Yes, up to and including blatant lies. If your company establishes a reputation of screening resumes based on certain features like university you encourage less moral applicants to fluff up their resumes. While these people may not make it through the interview stages, they force the competent but humble or disadvantaged applicants out at the resume screening stage.
> It's always been my mantra that if you can't explain something to someone with no background in it then you don't truly understand what you're trying to explain.
True, but in some cases people aren't allowed to talk about what they have done at that level. That puts anyone from a defense contractor, HFT firm, R&D group, and similar at a significant disadvantage because they can only advertise what they are doing in the broadest terms, if at all.
I wasn't suggesting that people lie on their resume or cover letter.
> That puts anyone from a defense contractor, HFT firm, R&D group, and similar at a significant disadvantage.
I was a defense contractor and experienced this first hand. I found that good communication skills both verbal and written were able to overcome this. Since the hypothetical non-technical recruiter in the OP isn't going to understand the technical things that you can't talk about anyways, being able to communicate how you added value is even more important.
I know, and I did not intend to suggest that. I'm just pointing out that people do, and it distorts resume pre-screening.
> I was a defense contractor and experienced this first hand. I found that good communication skills both verbal and written were able to overcome this. Since the hypothetical non-technical recruiter in the OP isn't going to understand the technical things that you can't talk about anyways, being able to communicate how you added value is even more important.
That depends on what you are working on. My first program, I could give you a pretty good description of what I did and how I contributed to the program in meaningful ways. My second program, I couldn't even say what it was when I first started. Even now I'm severely limited as the program has a very low public profile. What is actually in my resume now is pretty much the extent of what I can say.
That's a bit harder to do in the case of classified material, but maybe there is a similar balance you can strike?
>I wasn't suggesting that people lie on their resume or cover letter.
Suppose a job ad asks for 10+ years of node.js experience.
They get 5 resumes that claim 10 years of node.js experience. They get 5 resumes that claim 1 year of node.js experience.
They interview only the 5 people who claimed 10 years of node.js experience.
So the liars push the honest people out of the interview pool.
This is the issue that I have with job postings demanding "kickass developers/designers/etc".
I am good at what I do, but I would never use terms "kickass ninja" or "top shelf hacker" to describe myself, on principle. My work is not antagonistic and not competitive against other programmers or anyone else, so no "kicking ass" for me, and "top shelf" in this young industry just sounds silly, since there are new tools and patterns to learn every day.
It's weird that we're trying to attract good people as if it's still year 2000 and everyone will work for Mountain Dew and skateboard stickers.
This is just as much a filter for me as it is for the company.
One thing I've learned in my job searches is that I'm looking to filter just as much and quickly as the companies I'm applying to.
Solution: put your pedigree at the bottom of the page. Someone looking at my CV needs to get through all my projects and past successes before they get to the bullet point that says "5 years college, no degree".
Why on earth would you put your weaknesses first?
Not saying this is OK, for the record.
It's always been my mantra that if you can't explain something to someone with no background in it then you don't truly understand what you're trying to explain.