In April, I got an email about a CTO-level position. It was a personalized message. The person writing it knew who I was and my capabilities. Naturally, I checked it out. It never hurts to talk to people. As is typical, a résumé/CV was not enough. I had to use that company’s web-portal. Okay, why not. I have time, says the dog.
I didn’t hear back. I should have suspected something given the lack of response. Now, everyone gets rejected, even people like me. (Especially people like me.) There’s nothing odd about getting turned down. That said, above the VP level, you get a personal response and a truthful explanation of why you didn’t get the job. Usually, it’s impersonal (it could be, “the other candidate has 20 years more experience”) and you move on. If you don’t hear anything, at my level, it’s fishy. Or, should I say, phishy?
It was a fake job portal. The company that this attacker purported to be was not looking for a CTO. To be clear, they had no involvement in this and were professional in every way.
A few weeks later, someone tried to access my account on multiple cloud services using the password I used (I create a new one for every job site) and hundreds of variations thereof. I got calls about this. (No one got into anything.) These attempts came from a reputable technology company in the San Francisco Bay Area. I know exactly who they are and what they were after. They’re probably pissed off that they weren’t able to get into it.
At this time, that is all I intend to say.
