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I think it's a bit silly to get so worked up about this. The test is simply to gauge programming skill in an online test, and they want to check you are not che
by riazrizvi 10y ago
I think it's a bit silly to get so worked up about this. The test is simply to gauge programming skill in an online test, and they want to check you are not cheating. Though I think they could have worded it without freaking people out: "You are going to be video monitored during the test".
- coldcode 10y agoWhat the heck is cheating in programming? Do people watch you on a webcam at work to see if you are reading stackoverflow?
- flukus 10y agoHaving someone else take the test for you. Even in sit down on site university tests this is somewhat common. Although in this extreme case it does sound like checking stackoverflow is considered cheating.
- wutbrodo 10y agoPresumably you're aware that job interviews and the actual job are different things? At a real job no one cares if you use Stack Overflow because there's ample other data to assess your productivity (like...your actual productivity over the months and years that you're employed). The challenge with interviewing is trying to extrapolate performance from a much, MUCH shorter time horizon[1]. You're not testing the exact same environment, but you're using a different environment (the test/interview) to hopefully assess skills that are relevant in the environment you're optimizing for. This is hardly a new concept: exams work pretty much the same way. There are other ways to assess candidates (like looking at their portfolios), but they have their own weaknesses, and testing skills in a constrained environment can still reveal things. [1] And this is for the benefit of both parties: I've lost count of how many people I've heard complain about companies that have gauntlets of technical interviews.
- sillysaurus3 10y agoPresumably you're aware that job interviews and the actual job are different things? This is the core problem with tech hiring circa 2016. The sooner this idea dies, the better. It's surprising that more companies haven't noticed the most effective interviews are ones that resemble the company's day-to-day work as closely as possible.
- nxc182 10y agoThe latter part of the interviews do exactly that with a work simulation. Very cool.
- fullshark 10y agoIn this scenario it would be things like having someone else answer for you, answer by committee, find the exact questions on a message board...
- riazrizvi 10y agoDoing the test with a friend? I wouldn't want someone who can't complete coding exercises on their own. Also I'd expect people to answer simple questions quickly.
- donatj 10y agoThere is no cheating in programming. This is absurd.
- uw_rob 10y agoI think Googling the question exactly and copy and pasting the answer would qualify as cheating. (Disclaimer: I completed an internship at Amazon and accepted a second internship)
- YeGoblynQueenne 10y agoThat's very easily caught by googling candidates' answers.
- jfoutz 10y agoI dunno man. I'd much rather see a well understood vetted email validation(or whatever )copied from stack overflow than some thrown together hack in production code.
- nommm-nommm 10y agobeing able to look things up is a different skill than being able to understand and properly apply what you looked up. Or being able to understand what you are looking up and why.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- prodigal_erik 10y agoThere are definitely people who would hire an expert to pass the test for them if they could get away with it.
- donatj 10y agoI have a friend who outsources his job to India. It's not "cheating".
- kafkaesq 10y agoI don't think I was getting "worked up" about it. It's kind of like when you notice someone staring at you in the subway -- you note to yourself that it's creepy (which it is), and you move on.