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So depressing to hear that “because of rampant cheating” As a person looking for a job, I’m really not sure what to do. If people are lying on their resumes a

So depressing to hear that “because of rampant cheating” As a person looking for a job, I’m really not sure what to do. If people are lying on their resumes and cheating in interviews, it feels like there’s nothing I can do except do the same. Otherwise I’ll remain jobless. But to this day I haven’t done either.

ghaff 2y ago
Note also "And the majority of the time the answer is incorrect anyway." I haven't looked for development-related jobs this millennium, but it's unclear to me how effective a crutch AI is for interviews--at least for well-designed and run interviews. Maybe in some narrow domains for junior people. As a few of us have written elsewhere, I consider not having in-person interviews past an initial screen sheer laziness and companies generally deserve whoever they end up with.
ryandvm 2y ago
I don't know, I kind of feel like leetcode interviews are a situation where the employer is cheating. I mean, you're admittedly filtering out a great number of acceptable candidates knowing that if you just find 1 in a 1000, that'll be good enough. It is patently unfair to the individuals that are smart enough to do your work, but poor at some farcical representation of the work. That is cheating. In my opinion, if a prospective employee is able to successfully use AI to trick me into hiring them, then that is a hell of a lot closer to the actual work they'll be hired to do (compared to leetcode). I say, if you can cheat at an interview with AI, do it.
- kortilla 2y ago
  The employer sets the terms of the interview. If you don’t like them, don’t apply. What you’re suggesting here isn’t any different than submitting a fraudulent resume because you disagree with the required qualifications.
  - Apocryphon 2y ago
    On principle, what you’re saying has merit. In practice, the market is currently rife with employers submitting job postings with inflated qualifications, for positions that may or may not exist. So there’s bad actors all around and it’s difficult to tell who actually is behaving with integrity.
  - twoparachute45 2y ago
    Yea, exactly. If a candidate were up front with me and asked if they could use AI, or said they learned an answer from AI and then wanted to discuss it with me, I'd be happy with that. But attempting to hide it and pretend they aren't using it when our interview rules specifically ask you not to do it is just being dishonest, which isn't a characteristic of someone I want to hire.
  - Aeolun 2y ago
    I would like to be paid though. What do I care about the terms of the interview as long as they hire me? What is being suggested here is not participating in the mind numbing process that is called ‘applying for a job’.
    - H8crilA 2y ago
      Wanting to be paid under false pretenses is the definition of fraud.
      - hsuduebc2 2y ago
        Being paid for even excellent performance is a fraud.
      - nsxwolf 2y ago
        That doesn’t make any sense. The best engineers I know can’t pass these interviews because they started working long before they became standard.
        kortilla 2y ago
- twoparachute45 2y ago
  I dunno why there is always the assumption in these threads that leetcode is being used. My company has never used leetcode-style questions, and likely never will. I work in security, and our questions are pretty basic stuff. "What is cross-site scripting, and how would you protect against it?", "You're tasked with parsing a log file to return the IP addresses that appear at least 10 times, how would you approach this?" Stuff like that. And then a follow-up or two customized to the candidate's response. I really don't know how we could possibly make it easier for candidates to pass these interviews. We aren't trying to trick people, or weed people out. We're trying to find people that have the foundational experience required to do the job they're being hired for. Even when people do answer them incorrectly, we try to help them out and give them guidance, because it's really about trying to evaluate how a person thinks rather than making sure they get the right answer. I mean hell, it's not like I'm spending hours interviewing people because I get my rocks off by asking people lame questions or rejecting people; I want to hire people! I will go out of my way to advocate for hiring someone that's honest and upfront about being incorrect or not knowing an answer, but wants to think through it with me. But cheating? That's a show stopper. If you've been asked to not use ChatGPT, but you use it anyway, you're not getting the benefit of the doubt. You're getting rejected and blacklisted.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    >I dunno why there is always the assumption in these threads that leetcode is being used because it matches my experience. I work in games and interviews are more varied (math, engine/language questions, game design questions, software design patterns). I'd still say maybe 30% of them do leetcode interviews, and another 40% bring in leetcode questions at some point. I hate it because I need to study too many other types of questions to begin with, and leetcode is the least applicable.
  - bikezen 2y ago
    > "You're tasked with parsing a log file to return the IP addresses that appear at least 10 times, how would you approach this?" Out of curiosity, did anyone just reply with `awk ... | sort | count ... | awk`? Its certainly what I would do rather than writing out an actual script.
- hsuduebc2 2y ago
  I wouldn't call it cheating but most of the time it's just stupid. For majority of software developer jobs would be more suitable to discuss the solution of the more complex problem tham randomly stress out people just because you think you should.
- nkrisc 2y ago
  > It is patently unfair to the individuals that are smart enough to do your work, but poor at some farcical representation of the work. That is cheating. On the other hand, if you have 1,000 candidates, and you only need 1, why not do it if the top candidate selected by this method can do well on the test and your work?
- ninetyninenine 2y ago
  It’s unfair but it meets their objective of finding a high in candidate. Google admits they do this. The companies that do this only do it because they can. They have to have hundreds of people applying. The companies that don’t do this basically don’t have many people applying.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
chowells 2y ago
Here's the thing: 95% of cheaters still suck, even when cheating. Its hard to imagine how people can perform so badly while cheating, yet they consistently do. All you need to do to stand out is not be utterly awful. Worrying about what other people are doing is more detrimental to your performance than anything else is. Just focus on yourself: being broadly competent, knowing your niche well, and being good at communicating how you learn when you hit the edges of your knowledge. Those are the skills that always stand out.
- roughly 2y ago
  Yeah, we found this when we started doing take-home exams: it turns out that a junior dev who spends twice as much time on the problem than what we asked them to doesn’t put out senior-level code - we could read the skill level in the code almost instantly. Same thing with cheating like that - it turns out knowing the answer isn’t the same thing as having experience, and it’s pretty obvious pretty quickly which one you’re dealing with.
- dkga 2y ago
  Well, cheaters only cheat because they suck and they know it. Otherwise cheat would not be a rational approach.
  - rahimnathwani 2y ago
    If that were true we would never hear of top level athletes using performance enhancing drugs.
    - nkrisc 2y ago
      That's different. These candidates are not trying to get an edge on qualifying for the top dev position in the entire world. Top athletes do it because they're essentially at the limits of human performance and those drugs are the only edge they can reasonably get.
      - lubujackson 2y ago
dahart 2y ago
> it feels like there’s nothing I can do except do the same. Why does it feel like that when you’re replying to someone who already points out that it doesn’t work? Cheating can prevent you from getting a job, and it can get you fired from the job too. It can also impede your ability to learn and level up your own skills. I’m glad you haven’t done it yet, just know that you can be a better candidate and increase your chances by not cheating. Using an LLM isn’t cheating if the interviewer allows it. Whether they allow it or not, there’s still no substitute for putting in the work. Interviews are a skill that can (and should) be practiced. Candidates are rarely hired for technical skill alone. Attitude, communication, curiosity, and lots of other soft skills are severely underestimated by so many job seekers, especially those coming right out of school. A small amount of strengthening your non-code abilities can improve your odds much faster than leetcode ever will. And if you have time, why not do both?
johnnyanmac 2y ago
sounds cheesy, but keep being honest. Eventually companies will realize (as we have years ago) that automating recruiting gets you automated candidates. But YMMV. I have 9 years and still can get interviews the old fashioned way.
aprilthird2021 2y ago
> it feels like there’s nothing I can do except do the same. Otherwise I’ll remain jobless. Never buy into this mentality. Because once you do, it never goes away. After the interview, your coworkers might cheat, so you cheat too. Then your business competitors might cheat, so you cheat too. And on and on.

ghaff 2y ago

Note also "And the majority of the time the answer is incorrect anyway." I haven't looked for development-related jobs this millennium, but it's unclear to me how effective a crutch AI is for interviews--at least for well-designed and run interviews. Maybe in some narrow domains for junior people. As a few of us have written elsewhere, I consider not having in-person interviews past an initial screen sheer laziness and companies generally deserve whoever they end up with.

ryandvm 2y ago

I don't know, I kind of feel like leetcode interviews are a situation where the employer is cheating. I mean, you're admittedly filtering out a great number of acceptable candidates knowing that if you just find 1 in a 1000, that'll be good enough. It is patently unfair to the individuals that are smart enough to do your work, but poor at some farcical representation of the work. That is cheating. In my opinion, if a prospective employee is able to successfully use AI to trick me into hiring them, then that is a hell of a lot closer to the actual work they'll be hired to do (compared to leetcode). I say, if you can cheat at an interview with AI, do it.

kortilla 2y ago
The employer sets the terms of the interview. If you don’t like them, don’t apply. What you’re suggesting here isn’t any different than submitting a fraudulent resume because you disagree with the required qualifications.
- Apocryphon 2y ago
  On principle, what you’re saying has merit. In practice, the market is currently rife with employers submitting job postings with inflated qualifications, for positions that may or may not exist. So there’s bad actors all around and it’s difficult to tell who actually is behaving with integrity.
- twoparachute45 2y ago
  Yea, exactly. If a candidate were up front with me and asked if they could use AI, or said they learned an answer from AI and then wanted to discuss it with me, I'd be happy with that. But attempting to hide it and pretend they aren't using it when our interview rules specifically ask you not to do it is just being dishonest, which isn't a characteristic of someone I want to hire.
- Aeolun 2y ago
  I would like to be paid though. What do I care about the terms of the interview as long as they hire me? What is being suggested here is not participating in the mind numbing process that is called ‘applying for a job’.
  - H8crilA 2y ago
    Wanting to be paid under false pretenses is the definition of fraud.
    - hsuduebc2 2y ago
      Being paid for even excellent performance is a fraud.
    - nsxwolf 2y ago
      That doesn’t make any sense. The best engineers I know can’t pass these interviews because they started working long before they became standard.
      - kortilla 2y ago
twoparachute45 2y ago
I dunno why there is always the assumption in these threads that leetcode is being used. My company has never used leetcode-style questions, and likely never will. I work in security, and our questions are pretty basic stuff. "What is cross-site scripting, and how would you protect against it?", "You're tasked with parsing a log file to return the IP addresses that appear at least 10 times, how would you approach this?" Stuff like that. And then a follow-up or two customized to the candidate's response. I really don't know how we could possibly make it easier for candidates to pass these interviews. We aren't trying to trick people, or weed people out. We're trying to find people that have the foundational experience required to do the job they're being hired for. Even when people do answer them incorrectly, we try to help them out and give them guidance, because it's really about trying to evaluate how a person thinks rather than making sure they get the right answer. I mean hell, it's not like I'm spending hours interviewing people because I get my rocks off by asking people lame questions or rejecting people; I want to hire people! I will go out of my way to advocate for hiring someone that's honest and upfront about being incorrect or not knowing an answer, but wants to think through it with me. But cheating? That's a show stopper. If you've been asked to not use ChatGPT, but you use it anyway, you're not getting the benefit of the doubt. You're getting rejected and blacklisted.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  >I dunno why there is always the assumption in these threads that leetcode is being used because it matches my experience. I work in games and interviews are more varied (math, engine/language questions, game design questions, software design patterns). I'd still say maybe 30% of them do leetcode interviews, and another 40% bring in leetcode questions at some point. I hate it because I need to study too many other types of questions to begin with, and leetcode is the least applicable.
- bikezen 2y ago
  > "You're tasked with parsing a log file to return the IP addresses that appear at least 10 times, how would you approach this?" Out of curiosity, did anyone just reply with `awk ... | sort | count ... | awk`? Its certainly what I would do rather than writing out an actual script.
hsuduebc2 2y ago
I wouldn't call it cheating but most of the time it's just stupid. For majority of software developer jobs would be more suitable to discuss the solution of the more complex problem tham randomly stress out people just because you think you should.
nkrisc 2y ago
> It is patently unfair to the individuals that are smart enough to do your work, but poor at some farcical representation of the work. That is cheating. On the other hand, if you have 1,000 candidates, and you only need 1, why not do it if the top candidate selected by this method can do well on the test and your work?
ninetyninenine 2y ago
It’s unfair but it meets their objective of finding a high in candidate. Google admits they do this. The companies that do this only do it because they can. They have to have hundreds of people applying. The companies that don’t do this basically don’t have many people applying.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

chowells 2y ago

Here's the thing: 95% of cheaters still suck, even when cheating. Its hard to imagine how people can perform so badly while cheating, yet they consistently do. All you need to do to stand out is not be utterly awful. Worrying about what other people are doing is more detrimental to your performance than anything else is. Just focus on yourself: being broadly competent, knowing your niche well, and being good at communicating how you learn when you hit the edges of your knowledge. Those are the skills that always stand out.

roughly 2y ago
Yeah, we found this when we started doing take-home exams: it turns out that a junior dev who spends twice as much time on the problem than what we asked them to doesn’t put out senior-level code - we could read the skill level in the code almost instantly. Same thing with cheating like that - it turns out knowing the answer isn’t the same thing as having experience, and it’s pretty obvious pretty quickly which one you’re dealing with.
dkga 2y ago
Well, cheaters only cheat because they suck and they know it. Otherwise cheat would not be a rational approach.
- rahimnathwani 2y ago
  If that were true we would never hear of top level athletes using performance enhancing drugs.
  - nkrisc 2y ago
    That's different. These candidates are not trying to get an edge on qualifying for the top dev position in the entire world. Top athletes do it because they're essentially at the limits of human performance and those drugs are the only edge they can reasonably get.
    - lubujackson 2y ago

dahart 2y ago

> it feels like there’s nothing I can do except do the same. Why does it feel like that when you’re replying to someone who already points out that it doesn’t work? Cheating can prevent you from getting a job, and it can get you fired from the job too. It can also impede your ability to learn and level up your own skills. I’m glad you haven’t done it yet, just know that you can be a better candidate and increase your chances by not cheating. Using an LLM isn’t cheating if the interviewer allows it. Whether they allow it or not, there’s still no substitute for putting in the work. Interviews are a skill that can (and should) be practiced. Candidates are rarely hired for technical skill alone. Attitude, communication, curiosity, and lots of other soft skills are severely underestimated by so many job seekers, especially those coming right out of school. A small amount of strengthening your non-code abilities can improve your odds much faster than leetcode ever will. And if you have time, why not do both?

johnnyanmac 2y ago

sounds cheesy, but keep being honest. Eventually companies will realize (as we have years ago) that automating recruiting gets you automated candidates. But YMMV. I have 9 years and still can get interviews the old fashioned way.

aprilthird2021 2y ago

> it feels like there’s nothing I can do except do the same. Otherwise I’ll remain jobless. Never buy into this mentality. Because once you do, it never goes away. After the interview, your coworkers might cheat, so you cheat too. Then your business competitors might cheat, so you cheat too. And on and on.