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You happen to see this only in what you call "power relationship". I happen to see it like this: people, e.g. software developers, with the same experience and background attributing themselves as "architects", blowing up their programming experience by years and languages they have never seen. You call this harmless cheating because they kill nobody. It's not harmless because it distorts the reality we all operate in and it confirms the power-relationship-rule. (what age are you talking about anyway? I'm 46, I could tell you about ageism, but telling I'm born in '76 only confirms the ageisms in place)

To react also on the "crab mentality" remark in another post: If the emperor says that crabs older the 1 year of age should be cooked and all crabs start to lie about their age and put others forward as being older (the ones who don't lie) the real ugly face of this mentality becomes clear.




Without commenting one way or another on the larger discussion, I do have something to say about this:

I happen to see it like this: people, e.g. software developers, with the same experience and background attributing themselves as "architects", blowing up their programming experience by years and languages they have never seen.

Inflated resumes are the natural response to inflated requirements. You can't require 5 years of experience in a technology that's only 4 years old. You can't require 5 years of experience in a dozen different things. I won't speculate on the reasons behind these inflated requirements, but they are definitely inflated.

Also, you can't take a set of requirements and carbon copy it for all of your positions. The difference between a junior position and a senior position should be more than just a year of experience. Likewise, the requirements for positions like architect, developer, and tester should not be identical except for "architecting", "developing", and "testing".

In the end, though, you should view job postings and resumes as a very weak filter. People are going to lie, from small tweaks to outright falsifications, and you're going to have to use other means to weed the liars out. Interviews, training, and probation are going to be your tools here, and no amount of inflated requirements or expectations of "professional honesty" are going to change that.




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