Why would anyone encourage building such a tool, I can't fathom.
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.
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.
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.
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.
When I started you'd send a mail to the company directly about a position, you'd go to the office, have a short interview, meet the team and they'll let you know. That's it.
Now it's 2 rounds of HR bs, 3 layers of tech interviews, then meet the CEO/CTO/etc. And then references and then a final "chat". And you still can get ghosted at literally any step, even at the final cozy chat, just because of "vibes".
And throw in companies sending you leetcode even before talking to you and you can see why one would want to get through the bs.
I still stand about my favourite approach for tech jobs: intro and tech chat (1-2h) about your resume, what you'll be doing and anything you might have questions about (no challenges or stupid riddles). Then, if everything goes smoothly, you get a 2 weeks contract and you are in probation. If everything goes well, you get another contract for 3-6 months (up to you to accept or not) and then you get converted to permanent if everything went well for both parties.
Software interviews and hiring have definitely changed over time, and I know it’s harder right now, but I think we’re seeing the past with slightly rose-tinted glasses here. It was never only just one short interview, there were applications and emails and phone screens. In my career, I’ve always had multiple interviews and technical discussions during job applications, even back in the 90s. Getting hired, for me, has always taken several weeks end to end, if not longer.
There are a bunch of reasons interviews are getting harder, and people trying to game the system and trying to cheat are one of them, a big one. Think about it from the company’s perspective: what would you do if the volume of applications you got started far exceeding the number of positions available, and an increasing percentage of the applications you got were people unqualified for the positions but adept at pretending? More face time vetting before hiring seems like the only reasonable answer.
Other reasons why interviews are getting harder is that software jobs are more competitive now, and possibly relative pay has gone up. If interviewing was easier back in the day (and I agree that it was), it’s because there wasn’t as much competition.
If these companies are ok to people for people they already know they won't be hiring, that's cool.
Morality and restrictions are two different things. Just because someone makes up a rule doesn't mean it's morally enforceable.
Many LLMs will be derailed into giving entertainingly wrong answers:
I've noticed that a lot of the supposed hallmarks of "AI slop writing" (em-dashes, certain multisyllabic words, frequent use of metaphor) are also just hallmarks of professional and academic writing. (It's true that some of them are clichés, of course.)
It seems like most efforts to instruct people on how to "fight back against AI writing" effectively instruct them to punish highly literate people as well.
I think it's often still possible to tell human writing that uses some of the same tropes or vocabulary apart from AI writing, but it's very vibes-based. I've yet to see specific guidance or characterizations of AI writing that won't also flag journalists, academics, and many random geeks.
This faux-outrage is just showing how broken the whole hiring process is in tech.
Stop giving people puzzles and just talk to them. If you're unable to evaluate if someone's a good fit for a role then you either need to learn more about effective interviewing, learn more about the role, or find someone else who is good at hiring/interviewing.
This has all been a long time coming.
Not really sure what I can do for the author but say "that sucks, bro".
