4 ms·

it is surprising there isn’t some SaaS bullshit company that solves this problem. we have shit like Pearsons and whatnots when taking exams, I took few certific

it is surprising there isn’t some SaaS bullshit company that solves this problem. we have shit like Pearsons and whatnots when taking exams, I took few certification exams and it was like - install this thing that takes over my machine - 360 camera around to show my surroundings - no phone/watch/… One would think by now there’d be two Stanford grads with a SaaS shit taking care of this for $899/hr Last interview I did it was obvious candidate was cheating. Gave him my cell and told him to call me, no speakerphone or bluetooth and hung up Teams meeting - never got a call :)

Terr_ 2y ago
Even as we speak, scams are going on where pretend-employers are backdooring the computers of applicants that way. I fear the only applicants who would agree are also the ones who can't be trusted with any employee access to your corporate resources.
- bdangubic 2y ago
  a company would run this… Not your company taking over candidate’s computer, an intermediary that candidate and potential employer are using. candidates are already using Slack/Teams/Zoom/… now they get to use Pouixy or whatever BS name someone in SF comes up with. guarantee you this will be a thing in 2025, some stanfords are on the case
  - gray_-_wolf 2y ago
    If you (the company) send me a company laptop to use for that shit, sure, we can interview that way. It is the same deal with Teams and Zoom. None of that shit is touching my personal devices, it is strictly limited to the work machine.
    - bdangubic 2y ago
      have you ever taken a certification exam remotely from your own computer?
      - gray_-_wolf 2y ago
        No.
        bdangubic 2y ago
        you might be slightly more receptive to this idea if you have, the company administering the exam needs to ensure no cheating is happening so app starts, all your other apps are shutdown, you get a call through the app to show your surroundings with the camera on your laptop etc before exam begins. at no point in time did I find any of it intrusive or strange, I wanted to get the exam done remotely, they need to ensure that I wasn’t cheating
        gray_-_wolf 2y ago
        > so app starts I assume this "app" is not open source, correct? Is is compatible with Linux systems? Can it run on non-FHS distribution? > all your other apps are shutdown I admit I am curious about this bit. Does it just start killing all other processes belonging to the same user ID? Or of all users (since you could get "assist" from process owned by an another user)? At least PID 1 needs to survive the slaughter, but it can be used to run arbitrary code to assist with the cheating. So how does it tell what is "an app" it needs to stop?
        bdangubic 2y ago
        there is a video on this page showing overall experience - https://www.pearsonvue.com/us/en/test-takers/onvue-online-proctoring.html https://www.pearsonvue.com/us/en/test-takers/onvue-online-pr...
Gigachad 2y ago
There's a much simpler solution. You do the interview in your office and watch them answer without typing the question in to chatgpt.
- bdangubic 2y ago
  too expensive - no one is doing that anymore
  - pempem 2y ago
    is it more expensive than what we're dealing with now? have we even tallied the human talent cost?
  - Gigachad 2y ago
    How is it too expensive? It takes the same amount of time for the interview, and you presumably have a room available in the office to book for the occasional interview. And it instantly filters out all the spam applicants and chat GPT cheaters.
jarsin 2y ago
Startup idea to truly solve this would be large network of onsite test / interview centers. I had to do all my certs onsite in test centers in early 2000's. For one I had to drive 2 hours to take the exam. Seems like those test centers used to be in every mid size city in the country.
- mdaniel 2y ago
  I don't believe one needs a startup to solve that problem - there are already a bazillion certification paths for a bazillion tech stacks. The(?) problem is one of trust from the hiring org that the certs mean anything, and that's where the whole discussion devolves into one of (gatekeeping|but muh leetcode|our business problem is special|$other)
  - jarsin 2y ago
    I meant a startup that provides onsite screening / verification of candidates for companies. Only pre-verifed candidates can apply to company jobs. If the candidate is not local, the company can use the test center to do a remote screen in an environment where candidate cannot cheat. Etc. I just brought up certs because back in the day you could not take those test online due to cheating. Now in the age of AI you can't do any type of testing remote, imo.
    - mdaniel 2y ago
      I half-way suspected that's what you were going for (testing-as-a-service) but my point still stands: it is a web-of-trust bootstrapping problem. For example, Otherbranch[1] exists, is a startup, and is trying to handle pre-screening candidates, but they seem to have very few companies that are currently using them. One would assume if they were solving a real problem then companies would be beating down their door to get real, verified, actual people and yet. 1: see https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=otherbranch.com https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=otherbranch.com - the folks spun out of Triplebyte
      - bdangubic 2y ago

Terr_ 2y ago

Even as we speak, scams are going on where pretend-employers are backdooring the computers of applicants that way. I fear the only applicants who would agree are also the ones who can't be trusted with any employee access to your corporate resources.

bdangubic 2y ago
a company would run this… Not your company taking over candidate’s computer, an intermediary that candidate and potential employer are using. candidates are already using Slack/Teams/Zoom/… now they get to use Pouixy or whatever BS name someone in SF comes up with. guarantee you this will be a thing in 2025, some stanfords are on the case
- gray_-_wolf 2y ago
  If you (the company) send me a company laptop to use for that shit, sure, we can interview that way. It is the same deal with Teams and Zoom. None of that shit is touching my personal devices, it is strictly limited to the work machine.
  - bdangubic 2y ago
    have you ever taken a certification exam remotely from your own computer?
    - gray_-_wolf 2y ago
      No.
      - bdangubic 2y ago
        you might be slightly more receptive to this idea if you have, the company administering the exam needs to ensure no cheating is happening so app starts, all your other apps are shutdown, you get a call through the app to show your surroundings with the camera on your laptop etc before exam begins. at no point in time did I find any of it intrusive or strange, I wanted to get the exam done remotely, they need to ensure that I wasn’t cheating
        gray_-_wolf 2y ago
        > so app starts I assume this "app" is not open source, correct? Is is compatible with Linux systems? Can it run on non-FHS distribution? > all your other apps are shutdown I admit I am curious about this bit. Does it just start killing all other processes belonging to the same user ID? Or of all users (since you could get "assist" from process owned by an another user)? At least PID 1 needs to survive the slaughter, but it can be used to run arbitrary code to assist with the cheating. So how does it tell what is "an app" it needs to stop?
        bdangubic 2y ago
        there is a video on this page showing overall experience - https://www.pearsonvue.com/us/en/test-takers/onvue-online-proctoring.html https://www.pearsonvue.com/us/en/test-takers/onvue-online-pr...

Gigachad 2y ago

There's a much simpler solution. You do the interview in your office and watch them answer without typing the question in to chatgpt.

bdangubic 2y ago
too expensive - no one is doing that anymore
- pempem 2y ago
  is it more expensive than what we're dealing with now? have we even tallied the human talent cost?
- Gigachad 2y ago
  How is it too expensive? It takes the same amount of time for the interview, and you presumably have a room available in the office to book for the occasional interview. And it instantly filters out all the spam applicants and chat GPT cheaters.

jarsin 2y ago

Startup idea to truly solve this would be large network of onsite test / interview centers. I had to do all my certs onsite in test centers in early 2000's. For one I had to drive 2 hours to take the exam. Seems like those test centers used to be in every mid size city in the country.

mdaniel 2y ago
I don't believe one needs a startup to solve that problem - there are already a bazillion certification paths for a bazillion tech stacks. The(?) problem is one of trust from the hiring org that the certs mean anything, and that's where the whole discussion devolves into one of (gatekeeping|but muh leetcode|our business problem is special|$other)
- jarsin 2y ago
  I meant a startup that provides onsite screening / verification of candidates for companies. Only pre-verifed candidates can apply to company jobs. If the candidate is not local, the company can use the test center to do a remote screen in an environment where candidate cannot cheat. Etc. I just brought up certs because back in the day you could not take those test online due to cheating. Now in the age of AI you can't do any type of testing remote, imo.
  - mdaniel 2y ago
    I half-way suspected that's what you were going for (testing-as-a-service) but my point still stands: it is a web-of-trust bootstrapping problem. For example, Otherbranch[1] exists, is a startup, and is trying to handle pre-screening candidates, but they seem to have very few companies that are currently using them. One would assume if they were solving a real problem then companies would be beating down their door to get real, verified, actual people and yet. 1: see https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=otherbranch.com https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=otherbranch.com - the folks spun out of Triplebyte
    - bdangubic 2y ago