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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)

#501

Post by justin_oaks »

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #394
asimpletune wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I think you absolutely are cheating yourself if you cheat on something you're supposed to be learning. On the other hand, I have a tendency to be brutally honest about my own knowledge and capabilities, and it has bitten me multiple times. I've gotten negative performance review feedback from management that was word for word from the 'things I think I can improve'. I've gotten passed over for jobs and promotions bec…

>brutally honest about my own knowledge and capabilities

Is this a lack of confidence?

> I've gotten passed over for jobs and promotions because I don't do a good enough job of 'selling' my experience.

Selling your experience IS an important skill. Other factors may have played a part too.

> successful software engineers I've met also have the ability to bullshit

Is it their bullshit that gets them to be successful? Or is it that they're more friendly, tactful, and and positive?

To be clear, I don't doubt that you're telling it as you see it. I'm just wondering if your perceptions match the reality.

If someone is always talking about how bad they are at something, then I'll interpret that as the person being negative, lacking confidence, and pessimistic. That's not the kind of person I'd want to be around in general, let alone hire.

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

#502

Post by JohnFen »

bumby wrote: post #485
frumper wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parent specifically said dishonesty should not be respected. Helping people in your family/community is a fine goal as long as it’s not dishonest. If Bob gets hired at global corp A and is able to hire his unqualified family to the detriment of corp A then that’s just as bad. If they’re qualified then there might be a culture clash, but it doesn’t sound necessarily dishonest.

Fair enough. I maybe unfairly characterized both "dishonesty" and "nepotism" as a display of lack of integrity (by the Western definition, which tends to bias toward meritocratic values). “Dishonest” from the standpoint of deviating from the social contract of unbiased and meritocratic hiring.

I don't see nepotism as being dishonest. It may be unseemly or unfair (or not, depending on culture), but it's not dishonest.

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

#503

Post by HDThoreaun »

2-718-281-828 wrote: post #169
hermannj314 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd rather my doctor look up an answer in a medical textbook rather than "not cheat" and allow me to die in adherence to the noble idea that only the ideas we can keep in our long-term memory are worthy.

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

Overprescription is a gigantic problem in the US. Most of that can be attributed to being overly careful, but many doctors are legitimately just prescribing treatments that are known to be unhelpful in expectation for personal gain. Knee and hip surgeries are common examples. They regularly degrade quality of life in recipients. We should be doing less, but then the surgeons that perform them would make less money.

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

#504

Post by thr0away »

raghudotcc wrote: post #372
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…

I am from India, and I just recently completed my Masters from a US university. I have never cheated in my life when it comes to interviews, exams, or assignments; not once. I am worried that calling us “low-trust” because of your experience with a few students might lead others to think that the entire country that is so diverse and large is comprised of just an incompetent set of cheaters. I agree that a lot of stu…

I came to US from India in 1996. During my college years, at a state school in CA, 80% of the student in CS courses were from India. Almost all of the boys from India cheated on exams because professor would generally leave the classroom. Grading was done on curve so those of us who didn't cheat had bad grades to show for :-)

India has been a low-trust society for a long long time and remains so. Every Indian I know would admit this in private. Back in 90's there was an Indian grocery store in Fremont, CA owned by a Gujarati gentleman. He had a poster on the wall that offended many of his countrymen. It said, "100 mein sey 90 beyimaan, fir bhi mera Bharat Mahan!". Roughly translated it says 90 of 100 Indians cheat but still my India the great.

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

#505

Post by aidenn0 »

fauxpause_ wrote: post #429
aidenn0 wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Seems irrelevant if the people getting the job by cheating are considered high performers getting promotions

I think you took too much from implication. TFA states that they are getting promotions. Everything else is assumptions:

1. They are considered high performers (maybe promotions are on a schedule?)

2. They are actually high performers (some people can bullshit their way through a job for years).

3. They are outperforming a hypothetical person who didn't cheat on the test and would have been hired instead of them with an honest assessment.

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

#506

Post by kevviiinn »

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #394
asimpletune wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I think you absolutely are cheating yourself if you cheat on something you're supposed to be learning. On the other hand, I have a tendency to be brutally honest about my own knowledge and capabilities, and it has bitten me multiple times. I've gotten negative performance review feedback from management that was word for word from the 'things I think I can improve'. I've gotten passed over for jobs and promotions bec…

That sounds more like bad management than anything you did. I'm the same way, I try to be honest about my own knowledge and abilities. I hope you don't change that because there are assholes out there, supportive managers definitely exist

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

#508

Post by kevviiinn »

throw9away6 wrote: post #471
AlexandrB wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But the long term success for cheating is actually much lower, those who actually learned things will do better in the long term even if they have a lower probability of short term success

Many humans seem to be incredibly short sighted

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

#509

Post by system16 »

archagon wrote: post #412
raghudotcc wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am from India, and I just recently completed my Masters from a US university. I have never cheated in my life when it comes to interviews, exams, or assignments; not once. I am worried that calling us “low-trust” because of your experience with a few students might lead others to think that the entire country that is so diverse and large is comprised of just an incompetent set of cheaters. I agree that a lot of stu…

Not OP, but to be clear, "low trust society" has a specific sociological meaning relating to interpersonal trust: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_trust_and_low_trust_socie... It doesn't mean that individuals from that society are less trustworthy.

I find it odd this article doesn't provide any examples of low and high trust societies.

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

#510

Post by kspacewalk2 »

naasking wrote: post #473
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…

> 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.

This comparison only works if you routinely walk through crowds (groups? congregations? clowders?) of bears. Preferably polar bears.
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