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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)

#521

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…

Makes you wonder just what type of people end up in manager roles:)

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

#522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That's blatantly untrue. The primary criticism to Western medicine is that is has a high cost because doctors are afraid of being sued for malpractice and order lots of unnecessary and invasive tests to confirm any diagnosis before ordering a treatment. It's basically the exact opposite of what you say, which when taken to the extreme is also problematic.

What about the opioid crisis? What about the Sacklers? Was all of that fiction?

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

#523

I’m going to go out on a limb here and be “that guy”. But in my experience, there’s a big difference between perspectives on cheating in the US vs perspectives in… let’s just say broadly… “some other nations”. I say this as an American who has lived overseas much of my life and, lest you think I’m just a flag waving parrot for the US, prob prefer living overseas and am more than willing to criticize the heck out of t…

Yes, it is sometimes a cultural thing.

In some countries, cheating/gaming the system is seen as a noble thing. It is seen as a big "fuck you" to the system / the man / whatever. If you get away with it, it is not you who are wrong - it is simply the system that is too poorly designed.

In other countries, cheating is just too normalized because the stakes are so high, and the competition is too great. I'm just going to throw out India and China - not because everyone there cheats, but because every "edge" you can gain against your competition is fair game. The reward is not only life changing for you, but for your whole family. Maybe even your neighbors.

And it is not to say that they would cheat each other directly, like scamming money off the other guy - but if you're the competition, then the gloves are off.

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

#524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's no reason to not-cheat unless you absolutely don't have to It's a shame that being a decent person is not sufficient reason.

Many generations of people before us ended up prematurely dead by being decent people while others cheated

And many generations of people before us ended up prematurely dead by cheating, as well.

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

#525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many "upper management" types have no idea who actually did the work.

They care more about “who made it happen”.

That PM who can barely open a spreadsheet made it happen, of course.

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

#526
It looks like a lot of the cheating can be curbed with in-person interviews. As for rapid promotion, I guess the cheaters had some skill, otherwise I blame the management for being idiots and they deserve what they got. It's surprising to find cases where there was no due diligence done.

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

#527
post #70

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…

> And, importantly, there's no reason whatsoever to think that if no cheating was allowed and a different person took the job, that they would on average be any better. I think there is plenty of reason to think people who actually know the stuff instead of cheating would be better on average. It's a signal that they were smart enough and motivated enough to learn the material (basic algorithms/coding skills in this…

If someone can just look it up, digest information in X minutes and come up with the same answer, then why does it matter that they didn't memorize it in the first place? Presumably I'm hiring an expensive problem-solver with good judgment here, accumulation of past knowledge beyond some basic level of competence is useful, but secondary.

Fundamentally, the issue is the interviewing/selection process itself. The best interview that I've encountered is the long interview. I hire you for four months as a co-op, see what you can do, and we go from there. Impractical in many/most settings, obviously.

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

#528

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's very galling that it's now becoming accepted as okay behavior in American society due to cultural shifts aligned to low trust societies we do business with

Pull the bandaid off and just admit it -- we're just becoming one of those "low trust societies". And it has nothing to do with who we're doing business with, and it is due to our own culture.

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

#530
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>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. Correct! Making a harder-to-cheat "closed-book-test" isn't the answer. A better answer would be to make it "open-book" — allow and expect interviewees to have their full librari…

Or how about, you know, stop pretending we can evaluate someone's "intelligence" or "skill level" as if it's a one-dimensional factor that you have superhuman insight into measuring. I'm satisfied, in an interview, if I feel the person is interested in the topic, is able to admit that they don't know something, and seems like they'd be pleasant (although i'd settle for "not difficult") to work with. The breadth and d…

>The breadth and depth of their knowledge is secondary

That's what the parent comment is saying. Open-book instead of closed-book, just have the candidate walk you through figuring out what they don't know, listen to them think aloud, and evaluate that.

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