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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)

#361

Post by guhidalg »

byyyy wrote: post #275
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…

>As a passing thought I've noticed that there's also sort of like a fierce loyalty to defending LLM's in the forums, often by people who display a certain amount of ignorance as to how they work. I wonder if there's a similar dynamic there as to the people who are justifying the cheaters in the comments? No it's the other way around. Hinton, basically the father of "AI" and other real experts who are involved in the…

> I think you don't realize how it's a dog eat dog world out there and people will do anything to succeed.

The grifters and cheaters of our world are an opportunity cost. Who knows how much more productive or fair the world would be if we didn't tolerate them? By allowing them to succeed, we deny a world where they wouldn't need to exist.

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

#362

Post by JohnFen »

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 was a cultural difference that had to be respected

I strongly disagree with that professor. Dishonesty does not have to be, and absolutely should not be, respected. Even if it is a "cultural difference" [citation required].

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

#363

Post by asdfman123 »

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #2

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…

This is like saying my contractor put in a low quality roof, but it hasn’t collapsed yet.

The problem is while you can’t control randomness, on average those roofs do fail much more.

But more broadly it’s amazing how far developers on HN will go to defend things that will mildly inconvenience developers.

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

#364

Post by sgerenser »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #209
BlueTemplar wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I don't understand is... these are pre-screening interviews at companies that get tons of applicants, right? What happens during the actual in-person interview that follows ??

A lot of 'on sites' were remote during the pandemic, and a lot of roles now are remote, so may not have an 'on site' at all.

All the big tech companies I’ve spoke with over the past several months were still doing virtual “on site” interview loops.

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

#365

Post by hluska »

This is a personal anecdote about something orthogonal to the article. A few months ago, I wrote an exam to get an AWS certification. Before the test, I had to take the adjudicator on a virtual tour of my exam space. My space was small so I had to do near gymnastics to give the supervisor the sight lines that she needed.

Solutions to this already exist and I find it somewhat heard to believe that a company like Pearson knows so much more than Amazon.

I wonder if this is a situation where companies know there is cheating, perhaps even have ways to identify it but cheating just isn’t treated as a strong enough negative signal in the hiring process to be worth fighting.

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

#366

Post by drewcoo »

brookst wrote: post #40
siggen wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct. You have unethical people now, you are probably “cheating” at work by taking credit for ideas not theirs.

But that means the culture is also broken. Credit isn’t something you can steal in the dead of night; everyone knows who did the work. At some point, if someone says their company hires cheaters, promotes thieves, and has a culture that celebrates those things. . . either there is more to the story or that person needs to run like hell because the company is toxic.

Or they're the "smartest guys in the room!"

/s

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

#367

Post by 2-718-281-828 »

GavinMcG wrote: post #266
2-718-281-828 wrote: post #202

some cheaters are actually good at what they cheat about and simply cheat to obtain additional advantage. the post seems pretty whiny to me. morally he's right but we happen to live in a "doggy-dog" world and moral codes are promoted by successful cheaters to keep the plebs under control. I don't want to justify cheating but it's game theoretic conclusion that you either play the game by the by the rules and most lik…

The term is "dog-eat-dog" by the way.

;)

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

#368

Post by bumby »

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…

>Like, there was a time where this kind of personality type would just go get an MBA

One nuance that may help explain how the change happened is how the status of CS has changed in the last 20 years. Maybe its just my age bias, but there seems to be a perceptible change of how CS majors are viewed by society and that changes the type of people attracted to that curriculum.

It used to be that CS and engineering majors were the nerds who, as you say, "simply thought making stuff was cool." Nowadays, though, as CS commands a disproportionately large salary, it has higher status. This tends to attract more people who are in it the reasons of status and money, rather than for a fascination with the work. Anecdotally, when I ask people why they got into CS a surprising number now say something along the lines of "because it pays well."

It's my opinion that change in perspective can bias how one views cheating. If the curriculum is just a means to an end (i.e., if school is just a means to a degree, which is just a gateway to a job/paycheck), it seems to make cheating more palatable.

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

#369

Post by ihateyouall123 »

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…

This is why I left the tech industry. Nothing but losers with no skills getting hired. No sympathy for anyone fired

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

#370

Post by aidenn0 »

fauxpause_ wrote: post #37
nevermindiguess wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The goal of interviews and assignments is not to achieve an outcome but to assess someone’s abilities. Henceforth, cheating cannot be justified.

If the assessment has no relationship to the job requirements then the test assessment cannot be justified either

That's a silly argument. There are many jobs at which being smart is an advantage. IQ tests correlate fairly well with being smart. Giving an IQ test could then give you a group of people that are more likely to be smart than the initial interviewing population. Assuming the job is not "taking IQ tests" is the assessment unjustified?
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