[9question1]

https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/archive/2025/01/elon-mu...

"Like, the same font, right? And she points this out to the HR manager, and they’re like, Yeah, that means that this person’s the most qualified, because it’s the exact same language. And she’s like, This person is clearly unqualified because they didn’t even know to reformat. And this is not an outlier. Like, this happens a lot.

So first they’re looking for these exact matches. And then they take everybody who was really close in language—and also, by the way, who has something called a government resume, which is different from a private-sector resume, and you have to know that somehow, magically, before you apply. Then from that pool, they send everyone a self-assessment questionnaire, and everybody who marks themselves as master, and I literally mean master—I think that’s the top rating in a lot of these—they make the next down select, so they move on to the next pool."

This is not necessarily what I would consider transparent or fair. FWIW I do think government can provide value, but I think folks who don't live in America don't understand how dramatically different and worse the implementation of government is in America from many other countries who sometimes do get value from some aspects of government even if the goals are similar.

[JambalayaJimbo]

I’m at a private company and the process of resume screening done by clueless HR people is the exact same. I referred a friend for a job position, he got turned away because he didn’t have Java Version X with Springboot on his resume, I told him to re-submit with that on there and voila he got an interview. (For reference, he was a Java backend dev for 10 years and already had that on his resume)

[Draiken]

Same exact thing (or worse) happens in private orgs. But we don't even have access to it.

I mean, we don't have to go far to see this. Nepotism is illegal in many countries for public institutions, and rampant on private ones.

This narrative that private corporations are better "just because" is so silly. We simply see the inefficiencies of the government and can't see the same ones on private entities. Especially the big ones.

I've never worked at a company that didn't have many absurd processes, incompetent people, useless bureaucracy and so on.

[ericjmorey]

I don't think you understand how bad it is in literally any large organization ever.

[vdqtp3]

I don't know your background, so I won't say I don't think you understand - but in my experience, government is multiple times worse than any private organization. Yes, the same problems exist - but without any of the pressures that force private business to adapt or fail, so the problems are worse by far.

[ceejayoz]

This happens in private corporations, too. Most of us have gotten clearly bullshit resumes forwarded by HR.