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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)

#661

Post by Raptor22 »

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…

Look, I agree with your fundamental sentiment. But I think you're being incredibly naive too.

> I don't see how the world can function if everyone were to think and act like that

My brother in Christ, the world barely functions as it is right now. We have a war going on because of one man's misguided attempt at recapturing his country's former glory as an empire, we've had planes fall out of the sky because of boneheaded engineering decisions demanded by MBA types (737 Max), we had a massive train derailment / chemical spill in Ohio caused by other MBA types not wanting to properly maintain the trains and tracks, we are maybe a few weeks away from the most economically powerful country on Earth defaulting because our moronic leadership can't agree to pay our debts (NOT because of an inherent inability to pay)... I could go on. The world is chaos, and it's pretty much always been that way.

> there was a time where this kind of personality type would just go get an MBA, but Computer Science and Engineering were considered too hard to really be worth the effort.

This part of your reply really, really grinds my gears, because to me it's sort of saying that MBA's can cheat all they want, but CS and Engineering grads should be 'chaste' and not cheat... because reasons. NO. The MBA's took over the technical companies and fucked everything up, but we're just supposed to keep doing the 'right' thing? NO. Fuck them, we should get ours.

Is it sad that this is the current state of affairs? Absolutely. Would the world be an immensely better place if NO ONE was unethical, and no one cheated? Hell yes. But that world doesn't exist. And the people who have the power to bring such a world into existence are not entry level engineers.

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

#662

Post by justin_oaks »

BeFlatXIII wrote: post #655
justin_oaks wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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?…

> 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. Enjoy the circle of yes men.

There are many people outside of the two groups yes men and people always talking how bad they are at something.

If you disagree, tell me which of the two groups you are in?

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

#663

Post by pfannkuchen »

gardenhedge wrote: post #4

I grew up staunchly against cheating. Becoming an adult was hard. My whole university class cheated on a tough assignment - someone found the solution online and shared it around. I didn't look at it, took the challenge and gave it a lot of effort. I got a pretty bad mark and the rest of the class got top marks. I also see the same mindset in work. People don't prepare for presentations and then spitball when present…

I’m curious how far you are into your career. It sounds a bit like you are treating presentations as a performance, which is natural to fall into but I think it is a bit of a trap time investment wise. If you practice improvising presentations you will eventually get good at improvising presentations which is a valuable skill to have IMO.

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

#664

Post by pfannkuchen »

twic wrote: post #118
pavlov wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can’t really cheat your way to a better presentation. If the “spitballed” version is good enough for the situation, why expend a lot of effort on preparation? Maybe the problem is that people have low expectations when everyone delivers bad presentations. This kind of cultural thing is often easier to fix by changing the format rather than pushing for everyone to do more — in other words, ask “do we need all thes…

It probably isn't good enough. But it's hard for the audience to tell. "Any questions?" "How are we going to scale the data storage?" "Oh, we're confident that the data will all fit in a single SQLite instance." "Great." It's only six months later, when it turns out it won't, and there's a lot of stress and panicked re-working, that the lack of preparation will be obvious. And by then, everyone will have forgotten th…

This is less spitballed presentation and more spitballed design. The latter is much much much worse.

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

#665

Post by ajcp »

Miner49er wrote: post #553
ajcp wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect my interviewees to use Google and am disappointed if they don't. It's more important to me that they know how to find the right answer than it is that they just know it off the top of their head. 90% of their time is going to be spent figuring out how to solve all the known-unknowns they're going to come across.

As long as you tell them they can, that seems great. I think it's normal for people being interviewed to assume they can't use any outside assistance.

Yup! If I see them struggling to answer a question or admit to not knowing something I will ask them "well, how would you find the answer?", to which they always half-jokingly answer "I'd Google it". That's when I'll let them know that I want to see some of that too!

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

#668

Post by cromka »

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…

The fact that most employers aren’t like you is keeping me from starting interviewing for a job after nearly 2 years of sabbatical. I simply refuse to participate in the typical interviewing process where I simply cannot show my skillset, 20+ years of experience and my diligence.

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

#670

Post by scarface74 »

dang wrote: post #619
scarface74 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[dead]

Can you please stop posting unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments and taking HN further into generic ideological battle? Regardless of how right you are or feel you are, it's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. Fortunately it doesn't look like your comments have been dominated by this, but still, we've had to ask you this several times in the past. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator…

I usually don’t respond to mods - and honestly after taking a step back, I usually begrudgingly agree. But if the purpose is to spark conversation that doesn’t devolve into tribalism, I think my posts have from the number of replies without name calling on either side and dispassionate debate it has had.

I also have gotten about as many upvotes as downvotes.

But really? Going back to 2020, 2019 and 2018?

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