Define two methods with same parameter type

Question

Today I ran into a scenario where I have to create a method that share the same name, params count and params types with existent one, Something like this:

public static Department GetDepartment(string departmentName)
{
  //LOGIC
}

public static Department GetDepartment(string employeeID)
{
  //LOGIC
}

at first glance I just said why not to name it with a different name and get things done, but I couldn't! I do want to maintain the readability of my code i'm working on, I want it to be overloaded to the first one,
so I said why not to add a fake parameter just to workaround this issue from the compiler Point of view.

 public static Department GetDepartment(string employeeID, object fakePassWtEver)
    {
      //LOGIC
    }

What is the best practice for this case? I see all the ways can let my code run, but none of them satisfied me

Answer 1

You could update your method signatures and make your code more readable at the same time by doing something like the following.

public static GetDepartmentByName( string departmentName )

public static GetDepartmentByEmployeeId( string employeeId )

Personally I feel that adding verbosity to code helps others that come later understand what's going on. It also helps make your methods "read" more easily.