Can you elaborate on lying on a resume? That majority of Codesmith resumes I've looked at overstate the OSP project at a minimum of overstating the amount of time worked on it, and at a maximum, making it appear as a real SWE job. I consistently get comments that "Codesmith doesn't tell you do this" but a pattern is a pattern and they should go over the top to tell people to stop, because in a 200 person sample, over 70% did this.
But there is a difference between careful wording and blatant lying so it would be helpful to explain more your specific experience with that at HR!
u/throwaway456789sdfs wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
like in your previous work experiences, if you didn't really have anything to measure your success - they would not let you proceed on without stating "something to quantify the success" on your resume
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited★ FEATURED
Yeah I feel like Codesmith is the same from what people tell me and from the documentation I've seen. People don't even realize what they are doing is perceived as wrong by a number of people because it's so right on the line (e.g. 'construct your sentences about your OSP by using these templates' without realizing that they are leading you to exaggerate your OSP experience). I'm sure I'll be grilled on here by people saying "Codesmith says not to lie!", but the definition of "lying" is subjective and a slippery slope where people land on different places on the spectrum.
On the one hand, if you fake it til you make it and perform well on the job, does it matter? On the other hand, if you fake it and get caught, companies get pissed off, raise the YOE requirements so you can't get through without definitively lying, and it does a disservice to the industry.
Before people attack my comments, I'm genuinely understanding of all sides, and happy to hear non-personally attacking arguments for and against. I work with people to figure out the best way to represent themselves and understand how personal and nuanced this decision is.
u/wulfcastle17 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
The problem is if you don’t lie you won’t get a job. The strategy that works is sell your self as a mid then let them level you at junior. Most juniors are hired in this manner. If you try to be Johnny honest junior you’ll never get a single interview.
This is the game and the
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
I have not. I grew up middle class in Canada and my summer internships paid for my public education. I consider not having student debt a great priveledge for sure.
I work with many people who are severely not privileged, support them, cry with them, and celebrate with them, and it is absolutely brutal sometimes which is why I try to portray both sides of this.
Being middle of the road doesn't mean being neutral. There are two loud camps on both sides and after working at Facebook especially I saw how silencing people who disagree with you only makes things worse.
I do what I do to change lives and to change the world by enabling people from non traditional backgrounds to change the world. Period. And will always fight for people who are fighting for themselves.
u/SlowestTriathlete wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Oh my god - Codesmith does not ask you to lie on your resume. They encourage you to include something measurable but only if you can back it up and include anything tech specific. They specifically say to not lie, like a million times.
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited★ FEATURED
I hear you and appreciate your ongoing pushback, it's why I keep such a close eye on this.
I understand your position is both similar and different from others. I've heard from people that agree with you and people who haven't, who have sent over anecdotes of talking to Eric. Or anecdotes of talking to a career support engineer to make their resume qualify for certain jobs
I don't have all the answers but Triathlete I assure you two things: 1. I have shown OSP resume snippets to industry friends who think the way OSP are portrayed, even when disclosed on fine print, is lying. 2. we have done recruiter training at Formation to identify Codesmith resumes because they were repeatedly flagged as industry experienced engineers at application time because of the OSP portrayal as a work experience, repeatedly.
I understand pushback on second hand accounts when you have first hand experience but you cannot tell me that my first hand account is wrong, that the majority of Codesmith people I've seen first hand do this.
Maybe an analogy is if a pie factory. They are legally required to make 9 inch pies. For some reason they always sell only 2/3 of their pies and the other 1/3 no one buys. They realize the 2/3 that sell are actually unintentionally 10 inch pies and customers were just only buying the larger pies! Leadership is outraged that they are making illegal 10 inch pies and demands this to stop. And then for some reason 2/3 of pies just keep end up being 10 inches despite all of their efforts to stop this. Sure there can many reasons why.... but 1. it's happening. 2. if its happening, someone is responsible, and saying "don't make illegal pies" isn't enough.
That said, I will continue to call this out specifically and appreciate continued discussion, it's complex and nuanced.
u/Potatoupe wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I think I got the same "quantify success" advice. But it was more along the lines of not putting "made dashboard for company metrics" to "made a metrics dashboard that improved RCA reports creation, which saved x amount of time per week". So that there is more meaningful informat
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
This is very subtle but not many bootcamp projects have numbers.
No one uses them, these writeups happen right after launch, they are 3 to 5 week projects!
I think when people stretch here is where the exaggeration comes out.
e.g increased the number of users by 300%... from 1 to 3, and they were my friends.
I'm not saying this is wrong, I just want people to acknowledge it's happening. Especially before complaining about the ever increasing YOE requirements in entry level jobs.
u/olsoninoslo wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I recently got into Codesmith and am on the fence about going through with it. I would really like to work as a SWE, have a BS in physics, but all my experience is in a physics lab. Are bootcamp grads from Codesmith still seen as desirable? If no, does it help that the grad has
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Yeah Codesmith is a solid choice and should always be a contender when considering the top bootcamps.
I help run a coaching and training service aimed at experienced engineers from non traditional and underrepresented backgrounds to level up to top tier companies (many have bootcamps on their resumes) and prior to that was at FB from 200 engineers to 10,000 and did hundreds of interviews, resume reviews etc...So yeah I really have a pretty unique view on the market from both of these experiences.
u/juniperlee9 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Rich people always think they're "middle of the road".
Trust me, if you don't feel like you can say you were poor, you were rich
u/michaelnovatireplied·
To clarify I'm middle of the road in my stance on most issues. Financially I have had $0 of salary for the past 5 years but I consider myself very wealthy from being at Facebook so early yes.
u/SlowestTriathlete wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Oh my god - Codesmith does not ask you to lie on your resume. They encourage you to include something measurable but only if you can back it up and include anything tech specific. They specifically say to not lie, like a million times.
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
I noticed a bunch of people just launched their OSP projects this week. There are example after example of this behavior continuing... every single person that lists their OSP on their LinkedIn as work for a company "Oct 2022 to Present" ... **every.... single... person.** One person said 'I spent several works working on this project' , shared their LinkedIn below and their LinkedIn says they "worked" at this project for FOUR MONTHS. They all started CODESMITH in October 2022, not the project, and then they double list all of their GitHub projects overlapping with this, and some list Codesmith as well.
I genuinely believe Codesmith tells you not lie loud and clear, but can you explain why this behavior happens over and over again?
u/BeautyInUgly wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
>we have done recruiter training at Formation to identify Codesmith resumes because they were repeatedly flagged as industry experienced engineers at application time because of the OSP portrayal as a work experience, repeatedly.
curious if you offer consulting services to ident
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
I don't judge whether this is good or bad because I understand why individuals do it as well that I've worked with, but I do strongly want to present the industry sentiment about this which is more aligned with what you just said and people should know that when thinking about their resumes.
We have a small list of rules that are not super complicated:
1. Look for OSLabs, Open Source Labs, and often "product incubated by" with that. It's usually the last line of that item on the resume
2. Look for "Tech Talks" "sponsored by" Single Sprout, Bractlet, or Jeeny
3. Look for jobs with no months specified and just year, e.g. 2021 to 2022
After a while you get to know the more common projects:
1. [https://github.com/orgs/open-source-labs/repositories](https://github.com/orgs/open-source-labs/repositories)
2. And also, if you are unsure, go to the LinkedIn, click on the company name, and see if the description says "Open Source Labs" or "OSLabs" in it.
u/BeautyInUgly wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Curious is OSLabs the company that funds these opensource projects? I'm confused what the relation is and why it appears so much
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
I did some digging and OSLabs and Open Source Labs are not registered entities that I could find anywhere and don't appear to be anything legitimate. An early Codesmith and executive is listed as a "sponsor", and there are two other sponsors, one seems shut down and 404s and the other has their executives working at multiple companies.
I don't think there is any funding or legitimacy associated with this institution and it's a label that's used to try to legitimize the projects and separate them from Codesmith.
I have two interpretations of this from people who have talked to me about it:
1. This was a good intentioned idea from Philip Troutman to create an open source ecosystem supported by Codesmith and other companies as a way to get students visibility in the community. And as Codesmith grew that vision didn't work out so it's day to day usage is just a legacy label put on the open source projects to keep the ship running as it has been.
2. The other is that Philip Troutman is fiercely defensive of the projects and has intentionally crafted this branding layer to make people's resumes appear not affiliated with Codesmith and to get by with companies making mistakes and thinking it's experience. He does reference calls that validate the "extended" timeframe specified on people's resumes and Codesmith recommends people put their entire time at Codesmith as the time window for their OSP.
I've seen evidence supporting both (screenshots and transcripts), and maybe it's a combination of the two?