Comment by zettabomb
6 months ago
It's pretty simple - people need to eat (and fulfill other basic needs, of course), to eat they need jobs, to get jobs they need to pass the interview. The hiring process in a lot of industries is heavily gamed at this point, to the point that not cheating is basically an automatic fail. So, if you want to eat, you cheat.
> The hiring process in a lot of industries is heavily gamed at this point, to the point that not cheating is basically an automatic fail.
This sound a bit of "thief thinks everyone steals". Interview preparation is normal and common but I don't think cheating is. May depend on the location of course.
The "heavily gaming" happens before the interview. When you reorder and edit your resume to have the right keywords to get on top of the LLM/intern sorted pile.
> if you want to eat, you cheat.
I can totally understand thinking this way out of desperation, and being lulled into thinking it’s this simple, but it seems short sighted with hidden complexities. First of all, it’s risky. If you get caught, you don’t eat, and it could follow you and prevent you from even getting in the door elsewhere. Companies are always going to be watching for cheaters, they are always going to have more visibility than you into what interviewees are doing, and they are always going to have more resources. Even if you do cheat and get hired, it quickly becomes obvious that you’re unqualified and can’t do what you claimed, and even if you don’t lose your job, you’re less likely to get promoted. Being lazy and amoral about interviews seems like a trap people set for themselves.
The good news is that a lot of companies are starting to allow AI during the interviews, and suddenly it’s not cheating. But of course that means you need to be good at using AI and interviewing and programming, you won’t be able to cheat and rely on the AI to do your talking for you.
Doing whatever it takes to get the foot in the door may be encouraged, but only to a point and I think out and out cheating is probably crossing a line... As would murder, arson etc. etc.
If cheating means asking someone in the company you're interviewing for a peek at what will be asked then great. In my book that's using leverage.
Reviewing previously posted interview tests is probably recommended.
Hooking up a copilot to answer interview questions for you in real time is probably less so.
> If cheating means asking someone in the company you're interviewing for a peek at what will be asked then great. In my book that's using leverage.
In my book that is unambiguously unethical and should get the contact fired. I am shocked to see this approach promoted in such a blasé manner.
How is it unethical? Say you ask whoever what's being asked and they say you need to sort a string in place and then discuss how a random forest gets trained... You still need to answer those questions AND know enough to answer the follow up questions. If you're no good you'll be still found out. It just means you'll have a head start over someone without those kinds of contacts. So what level of utilizing your professional network crosses a line? Does a recommendation cross a line because I know for a fact that internal recommendations are moved to the head of the queue in most companies.
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