if you don't like me to express it.

And how many people have you met with 20, 30, and even 40 years experience that still didn't know what they were doing? I have met a few.
 
1. If you have some experience with machining but may take a side job as an egg cleaner maybe you should give me a buzz, we have more interesting things to clean than eggs. LOL

2. The original owner came up with a hiring plan that the longer I worked here the more sense it made. When you applied there was no application and no need for a resume. It didn't matter. The shop foreman would hand you a print, a tool blank, a dull drill bit, a set of tools and a time card. You could look over themachines all you wanted. When you were ready, you punched in, made the part, then punched out. If you made the part right in less than 8 hours you were hired on the spot, if not you could come back later and try again. In the late 90's I was in charge of hiring. I would interview most over the phone and when I told them we had a test about 2/3 would never show up. Of those that did only about 1/2 would actually take it and only about a 1/3 would pass. Sure weeded out a lot of crap. I had one or two guys tell me all kind of stories, take a look at the test and "I'll be right back after I get a bite to eat". When I saw them go to their car carrying their work boots I got the point. They never came back. The test had a #5 morse taper, a hex, an internal and an external thread which got a wire check. I passed my test at 22 years old. It never failed to amaze me how guys with 20 or more years wouldn't even give it a try.
 
As a teen, I did "overstate" my age, several times to get part-time jobs. I was 14, said I was 16. The people that amuse me are the ones that tell how many years they did this & that... the math does not add up. I knew one guy that claimed he had worked at a nursing home 8 years, attended college for 3 years, been a machinist for 5 years, driven a Pepsi truck for 5 years, and more. Funny part is, he was only 25 when he told us this. I think drugs contributed to his reality impairment. :rolleyes:
 
"I knew one guy..."
The guy was probably a moron like you suggest but if I listed all of my jobs over the past 10 years you wouldn't believe me either. The trick is to work 3 at one time while still going to school.
 
The only thing I have ever did was omit the fact that I was fired from one job, that co. will only confirm dates of employ so I'm safe with that, I moved right after that, so the move covers me. I'm not proud of that, but I have to earn a living too, I got fired from that job for missing time, and in every job before, and after there were ZERO issues with that, as in calling sick once in 3 years at this job.

The catch with job applications is that if the employer finds out years later you lied about something, they can fire you for that, no questions asked.

The job I have now I hired in thru a short term temp (only way the co. would hire), they bumped me into their long term temp after 30 days, 6 months total from first hire the co. itself hired me, that is a bear to explain, so on a resume I don't detail that nitty gritty part, IF it comes to an application I do it then, it is still hard to explain, but it is NOT a 30 day, then a 5 month job hop, which could be held against me.

If I plain NEEDED a job tomorrow because mine pooped out, I would do what I had to to get $$ coming in and buy me time to find another job in my line of work.
 
cruzinonline, now that you've been on both sides of your company's approach to hiring, do you like it? It sounds excellent to me, but not seeing it in action there may be things under the surface that make a difference.
 
my favorite are the fresh out of school masters degree indian nationals who state 3000 hours of cad experience... HELLO! 1 or 2 cad classes does not = a year and a half experience.

So, we have a cad test now. it's often hillarious. I use a version of the 100 level class final I used to give at the community college.
 
IIRC, tests are sorta a problem now....... some types are illegal.

At least, I used to have a simple paper test to evaluate engineering applicants. Nothing much, it covered stuff any technician should have been able to do, just a test of practical grasp of principles.

When HR eventually found out about it, they hit the roof screaming..... After they quit yelling EEOC, fines, lawsuit, and foaming at the mouth, they demanded that every copy of the test be destroyed and prohibited all such things in future.

So now I do the same thing, but I just do it talking to the applicant, using an existing schematic etc as materials.

BTW, I am an EE, not a machinist.... but I would surely give that "make the part" test a shot. Sounds like nothing there that I have not done fairly recently in the home shop.

Why were the guys THAT scared?
 
Talked to a guy at a job fair in Chicago several years ago. After discussing my education and job history, he asked, "what makes you think you would be a good fit for this job?"

I said, "I own an alarm clock. I read the instructions. I know how it works."

His only comment, "When can you start?"

Stan Db
 
We put an ad out for some general office people and received over 500 resumes. After weeding out we had about 30 interviews and they all failed. So we put an ad in the read like this:

"Fast paced business to business manufacturing firm needs well organized people. Send Resume to…”

Only two people sent resumes. One claimed it was an accident that they sent it. Everyone wants a paycheck but nobody wants to work for it.

Jason
 
I really don't see much of a point in lieing. I guess every real job I've got so far, I've at the very least gotten to speak to some one with some clout before sending in my application, and or resume, however what's wrong with just telling the truth.

If he's asking if you have had any egg washing experience why not just tell him about similar experience working long repetitive mindless production work.

It seems to me that the number one employer complaint made is merely how hard it is to find qualified people with the right work ethic, and who have the abilitiy to learn. In the past when I've been asked if I can do stuff I've always just chose to be honest and tell the truth. I figure I have a real love for working on the shop floor, and I take a lot of pleasure and pride in what I do. If I don't know something I'll do what ever it takes to learn, not only on the job but I'll even read up on it at home on my own time. I've always found that by telling my employer that I've never done that, but would try my best and learn as quickly as possible helps to keep both our expectations realistic.

If my employer isn't going to respect, and or be able to work with me according to my stated abilities, either the job isn't the correct match for me, or the employer isn't the correct one for me.

The job I had this past summer was quite the experience. I was brought in to replace this temp with 30 years of experience. My coworkers told me he was the "best damn machinist you ever met, and if you didn't believe that he'd tell it to you!" I guess my former boss was so unimpressed with this guy that he fired him and decided gave me a try. I came in there I was doing prototype work on a Bridgeport. I was honest with them and said it would be a challange but I planned on giving it my best, and was ready to learn as much as possible considering I loved machining. I think in the first month my scrap rate was rather close if not greater then the guy who I replaced.

The first few weeks were a little rough but because I was honest with them didn't really make any mistake twice, they stood by me and I was real greatful for that experience. I'd love to return there this summer but unfortunately from what they told me about a month and a half ago, they've just been too slow.


As for the chicken house, I'd still just be honest. I don't know your work experience in the past but relate it to similar work. Having worked in a high volume screw machining/turning shop, I understand first hand what that job will probablly ential. I also understand that there may even be a certain hand motion or pattern one must work with that may require a few days to pick up and become good at. I saw on TV the other day a mushroom picker on Discovery Channel's "Dirtiest Jobs" this guy could cut more mushrooms in munite then I could do in an hour I bet! If I wanted that job I wouldn't want to make any false promises. For all you know you could get there be cleaning far too few eggs an hour and be fired, may as well just tell the truth and have them be leinient and give you a few days to get used to the job.

As for testing an applicant. I've heard about that stuff myself, in many shops. My former boss told me about how he did them up untill about five years ago. Said before the test he'd screw around with all the feeds and speeds on the lathes. Usually he'd reverse the feedscrew to stump the candidate, give him a dull drill bit etc... Said he'd watch them, some of the candidates would get so frustrated, rather either reversing the feed screw, or asking how to do reverse that machine, next thing you knew the guy was turning all the handles and getting frustrated real fast. Said however he just can no longer do it with OSHA and insurance, as if the guy was to get hurt and not be covered by them or anyone it would be a big mess fast! Gotta love them insurance companies.

Adam
 
Short answer: nope. Never had to.

The only job I didn't ever get, I was glad
I didn't. It was a field service deal for
an instrument company. Tough hours, lots of
customer contact, lots of travel.

The guy asked 'what do you think you should be
paid?'

Now I know the first guy to talk money looses
as a rule, but the question rubbed me the wrong
way. So I padded the real number quite a lot,
and they declined to hire me. It all worked
out in the end.

Jim
 
I havent worked for anybody else in a long long time- but I have hired a lot of people since then.
And if you think the boss "never caught on"- well, I got a bridge to sell you.
If you dont know what you are doing, and are faking it, its obvious to the boss- if he knows anything about the job at all.

I have had guys who lied, and it was always obvious within a day what they could and couldnt do.
In most cases, a good boss will just ignore it, and give them appropriate work, til they really come up to speed.

If my employee screws up, and hes not on drugs or drunk, I figure its my fault- its my responsibility as a boss to spend enough time with new guys to really get a feel on what I can and cant ask em to do.
But as a boss, its my fault if somebody screws up 99% of the time, because I am the one who HAS to be paying attention.

Anyway, the few smart guys I hired who lied about their abilities, well, they werent fooling nobody but themselves.

You can either freehand sharpen a drill bit, or you cant.
You can either tram in a vise on a milling machine, or you cant.
You can either tig weld, or you cant.
You can either back a 40 foot trailer into a loading dock between two others, or you cant.

I am unsure where "faking it" would figure into any of these, or other jobs around a metalworking shop.
Washing chicken eggs, maybe.
In a machine shop- I dont think so.
 
The only thing I ever lied about, or I should say neglected, is to inform my potential employer that I had major back surjury in the past!. It seem's no one will hire you if you have had back problem's in the past, I was fine after my surjury, so I kept quiet, never had a problem!!...
 
I told the Air Force I wasnt afraid of hights. Never was a issue although working on the tip of a B-1s tail in the middle of a south dakota winter with the wind blowing(it is always blowing at Ellsworth AFB)really sucks.
 
It's hard, something especially with electronic resume screening you could be the most qaulified person in the world but because you didn't have a certain key word in your resume, you lose the job.
Some. places like to demand all kinds of experince for menial work and wages, incredible.
Have I ever lied, no, but I know many people who have and they make much more money than me.
 
"you LIED to NOT get a job..."

Hee hee. Sort of. I got a *better* job
because at the time I wasn't sure what our
future held, but it turned out my GF got
accepted to a school out east. And I was
able to score a very nice job (much nicer
than the field service one I mentioned)
that was in the same town she was going to
school.

Basically things were so uncertain that I
felt that they would really have to make it
worth my while to accept that position - and
they had no intention of doing so.

To put this in perspective, I got a call from
a resume I sent out to GTE, and the guy was
very interested in what I was about. He
said he would try to get me a fly-out, but
after talking on the phone with him, things
clicked, at the end of the converstation I
said, "look, this sounds good, I'm going to
fly out on my own nickel to do the interview."

He said hang on, I'm gonna call back, and by
the time he did he had the HR approval for
them to pay for the flyout. Sometimes you can
tell when things feel right, and that first
job just somehow didn't feel like it would be
the right thing.

Actually it would have been *more* dishonest
for me to have taken it (by lowballing my
money number) when I knew I wasn't totally
comitted to working there.

My favorite story along those lines was a
present co-worker who was unhappy enough in one
of his former jobs to have shopped around and
gotten an offer from another firm. Because
he had a bunch of vacation time stored up he
told his boss he was going to take a week off.

The first day he started at his new job, he
realized by noontime that the person who hired
him had done a complete, unmitigated, utter
snow job on him. The job was vastly different
then what he had been told during the interview
and the supervisor's attitude was "yeah, that
happens all the time. You'll get used to it."
Needless to say the conditions in the 'real'
job were a lot crummier than he had been lead
to believe.

Well, Mike says that the guy who was tagged with
showing him around the new job is probably
*still* looking for him, because before lunch
he excused himself to go to the mens room, and
ducked out the back when nobody was looking.

He came back to his original job, and nobody was
the wiser. If fact, his comment was that since
he was gone for a week, they were really happy
to have him back as they missed his expertise
and realized how much work he really did. Things
improved there after that.

Jim
 
No, I have not lied to get a job. I only apply for jobs I believe I am capable of doing . NO BS just straight to the point attitude and being on time .
 
Weird thread - Oprah whats-her-name comes to Practical Machinist...what next?
 








 
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