Live data from Hacker News

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

teamblind.com

331–340 of 748 posts

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

#331

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…

Yes because Americans never cheat to get ahead and we are all morally superior…

One thing I've noticed is that many Americans have a blind spot here. You can get away with a lot of corruption and dishonest behaviour if you're the right kind of American because admitting it would be to question the idea of honesty here.

That's usually why the first port of call when some corruption is detected is Finding What's Weird and the second is Not Like The Rest Of Us.

San Francisco's city government is hopelessly corrupt and visibly so for someone who has lived under other obviously corrupt governments. But that is not even apparent to faraway Republicans who are the only ones who will say it is.

But those people are similarly ignorant of the massive corruption of their own local government.

It has taught me a new path of success for corruption: that of hiding in plain sight among those of your identity.

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

#332

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…

Maybe the commenters had a different take, but I the OP's post as, "The system is broken and this is proof." Not necessarily condoning cheating itself. I certainly agree though that cheating is a sad thing to build your life on, regardless of whether the system is broken or not. Obviously there are exceptions to this as things get more extreme, but a strong desire to work at amazon is not what I would call extreme lo…

Yes, this is roughly my take. The cheating is bad and should not be condoned. That said, it looks like a serious indictment of the interview process if someone couldn't pass it without cheating and but then goes on to excel at the actual job. It means the interview filter process is selecting the wrong things and needs to be scrapped and replaced*. Of course, what to replace it with is a huge question on its own too.

*In fairness an alternative explanation is that the promotion process is also broken and rewarding the wrong things.

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

#333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a very well studied decline in trust in America over time. Despite your snark no one claimed we never cheated etc. It's just getting much worse

Nobody claimed that americans never cheated, yet the blame of things getting worse is put on GP on those coming from “low trust” societies. It’s a xenophobic lie, like if Americans don’t celebrate lying on positive euphemisms like “fake it till you make it” or “being a good salesman”

Do you have an alternative explanation? Or is your stance that it just couldn't possibly be immigrants?

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

#334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Americans cheat at earth-scale by bringing about into existence of intricate systems that benefit them immensely.

Yeah, I mean one thing that's interesting about the world is that every country cheats, but we all cheat in our own ways. I don't think there's anyway to get around it. That said, I don't really want American culture to continue down this "if the ends justify the means" trend that we've been on. We're not cut out for it! We'll get our lunch eaten.

America, as a country, is "dollar" wise and cents foolish, which is a good thing to be, if we invert the meaning of original phrase.

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

#335
Say they cheated to get into FB, Google, Amazon -- these companies all have a track record of cheating! Basically big biz is all about bending the rules: trade influence, use over seas letterbox companies to evade tax back home, run illegal anti-union teams, plausible deniability, etc. etc.

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

#336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having grown up in America and moved to Czechia for college I have to say that I was absolutely shocked by the level of cheating both by Czechs as well as those from "farther east" like Ukraine and Russia. Just brazen obvious sheeting like taking notes into exams and hiding them. Cooperating during exams. Even collaboration to distract the teacher during exams. When I was at college in the US getting caught cheating…

This contradicts what we read here about cheating being very often tolerated in higher education institutions in the US, because money. Usually I try including at least a few links, but in this case I think anybody who has read these threads right here on HN should remember those numerous posts and discussions? I remember comments from educators who wanted to do something but the higher-ups prevented it, for example,…

Two things can be true at the same time. There is a lot of cheating in america, but nowhere near as much as in low-trust countries.

fwiw - I think Americans value integrity a lot more than most other places, and academic cheating is not nearly as common.

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

#337

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…

This just reminded me of a comment from my father from like 40 years ago. He was a civil engineer who designed waste water treatment plants when the US was funding it in the '70's (clean water act). Apparently there was some huge water treatment plant project in India at that time, and everyone he interviewed from that area said they had been in charge of the project.

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

#338

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…

I had a fantastic thermodynamics instructor in undergrad school. He was from a rough part of a city in Iran. At the beginning of the course, he told us his policy on cheating, which was zero tolerance. He added that he had seen every kind of cheating and dishonesty in his neighborhood growing up and there was no way anyone in that class would get away with anything because he had seen it all. It was a great course. A…

I don't know where are you from, but there's a difference between wanting to be different by leaving your community and going to another place, and trying to be different from your social circle yet staying there.

If he stayed, he wouldn't have been as successful as he is now.

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

#339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a cheating doctor would prescribe / perform unnecessary drugs / procedures / surgeries for personal gain or out of carelessness.

This is basically how western medicine operates in the US to begin with.

That is simply not true. What you are ascribing to personal gain is just protecting against personal loss.

Ordering an extra test or an extra drug is mostly a doctor covering themselves from potential lawsuit.

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

#340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes because Americans never cheat to get ahead and we are all morally superior…

Americans cheat at earth-scale by bringing about into existence of intricate systems that benefit them immensely.

Agreed, and it's also hard to consider the US as on some kind of general decline from high trust to low trust. American honesty has always been highly contextual. All it takes is a look into how we treated written agreements with Native Americans to see how small the radius of this value extends. Native societies were "high trust" in the sense that they had no ability, at least initially, to comprehend that settlers would sign an agreement with the full knowledge that they would renege on it as soon as the conditions had favorably changed. This is much more in keeping with a game theory style decision making process than anything related to an adherence to a higher moral virture or whatever. Native peoples experienced this process one by one, and eventually none trusted the word of colonialists ever again.
Post reply on HN