Reminded me we hired an indian android developer (contractor) through a phone interview (in US). When “he” showed up for work, it wasn’t him. The contractor who actually showed up couldn’t answer the same questions.
While interviewing the first guy, in-person interview, we asked about process flows at his last job. The answer was uncannily similar to what we were doing. We were intrigued and dug deeper. It became apparent to us that he was describing our process back to us. When we asked about what OS his current employer was using for prod systems, he folded. So, we ended the interview.
The 2nd guy, again in-person interview, repeated the same process flow. And he came prepared. He said the prod systems were Windows. When we pushed about the Windows flavor he answered Windows 10. He had never heard of the server version of Windows like 2012 R2. The best part was that he somehow thought the job was already in the bag. So whenever we asked a difficult questions his answers were pretty passive aggressive.
Though I complained to both HR and developer's US manager, nothing came out of it. All reports were ignored.
First day he sat at his desk browsing the internet all day. Second day, the senior dev asked if he needed help and by the third day he was bringing in several .Net programming books to try and help him.
By the end of the week he was out. Both founders said they would only hire domestically from now on and do a better job of screening people.
Perhaps a solution to this could be to give the interviewee something that only he can give the interviewer back when they meet. Something that the interviewee cannot pass onto the 'real' candidate who will appear on the first day. On the other hand, fining the real candidate is the worst way possible, it has to be better than that.
It can help prevent this attempt of 'baiting and switching' to a lesser competent candidate in the first place.
The attitude should change from 'Oh I can give this test, I'll pass it for sure and you can pay me $X for it', to 'Screw that, they'll find out immediately that it wasn't me.'
I fail to understand why this is unacceptable. If I take a test for you, we both get in trouble.
Some do this because they think that the job market is skewed against them, and might also have the sentiments that these 'seats' within the companies are reserved for 'rich people' or the 'upper castes', when that's hardly the case. Bear in mind some companies/universities/schools only hire from a certain caste, that is a thing. One's caste is clearly mentioned in the Ration Cards, not sure if it's the case on the Aadhar Card.
Fining them for an opportunity they thought they were going to get by 'gaming the system they were gamed out of' is just kicking them repeatedly, and does no one any good.
And because the consequences are low. Anticipated shame [1] is an observed determinant in cheating frequency.
> does no one any good
It deters cheating. This does the honest test takers, e.g. those without the resources to pay "a non-decent amount" to cheat, a favor. It does employers, by being able to better trust exam results, a favor. And as a result, it does the entire economy a favor.
[1] https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/46025357/bf0...
Fining them is a way, I agree with you on that. But it's far from the best way.
The paper you provided[0] also goes on to talk about the future actions of an offender who has been caught in the act previously.
> It should be noted that being caught cheating in the past does not necessarily provide an accurate measure of high perception of being caught cheating in the future.
I'll concede to cherry picking for my arguments, but even anecdotally, cheaters will cheat, cost is an afterthought. People negatively affected (caught cheating and fined) will only remember the part about being fined. From their perspective, the organisation has just exploited them more, and you have just bred more resentment for your organisation within this community.
[0] https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/46025357/bf0...
Unlikely though it possible that I am living in my own bubble since I haven't applied to shoddy places ever so who knows.But as someone living here it really amuses me and seems hard to believe.
Edit: I'm really interested in who downvoted my comment, considering it's based on something I've personally seen happen multiple times.
A video call as part of the hiring process, instead of a phone call, solves the solution trivially. Since we're talking about software engineers, which are (supposedly) used to these tools, there are no associated costs (I refer human, not monetary ones).
I should have added the fact that skype would solve the issue as well.
But to this day, I don't understand why companies do a telephone interview. Its certainly not cheaper than a skype interview.
Maybe you could argue against a video call by saying that the person might grow a beard/shave their beard, put on weight/ lose weight, change their appearance drastically by the time they come to the first day on the job. Or the interviewee might be at their current job when they are interviewing for the next, so that might throw some people off the process. Thirdly I think some research somewhere might have said that a skype interview is more daunting, and hence less people will apply for the job/qualify to the next round as a result of the stress it causes and the telephone interview is just less stressful on the candidate.
All possible, all equally rubbish reasons imho.
No wonder it's the mess as it's presented
A video interview should be the minimum.
This was totally different.