I strongly disagree with this framing. There is no "game". There are just the actions of the individual players. Yes, in some sense, lying is part of the "game" in that some players will do it.

But extending that to saying "it's part of the game" implies that all players must use those moves, which is absolutely false. It also implies that you are morally excused from doing so because you didn't choose to lie, you were just obliged to by the rules of the "game".

A core concept behind something being a "game" is that it exists in a morally isolated sandbox. You can't be a good or bad person based on which legal moves you make in a game of chess. The whole point is to create an environment where you are able to play freely largely unencumbered by the social consequences of your moves.

Hiring is the exact opposite of a game. Every move has significant stakes, moral implications, and long term consequences on the entire field.

I have never lied on a resume and I would massively lose respect for anyone who did. They are doing something wrong and they should feel bad for it. The fact that other people do it doesn't excuse the act any more than the existence of litterers makes it OK to throw your trash out the window.

I am in no way advocating for that type of behavior. I'm merely pointing out that it exists, it seems to be a game to some and that those who choose a more genuine path can benefit from the follies of those others, however unfortunate that might be.

It seems we are in agreement, though perhaps you interpreted my words differently than I had hoped people would.

This is interesting; if true, what of game theory's seat at the core of many notions of strategy as deployed for explicitly moral purposes?

Also, anecdotally, I've seen pretty good results putting some campy, tongue in cheek acknowledgement that I'm not playing games in the resume/cover letter space where these alleged "rules of the game" might otherwise dictate meaningless boilerplate should go

Some employers seem to appreciate honesty and a reluctance to bullshit

Game theory as a branch of mathematics is about analyzing adversarial and potentially limited knowledge systems. It is unrelated to whether some theoretical game is embedded in any particular social or moral system. You can look at dating, the voting patterns of the United Nations, and poker all under the lens of game theory even though the former two wouldn't generally be considered "games".

Unrelated to that, over in the world of "ludology" or game studies and game development, people discuss what it means for a certain system to "be a game" or "not be a game". Likewise, they discuss what makes an activity "play" versus "not play". Why do we feel some moves are "play-like" and others aren't. What defines our notion of fair play? What is sportsmanship? What is cheating? Where is the line between the game and the metagame?

I'm using "game" in the second sense here, which I think applies. When people say something "is a game", often what they are implying is that "all legal moves are fair play". But I think that value statement is only morally justifiable in an environment that is actually game-like. And for a social system to be game-like in that way means that everyone participating has agreed to the rules of the game and accepts that all moves are fair play.

Good point, I guess the concept is constantly negotiated by this sort of conversation too

of course games are executed with moral repercussions. if anything, that's really the point of games. they are simplified, yes, but not amoral.

if anything, most "amoral" or "apolitical" games are widely implemented hegemonic tools.

if those other individual actors lie and massage their resume, does it increase my chance of success by being honest, or by lying a little better?

all players do use that move. whether you realize it or not.

your moral framework (one i completely agree with, fwiw) is only informing your own decisions, not other adversaries.

I think one could argue that all moral sensibilities exist to place one at an individual short term disadvantage in return for potentially better longer term or community level outcomes. We don't need moral codes to get us to be immediately self-serving—our natural self interest takes care of that. It's like the old joke that if there was a shortcut that always worked, it wouldn't be called a "shortcut", it would just be The Way.

I wish this were the case, but I don't think it's true. On the one hand, real, proven experts do get called in to fix these phonies' messes. On the other, often these people succeed often enough that it devalues our labor as a whole. Finally, if employers cannot determine real experts from fake, then it means they won't pay real experts their full worth (eg 'full worth' of 100k, 5% chance it's a fake = pay of 95k).

These costs of lower trust show up elsewhere, but they are hard to quantify and make everyone's life worse.

However, that point you make about the 'proven experts' getting called in is where my original (and perhaps overly broad) comment came from. If you can align yourself with the industry as one of those fixers, and then actually deliver on that promise, there is immense value to capture. If you can carefully build a small team of people that can do this regularly, there is even more value to capture and share with people who actually deserve it.

When I said 'success' I meant: 'achieved a basic level of competency after bungling one or several projects, often with unknown or unquantifiable bugs and then move onto the next company / role with few consequences'.

More succinctly: caused harm to others/ project and still got a paycheck.

Been my experience your regular software org does something very similar. Who among us hasn’t had to drop an entire epic’s worth of work to go spin up some MVP (that eventually becomes a bug-riddled production shitstorm) of a component because a claim got made on a sales call that “we’ve been working on it for weeks” and a promise got made that “we could have a demo ready to go just for you by the end of the quarter”? Because you’re “the senior”.

Not saying it’s the norm.

Just that it happens probably more than it should.

Yeah I'm replaceable, but the pain of that replacement is usually more than the pain of making a sales guy eat some crow.

Akvelon consultants have been consistently better than some FTEs in my experience.

Literally sitting with a client right now that has gone through at least 5 different CRM systems, each time paying a 3rd party boutique marketing agency to "set it up and migrate it" for them (along with some new ad-campaign software). 3 different attempts at a data warehouse (because they have a gazillion disparate white label and SAAS products in their company with no access to any of the data) and someone told them they need a "Data Warehouse Cluster", when they barely have 20k users. I could rant for hours because the industry is broken.

Oh, and they literally blank stare you in the face as you explain things genuinely with detail and care, and then turn around saying they'll just "consult with their marketing agency" to get their advice. But hey, let's all blame "consulting" companies because they try make something useful using the bottom of the barrel devs. *Not defending Infosys or Accenture and their like, though, fully agreed there.

I haven't worked with Infosys, but I have with other four companies providing similar services, and they all do the same.

It's extremely frustrating, because the budget folks only look at the bottom line and would sign contracts with any of these firms, leaving hiring managers with the responsibility of taking subpar consultants in.

Infosys, TCS & Accenture comes up immediately to my mind.

There are hardworking people in these companies no doubt. Many times it gives an opportunity to the less fortunate as well. In general, however their workforces are poorly trained & business practices borderline unethical (The good ones quickly leave). These companies pay peanuts to their employees, and most of the latter are sticking for the promise of an onsite deployment. There are horrid tales of client having to lock horns with the TCS/Infosys service manager to get the contracted job done.

Case in point: managers at a Japanese giant are shaking their head in frustration since they are locked-in to a Infosys contract. No way they can shake them off due to poor project documentation & shaky installations which require heavy service & maintenance. Choosing an alternative would bring in a tidal wave of expenses, so keeping the status quo. It is deeply unfortunate that they bill their clients higher for the same shoddy work culture as the number of years roll-by. I assume this will continue as long as the cost of renegotiated contracts are lesser than switching to a different firm, or the tech stack is rewritten for a newer project.