Live data from Hacker News

My friends who cheated in interviews are getting promoted (2022)

teamblind.com

131–140 of 748 posts

Re: My friends who cheated in interviews are getting promoted (2022)

#132

Reading some of the comments in this thread I'm surprised. It seems that a substantial number of people think one of the following: a.) cheating on interviews is ok, because interviews don't reflect the actual job b.) this is acceptable because the promotion process is distinct from the interview process or c.) that the cheaters clearly are skilled after all because of all their success, as evidenced by being promote…

I relate heavily to the spirit of your comments. Wouldn't we all be better off if we lived in a society that is built on trust and honesty.

However, I think you're being a little naive if you think the days of "yesteryear" were somehow different in man's capacity and willingness to do what he needs to do to survive.

    I mean in every facet of life we're basically awash in never before seen capacity to benefit from dishonesty.

    it isn't inherent to the discipline of technology itself anymore.

    Like, there was a time where this kind of personality type would just go get an MBA
These comments in particular read to me as something you want to be true. Who doesn't want their profession to be the noble, honest one and other professions to be the dishonest ones.

The reality is that humans have not fundamentally changed in hundreds of thousands of years. If we're doing it today, you can bet we were doing it yesterday and that we'll be doing it tomorrow.

Re: My friends who cheated in interviews are getting promoted (2022)

#133

Reading some of the comments in this thread I'm surprised. It seems that a substantial number of people think one of the following: a.) cheating on interviews is ok, because interviews don't reflect the actual job b.) this is acceptable because the promotion process is distinct from the interview process or c.) that the cheaters clearly are skilled after all because of all their success, as evidenced by being promote…

I'd add d) when all of the gains are captured by execs and investors, if you don't do everything you can to maximize your return and minimize your input, you're being exploited. It's strange to me that anyone would care about people cheating at job interviews and not say CEO pay that's 1,000X the average employee. More power to those who can balance things in their favor against those who have everything to gain and…

It's interesting that you think the promotion of an engineer would have any effect on the CEOs pay. Someone was going to be promoted anyway, the CEO couldn't care less about who. The problem here is that it should have been supposedly someone else who actually earned it.

Re: My friends who cheated in interviews are getting promoted (2022)

#134

Reading some of the comments in this thread I'm surprised. It seems that a substantial number of people think one of the following: a.) cheating on interviews is ok, because interviews don't reflect the actual job b.) this is acceptable because the promotion process is distinct from the interview process or c.) that the cheaters clearly are skilled after all because of all their success, as evidenced by being promote…

This is gonna be a weak comment because I can't find references, but whatever.

I remember listening to a podcast recently that compared boys and girls in school. The takeaway was that girls generally try to do all of the work, whereas boys were far more likely to take short cuts to success. And this was the reason why boys were doing better in university and afterwards. The conclusion of the podcast was that we should be encouraging girls to try to take the same shortcuts as boys. It's a learned skill to know exactly what needs to be done to get what you want.

Maybe that's what's going on here. Rules, whether we like it or not, can be broken.

Re: My friends who cheated in interviews are getting promoted (2022)

#135
post #27

I've done a lot of screening interviews and cheating does happen. Some of my favorites: * developer attempts to pass something off as video lag, as he attempts to lip sync someone else's answer. * developer had printed all the 'common' answers on the wall behind his computer, and would look up to them for reference as we were talking. Then the tape came off and covered him in a a paper stack overflow. * the glorious…

I'm so curious about that last one. You interviewed and accepted one person, but a different person showed up to actually work? If so, that's incredibly bizarre.

Re: My friends who cheated in interviews are getting promoted (2022)

#136

If one considers Kant's categorical imperative, "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law," then also considers how they'd feel if they were go to visit a doctor who had cheated or is cheating, one certainly must draw the conclusion that cheating is indeed immoral and undesirable.

So basically "do unto others" but phrased needlessly complexly?

Re: My friends who cheated in interviews are getting promoted (2022)

#137

Reading some of the comments in this thread I'm surprised. It seems that a substantial number of people think one of the following: a.) cheating on interviews is ok, because interviews don't reflect the actual job b.) this is acceptable because the promotion process is distinct from the interview process or c.) that the cheaters clearly are skilled after all because of all their success, as evidenced by being promote…

I'd probably hire someone based on c) but not because they were promoted, but rather because their strategy shows they know how to solve real life problems creatively rather than have a bunch of test answers memorized, and because as pointed out at the end of the article, the person couldn't just mindlessly copy/paste, they had to understand the question find a relevant answer, digest it, understand both the question and the answer, and respond. That's more or less how many things work in real life (otherwise we can all stop going to StackOverflow now).

Re: My friends who cheated in interviews are getting promoted (2022)

#138

Your friends did whatever was needed to pass the interview. You did not. How is it surprising that they're the ones getting raises? Clearly they're willing to risk more than you are for the reward. Only getting caught cheating guarantees loss. Playing fair does not guarantee winning.

Person adept at exploiting one human process (interviews) is good at exploiting another human process (performance reviews / promotions).

Calling it “risk taking” seems overly reductive.

Re: My friends who cheated in interviews are getting promoted (2022)

#139

Reading some of the comments in this thread I'm surprised. It seems that a substantial number of people think one of the following: a.) cheating on interviews is ok, because interviews don't reflect the actual job b.) this is acceptable because the promotion process is distinct from the interview process or c.) that the cheaters clearly are skilled after all because of all their success, as evidenced by being promote…

This turns us into low trust societies like China or India.

Which a lot of the blind demographic are from

Re: My friends who cheated in interviews are getting promoted (2022)

#140
post #79

Yes, it's fundamentally unfair to those interviewees who don't cheat. And the process is broken. However, the conclusion this person reaches - we must conduct these broken interviews in person so the cheaters can't cheat - is the wrong one. Look at it from the point of view of the hiring company now, not the interviewer. They got a person who was good enough (based on the merits of their actual work, not interview pe…

It seems those that have a fundamental problem with cheating are in the minority. Reading through the comments leaves me only sad. Based on how I believe the world works, and on larger patterns at play here, this general cultural trend (if this is in fact what it is) will backfire. If this is deemed culturally acceptable, and one extrapolates this pattern further, there is little deeper value that a culture has to of…

[flagged]
Post reply on HN