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

Disagree from my experience.

When I was a TA in grad school, I had a PhD student who clearly had access to the instructor's solution manual. His answers were copied verbatim. If the solution's manual had an error, so did his answer. If the professor assigned a problem not from the book, he wouldn't answer it. I debated reporting him to the professor, but didn't want the drama and figured what your professor did: He'll do poorly on the exams (I was right), and poorly in the work place.

He got his PhD, got a fairly senior position, and quickly rose to be the director of a well known company's research division.

He probably was smart - he did get the PhD from a top ranked university. But I strongly suspect he gamed the system at his company just as he gamed the system there.

In grad school, I had a close friend. Clearly a very bright, skilled guy. Was kicked out of the PhD program when it was discovered he had been fabricating data (Nature was right about to publish his paper when he got discovered).

He went off to another top ranked university and got his PhD in the same area. I don't know how/why he had the balls to do it, as surely his former advisor would be in close proximity (conferences, etc) - and at least within my university his advisor was quite open about my friend's malfeasance.

He then got a research position at the top company in his field. Got promotions, and then quit and founded a startup that is doing well, and is known to some in this crowd here. If all goes to plan, he'll have his exit and be quite rich.

Now I don't know if he cheated in his second PhD or on the job, and I'm still in touch with him. But ... no - cheaters often continue to do well after graduating.

My HS had a huge cheating scandal erupt near the end of my senior year. The short of it was that many of our parents worked in tech and those skills were taught to my classmates. A wiki was formed as a homework helping site. Kids would get feedback from each other on their homework and tests and whatnot. A genuine good idea.

Well, until the next year rolled over. It turned out that all but two of the teachers reused the exact same homework assignments and tests from year to year. My compatriots discovered, to their great joy, that they had built an answer key for the whole school.

This went on, unbeknownst to me, for ~3 years of my time at the school. I can remember sitting in classes and being totally flummoxed at how these people were doing so much better than I was. I was putting in long hours to try to stay with the cheaters. Honestly, I still have to catch myself when I think that it takes my longer to learn things than other people. I don't, I was just raised competing against the answer key. It's a journey I'm still on and affects me to this day.

Everything was going great until one of the kids was dumb and used the wiki in a class. A teacher saw it, blew the whistle, and things got messy. It made the front page of the paper, there was a Dr. Phil episode, etc. However, no college admissions were rescinded. Outside of some light wrist slapping, the cheaters were rewarded for their cheating, and the teachers who failed up went back to doing nothing again (I had friends in lower grades that I could verify with). Essentially, the cheating worked.

That, at least, was the lesson I told myself all those years ago. However, Facebook is a magical thing in this case. I can follow up and see, decades later, what happened to all the cheaters. It's not been pretty. Not to bore, but their lives aren't the best. A few got dishonorable discharges, one went to Harvard law and after the 4th divorce is now a yoga teacher outside Austin, another is in the slammer for SEC violations, a fair few are in prison for drug dealing, you get the gist here right? To my jaded eyes, not a single one is living what I would call a good life. Their flowers are not in bloom.

The failures of our teachers, parents, and my classmates' own honor during their formative years have lead, without any exceptions, to unfulfilled lives at best, and shambles for most.

Yes, cheating did work. In the short term. But especially in those formative years, it ultimately lead to catastrophe and ruin for my classmates.

Now, taking my view here of cheating to what OP has said: Don't worry about the cheater making more than you do. If they cheat on things like a job interview, then they cheat on things much more and less important as well. They cheat on their taxes, they cheat on their SOs, they cheat in card games with their nephews at Thanksgiving. They, generally, are cheating jerks. And yeah, maybe they get a better car, or a better house. You know, short terms things.

But, due to my own experiences, those cheaters have lives you don't want to live. I know this is super Socratic/Platonic of me, but I have seen it happen with my very own two eyes and with my very own two ears. I have lived this, I am still living this. Not cheating, not being with people too dumb to see the blatant cheaters, not being around enablers of cheaters, that is a reward far greater than the short term gifts that cheating enables.

Switching to "dumb" jobs made my life a lot happier. While it's easier, the demand exceeds the supply. Easier career growth, and better colleagues (no egos, etc).

Its not an aversion to the technique per se, its an aversion to the kind of person who uses them for everything.