Live data from Hacker News

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

teamblind.com

471–480 of 748 posts

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

#471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

It's pretty simple. There are few incentives for integrity and few disincentives for lack thereof. This shows up in all kind of contexts - from business leaders, to social media "influencers", to athletes, to politicians. I'm not sure why anyone would expect "the average Joe" to maintain some semblance of integrity when very few successful individuals do the same. The overall message is pretty clear - if you want to…

People that don’t cheat much think that cheating is easy. Often times I see cheaters put in almost the same amount of effort as non cheaters the cheaters just get a higher probability of success.

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

#472
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Credit isn’t something you can steal in the dead of night; everyone knows who did the work. Sadly, that's not how it works in practice. In fact, a person I worked with was the perfect counter-example. As an SEM, he routinely portrayed his engineers' ideas as his own when talking to senior management, he committed to unrealistic timelines, shipped utterly broken code to meet those timelines, then cast blame on other…

Seen the exact same personality at many employers, it's like they all come from the same factory. I can smell it a mile away now. OP is right though, that all CreditTaker's peers know he isn't doing any of the work, but it doesn't matter because companies are hierarchal and CreditTaker is the only one talking to execs above him, so his story is what gets passed around as reality. His peers who know the truth are too…

Exactly. I commented to a different person, but I will repeat it here.

Taking credit doesn't look just one way. Very few mid-level management types will delegate work then when the work is completed they go to their direct report and say "Hey look what I created all by myself with no help. Pretty great huh!?" What happens more commonly is that they will delegate a project to team members A & B and have them come up with a solution to a problem. When the project is complete A & B show it to manager I. Manager I then goes to manager II and says "Here is what my team came up with as a solution to our current problem." Manager I had little to no involvement in the work or development of the solution, but they present it as though they had. That happens constantly in the working world. A good manager and leader will always mention, by name, who did the work.

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

#473

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…

> They may not have found the very best person for the job (very subjective and unknowable anyway), but if the process didn't result in an under-performer taking the job, the process did not fail.

The process did not fail in the same way my bear repelling crystal necklace has not yet failed me in repelling bears.

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

#475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://medium.com/incerto/iq-is-largely-a-pseudoscientific-... IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

IQ scores are highly correlated with actual success, undeniably so. Maybe IQ doesn't exactly track "intelligence", or whatever that is, but it is certainly tracking something that is correlated to success.

Sure, but is that causal? For example, maybe there's some other factor (like SES) that's driving both. And switching to IQ tests doesn't really solve the problem, as your avenues for cheating on that are identical to LC.

You could probably screen candidates based on the question "Did any of your parents go to college? And if so, did they study or work in a STEM field?" and be roughly as predictable.

(This is terrible and you shouldn't do this)

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

#476

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…

> c.) that the cheaters clearly are skilled after all because of all their success, as evidenced by being promoted, so it's ok.

Quite possibly that some commentators think that way, but I doubt that cheaters suddenly stop cheating after the interview, particularly not if it worked out so well for them. I rather think they'll continue their path of alternative facts; blaming others for failures, mis-attributing successes, mis-charecterizing their contributions, lying, gas-lighting, bullying and even squeezing their colleagues out of their job. There might be work environments where this is a net positive for the organization, but I can't think of one right now.

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

#477

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 dont think anyone's claiming this isn't shameful; they're just saying it works.

And when real people are faced with a broken system which penalises honesty and rewards cheating, many will choose pragmatically rather than idealistically.

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

#478

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…

It's the world we live in.

* Candidates now lie about experience. * promotions are given for loyalty, not contribution. * Companies cheat on hiring using false job descriptions and fake career carrots. * Your performance at work does not matter. Advance your career by interview prep, not excelling at your role. * Prestige (ex-FAANG, Ivy league degree) matter more than hard work.

I've noticed that tech companies are now filled with people who have zero interest in computer software. Management at tech companies is comprised of non-technical people.

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

#479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is there any evidence, other than these people using unethical methods to get hired on initiall at companies, that they didn't earn the raises they received?

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

#480

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.

If the companies wanted a fair interview they would ask questions and have a discussion that only a skilled engineer with real world experience could have.
Post reply on HN