It's a fair point that I am making this assumption. At any rate, my comment could instead read:
> [If one assumes that the candidate] would have been able to perform the job duties I'm not sure why [they] should care.
This is what I mean; I can see why an interviewer thinks they've been cheated or that a candidate was dishonest but that doesn't mean that the interviewer even has a successful system for determining if a candidate can perform the job duties. A candidate who cheated -- from the perspective of the interviewer, I guess -- but still manages to adequately perform in their role very plainly did not cheat from a less biased perspective. What is that interviewer even thinking? How could that person have cheated?
> determining if a candidate can perform the job duties. A candidate who cheated -- from the perspective of the interviewer, I guess -- but still manages to adequately perform in their role very plainly did not cheat
That's not what anyone means when they say "cheating". Cheating means to violate the conditions and assumptions of an examination or contest.
For example, if a chess grandmaster uses an AI implant to win a game and gets caught, it doesn't make it OK if they could consistently win against the same opponent even without the AI.
Okay, that does make the position more understandable but I still don’t quite get it. Perhaps more accurately, I see these assumptions which others don’t necessarily share. The people claiming cheater have different opinions from the supposed cheaters.
I recall a Starcraft 2 match[0] involving a person with an apparently psychosomatic wrist injury that was only painful while they’re playing on stage. Their opponent was seeming to draw out a game they were losing in an attempt to trigger the pain; it was a viable strategy given the “best of” series they were playing. That’s certainly not going to be accounted for in the rules and one might believe that it’s an underhanded way to win. But both players are in the top echelons of game knowledge, experience, and skill; that’s the only reason either player made it to this particular match-up. The player with the wrist injury ultimately had it act up and lost the series.
Did the winner deserve to win? Should the other player be considered the better player? The assumptions of the game rules and what’s “fair” might be different per player; who’s right, who’s wrong, and why? What about when prize money is involved; that guy who won by the written rules just doesn’t deserve it because of unspoken rules? These questions don’t seem to have obvious answers, so of course I challenge assumptions.
You're completely ignoring the fact that honesty (& willingness to follow rules you might otherwise disagree with, etc.) themselves might be traits the employer is looking for in that role. Traits that (by your willingness to break the rules) you're obviously lacking. They just don't happen to be technical skills, but that doesn't mean they don't matter to the employer. What do you think you're doing by cheating? You're deceiving them into hiring someone with traits they explicitly don't want. You don't see a problem with that?
There are nicer ways to express your meaning. I haven’t ignored anything.
These traits are often not offered by the employer. Why do I keep hearing people talk about the underhanded ways that companies try to obfuscate salary budgets if not because they’re dishonest? I certainly see that as dishonesty; where are they coming from to demand such honesty from their candidates?
They get honesty anyway but that doesn’t mean I can convince them of it. If a person wants to assume guilt in someone, that is often what happens. You may not have experienced a person power-tripping over you but that’s been a good portion of my life and it’s hard to miss the patterns in a modern job interview.
To be clear, I’m not advocating for one to be dishonest. The person using ChatGPT to supplement their knowledge is not being dishonest; that’s my claim. The interviewer feels like the candidate “cheated”. Oh well. Too bad the interviewer isn’t above pejoratives. Gotta call it “cheating” so they can dismiss the candidate as dishonest. How dishonest!
People care because such a person isn't terribly trustworthy. There's more to being a valuable employee than just being able to perform the job duties.
Curious outlook. I, for one, avoid lying. The closest I get is omission. I'm not interested in remembering false realities depending on the person I'm talking with. The last lie I recall was a number of years ago where I said to a store clerk that I had recently been somewhere when in fact it was not very recent. Immediately after I felt bad. I value honesty.
Lying is such a fundamental part of human psychology that we lie to ourselves without even knowing we're doing it, and children learn to lie without any instructions. I wouldn't go so far as to say that it's instinctual, but it's very close to it.
Taking it even a step further - your memory is imperfect, the degree to which you can accurately recall events is significantly poorer than most people believe, which leads to incidental lies. We call them mistakes, but from the outside perspective that's just a question of intent.
That being said, despite my pessimism towards human nature, I too value honesty. But, like everyone, I lie occasionally - and I note that you don't claim to not lie, nor to have never lied. I'd call it honesty on a best efforts basis.
That job could have gone to someone who like actually knew what they were doing and was honest lol not sure why you want to defend professional and intellectual dishonesty?
This suggestion that a person who can adequately perform job duties could have even possibly cheated in their job interview is intellectually dishonest. If they had to cheat to get the job we should be looking at the interviewer. Why did the qualified candidate have to cheat? Why is whatever-they-did even considered cheating?
If they're qualified, they didn't have to cheat. If they're not, then they did. Either way, they're dishonest and that means they're not a desirable hire.
> If they're qualified, they didn't have to cheat.
(Just rewriting to specify my understanding: If the candidate was qualified, they didn't have to cheat even if they did cheat. They could have simply not cheated and been selected by the merits of their qualifications.)
This argument relies on the false premise that an interviewer will always accurately determine a candidate's qualifications. That a candidate is not qualified to pass an interview is not the same that a candidate is not qualified for the job for which they're being interviewed.
True, most interviewing processes are very imperfect by necessity and some qualified people will be mistakenly filtered out.
But also, there are usually several-to-many applicants for a position that are all qualified, and by necessity most of them won't get the position.
Additionally, technical qualifications is only a part of what an employer is looking for. There are other things that are at least equally important -- how well the applicant would fit into the team, how trustworthy they are, etc. It's about a lot more than just technical skillset.
> True, most interviewing processes are very imperfect by necessity and some qualified people will be mistakenly filtered out.
This is ultimately something I see as dishonest given the context of job applications. Employers generally expect a certain kind of perfection from job candidates, which they can’t manage to show of themselves. I understand that this isn’t an easy thing to solve -- nor even something that’s ever been solved -- but that should at least make it more understandable when an otherwise qualified candidate uses disallowed tools in their interview.
Perhaps the candidate’s real best option is to find a different company to work for but they may not be so privileged as to have a choice if their on-paper qualifications are lacking. Assuming their practicable qualifications are adequate, they may have good reason to bullshit through a bad interview. Additionally, finding a different company is pretty likely to be “same shit, different day”.
> But also, there are usually several-to-many applicants for a position that are all qualified, and by necessity most of them won't get the position.
Assuming they’ve qualified via an interview and there are particularly close candidates, pick the one who applied first. They’re admittedly qualified and further interviewing is just a means of discriminating in error-prone and possibly unlawful or immoral ways.
> Additionally, technical qualifications is only a part of what an employer is looking for. There are other things that are at least equally important -- how well the applicant would fit into the team, how trustworthy they are, etc. It's about a lot more than just technical skillset.
Fair enough. I would caution interviewers against judging too harshly or quickly. One can imagine many reasons an interviewee might choose or seem to lie during an interview while they are otherwise an honest person, ranging from stress to disillusionment to [cultural differences](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39209794).
At the end of the day, filtering for liars and cheaters actually filters for bad liars and cheaters in addition to people who are a bit nervous or tired or stressed or cynical or just having a slightly off day; dishonest people who genuinely see nothing wrong with dishonesty get through just fine.