“They Want Liars!” — Former Tech Worker Slams Companies for “Impossible” Hiring Standards

Corporations want to intentionally hire liars. That's what TikTok user Dinner Pancakes (@dinnerpancakes) in a video that's accumulated over 938,000 views on the app.

He shared an anecdote from a previous job where he was crafting a new position posting that called for proficiency in a technology that was only 2 years old. He says his supervisor, however, wanted to ask for 8-10 years of experience for this piece of tech, and explained his thought process in doing so.

Dinner's video begins with a stitch of fellow TikTok user Josh Benson's clip where he lampoons a job interview/speech from someone giving the rundown of a position to a job seeker that sounds like a nightmare to work in by today's standards: a $35,000 annual salary, a schedule that goes well past 40 hours a week and $100 quarterly bonuses in the form of Applebee's gift cards.

While the work situation described in Josh's video is exaggerated for comedic effect, like being expected to have 10-15 years experience in an entry-level role for $15 an hour, his clip resonated with Dinner, and other users on the platform and their frustrations in landing gainful employment where they feel as if they aren't being taken advantage of.

Dinner shared an employment experience of his own after including a brief snippet of Benson's TikTok: "These videos are so good. There was a time when I was a very high-level person in a technology company and I was in charge of hiring like mid-level directors and senior directors and whatnot, and there was a time when we had a particularly esoteric technology."

He continued, stating that this "esoteric" bit of tech was integral to the job role: "that we needed somebody with...some experience on it because a lot of our systems and the systems for the institutions that we integrated with data wise needed, we needed to have somebody who knew that technology."

"That particular technology had been around for about two years at that point and we wanted to hire a role to, you know, be in charge of the way that technology was implemented and scaled at our place. So anyway, we're writing the job description and my boss, the CTO at the time, was saying why don't we ask for 8-10 years of experience," Dinner said.

The problem is, however, that the specific technology utilized in the role was new: it would be impossible to have someone with that much experience in using it unless they had a time machine, or they were counting "work years" and they crammed in 120 hours of work with this tech a week since it first debuted.

"And I remember saying well that's, that's not really possible because this technology hasn't been around that long so the best we can hope for you know is maybe about two years of experience. And I'll never forget what he said to me he said yeah but here's the thing: if you have something that you want somebody to have experience with and...you basically set an impossible standard..." Dinner continued.

He went on to explain his boss' logic in setting this impossible standard: " you say like I want 8 years of experience for something that's only been out for two years, you're going to get people who are going to say whatever they need to say in order to get the job."

According to his supervisor, they wanted someone who was chomping at the bit for a position with the company: "And he said that is what we want to hire. We don't want to hire people with actual experience because experience can be taught. What we want people to have is in the internal drive to accomplish an objective and in this particular case the objective is getting a job."

Here was the kicker though: "Even if that means lying. That's what I asked. So even if that means lying his response was to shrug. And say that's just the way the world works. We want people who are going to do whatever it takes to get the job done. Even lying. So anyway that's what they want. They want liars, they want liars, they want liars!" he says at the end of the video while zooming into his face as he speaks into the camera.

One user who responded to Dinner's video said that they've seen this practice in the corporate world but with a specific demographic: "Caveat: have seen this is true for hiring men, mainly white. Not women or POC."

Another individual remarked that this type of hiring strategy ultimately backfires on them as they steer clear of jobs that set impossible expectations: "if i see a job application with an impossible standard I won't apply for it because I assume that the work will not be worth the pay"

Someone else quipped that even when they lie they can't seem to land a job: "Half of my resume is lies and I still can’t get anything"

There was one user who took issue with being told their position can be worked remotely, when it's clear that the person interviewing them is doing just that: "I love when they tell me I can't work from home, as they're working from home on the interview"

And then there were folks who shared their own job denial horror stories, like this one person who was rejected from a job despite being the person who created the functionality the prospective employer was seeking proficiency in: "I got denied for experience with a library I created!!!"