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

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

#221

Post by mattgreenrocks »

asimpletune wrote: post #191
tristor wrote: post #160

I'm probably going to get roasted for saying this, but this is completely unsurprising to me. When I was in college, folks from India and other low trust societies would mercilessly cheat on their projects and exams, blatantly helping one another on individual works, and the college knew about it and didn't care. When I had brought this up at one point, I was told by a professor that it was a cultural difference that…

> Cheating ultimately cheats oneself, but it's very galling that it's now becoming accepted as okay behavior in American society Man, you crushed it here, so true.

The post-pandemic economic environment is toxic.

Everyone seems to have come out of the pandemic convinced that they need to tighten whatever screws they have to get theirs. And that triggers other people to do the same thing. Cheating enters the realm of possibility because people (correctly and incorrectly) believe others are doing the same thing.

It's gross and feeds on itself. I'm not sure what will help it get better.

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

#222

Post by ryandrake »

asimpletune wrote: post #115

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 read these comments not as a defense of cheating, but as resignation that "This is just how the world is." Your view is right at home in a Star Trek The Next Generation world where everyone's needs are met and people act ethically, with good intentions and are in return treated fairly. A civilized, meritocratic world that doesn't exist. Like it or not, we live in a zero-sum dog-eat-dog world that pits neighbors against each other for the scraps left over after an elite few take 95% of the world's value. For every fraction of a percent you can grab, that's a fraction of a percent that some ethical moron can't grab. If you try to follow the Star Trek rules in this world, you're not going to get very far.

Look at this "personality type" as you call it: People who bullshit their way through life, self-promote, swindle, grift, fake it til they make it, hustle, exploit people's good intentions, take credit for the work of others, and so on... They aren't weirdo sociopaths who simply go get an MBA. They're CEOs, SVPs, business and political leaders, the ultrarich. They're Presidents and Senators. They are the elite, the few who our society is set up to most highly reward. Of course people who want to get ahead are going to emulate this behavior. It's practical. It works in the world that we have set up.

I'd love to live in the Star Trek world. I'm one of those naive suckers who thinks hard work in the trenches should be rewarded. At work I often sit there doing the dirty gritty work that needs to get done, while peers write bullshit presentations and get face-time with the execs, and schmooze their way to promotion after promotion, and it sucks. If I was younger and had a lot more ahead of me, I'd probably cheat and grift like the rest of em, and if I could send a message back decades to 20-year-old me it would probably be "lose the ethical spine and take whatever you can."

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

#223

Post by asimpletune »

scarface74 wrote: post #185
paulryanrogers wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shortcuts are great, until people get hurt or killed. That's why the phrase cutting corners is largely seen as negative, because it's associated with times when shortcuts caused harm. Regardless of gender it's useful to teach people endurance, prioritization, and how to judge when it's best to do everything vs only some things.

So who is being harmed by someone not reversing a binary tree by memory for an interview?

Just out of curiosity: do you think there's nothing wrong with cheating on an interview, and if so would you do it?

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

#224

Post by scarface74 »

emddudley wrote: post #122
twistedcheeslet wrote: post #12

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.

What a corrupt way to view the world.

Is it not a true representation?

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

#225

Post by scaramanga »

asimpletune wrote: post #115

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…

[dead]

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

#226

Post by mattgreenrocks »

wootland wrote: post #126
asimpletune wrote: post #115

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…

I think more people are waking up to the fact that the corporate ladder is a joke. Hence all the whining about WFH, quiet quitting, and GenZ not being subservient enough.

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

#227

Post by TheCapn »

mirkules wrote: post #147
dariusj18 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I let any of my interviewees know that it is ok to use google, I just want to know what they searched for. I'm not running a trivia contest, so if they forgot the name of something or need a little refresh, that's fine.

The way I combat this is by asking questions about their current jobs, then diving deep into the technical problems they faced. It requires a lot more preparation for each candidate, but it ensures it’s not a trivia test but a discussion. One of my favorite interviews (as an interviewer) was when a SDET candidate provided a link to their website. When I visited it there was an issue loading some page. So I asked him…

I've only ever had to hire one person to work beneath me, but that sounds like how I ran the interview.

We were hiring students for a temp position. We're a Controls Engineering company, but my department is dealing with more traditional languages for supporting applications and needed extra help for a bigger project. I know the tech we use isn't standard in the university so the interview was asking students about how they approached their major projects and their methodology for learning new tools/languages.

The first guy who straight up said "I already know enough of C++ and Java, I suppose I'd just google how to do x in c# and branch from there" got the job. Because...yeah, that's about it. We talked about a 4th year project and what his responsibilities in the team where, problems faced, solutions found, etc.

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

#228

Post by passion__desire »

WJW wrote: post #39
glanzwulf wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the issue is the interview process, because clearly the difficulty of the interview does not match the difficulty of the job. Sure, they cheated to get in, but then once in they found out it wasn't that hard to stay and get promoted.

It's also possible that they kept cheating in order to get promoted, of course.

It's also possible they can understand solutions provided to them and even implement but not be able to come up with solutions under strict time pressure.

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

#230

Post by laratied »

tristor wrote: post #160

I'm probably going to get roasted for saying this, but this is completely unsurprising to me. When I was in college, folks from India and other low trust societies would mercilessly cheat on their projects and exams, blatantly helping one another on individual works, and the college knew about it and didn't care. When I had brought this up at one point, I was told by a professor that it was a cultural difference that…

It is disappointing philosophically but I would imagine how the game theory of this works out strategically if really trying to play an optimal strategy is "always cheat".

There just such asymmetry between the risks vs payouts.

Sadly, I imagine your professor was simply wrong. Most likely even for you there is something you could cheat/lie about that would be practically undetectable and give a huge payout for almost no risk.

This is also why a level of a self delusion is an advantage in our system too. Then you get the benefits of cheating/lies without even knowing it or having to intentionally cheat/lie.

"Cheating ultimately cheats oneself" sounds right but just isn't reality.

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