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Comment by sbuttgereit | Hacker News Reader

So, am I missing something? Is this just a tool allowing job candidates to commit fraud?

I'm no lawyer, so I'm not sure this would rise to the level of actual legal fraud, but moral fraud at the very least is what I think I'm seeing.

EDIT:

Now I see it at the bottom of the page... "Interview Coder is a desktop app designed to help job seekers ace technical interviews by providing real-time assistance with coding questions."

So yes, it's exactly what it looks like.

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Is it fraud when they tell you you’ll spend most of your time coding cool new products but then you mostly do customer support and meetings?

Intentional misrepresentation by any party is exactly that: a fraud. Morally at the least and possibly legally if the circumstances meet the legal standard.

The important thing is that such judgement doesn't depend on the integrity of the other party: the act stands on its own, independent of the intentions of the other party.

Or maybe it's defensive against an industry who has developed ridiculous hiring practices.

This is pure coping mechanism to explain to oneself that fraud is ok. Talk or read interviews with people sentences for fraud, they will all explain to you why it was in fact morally ok for them to do what they did.

And you can say the same for employers that exploit their workers. No one is the villain in their own story.

I agree, but I don't see the connection. Asking people to do unreasonable hiring exercises is not exploiting.

No: it's a fraud be that legal or moral.

If you want a job that someone is offering and they ask you for irrational, unreasonable, or just stupid demonstrations as a prerequisite for getting hired, you have one choice: decide for yourself the show isn't worth the price of admission and walk away... or you do the irrational, unreasonable, or just stupid thing asked to the best of your ability and keep your hat in the ring for the gig. Either way honesty and ethics dictate that you either play the game or walk away.

The moment you cheat and lie: that's entirely on you and perhaps your own dumbass decision to train and enter an industry that works this way. Of course, I mean "you" in the abstract, not necessarily you personally.

Everybody cheats and lies about things. Those that say they don't, well I give you a liar.

People who lie and cheat often justify themselves by asserting that everyone does. It’s easier than admitting you’re a liar and a cheat and changing your ways.

If their hiring practice is that ridiculous, that means the company has been warped by an unreasonable amount of bureaucracy. Why would anyone want to work for such a company anyway?

Needing money and not finding a preferable job usually.

In most societies in the world today you must have a job to survive and to support the survival of one’s family. Imho it is not morally wrong to do anything you need to do to achieve gainful employment so that you and your family can survive, and I would go so far as to say it is immoral to be scolding people engaged in a fight for survival that they aren’t doing it properly.

Pretty much every company I've applied to or worked at commits both legal and moral fraud against its employees and applicants, on an industrial scale. They've also created a broken interview process that punishes honesty and forces applicants to find creative solutions. So personally I see no moral fraud here.

Really... so two "wrongs" really do make a "right".

So when an employer sees many employees and candidates work the system like this, then they are also right to say, "pretty much every employee we've hired or candidate we've spoken with tries to dishonestly game the system and deals with us in bad faith, so we're justified in screwing with them any way we please. No moral fraud here: we're just doing onto those as those would do onto us."

Well, great... you've defined a level playing field that's working as optimally as it can and without any moral blame at all.

Oh, I see the problem. You've aimed your LinkedIn bot at Hacker News. You should really sort that out.

> a tool allowing job candidates to commit fraud

It's not fraud.

The candidate could also use this tool to help with the job once they've been hired, and that would not be fraud either.

They wouldn't, but that's just because the interview is stupid and not like real work.

You're not wrong, but you're overlooking the cultural normalcy. When you have something to sell, you're allowed to lie until you're blue in the face and nobody even blinks. But when applicants merely demonstrate how well they understood and internalized that state of affairs, it's fraud. None of this is OK in my book but it's hypocritical to single out job applicants when the whole culture is like that.

1. That still doesn't make it okay.

2. No, you're not allowed to lie until blue in the face when selling; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_advertising is illegal. (Is it underunforced? Probably. Do I wish those laws had much stronger restrictions and harsher penalties? Yep. But is it illegal to lie to sell things? Still yes.)

(IANAL and this isn't legal advice. Though it is moral advice.)

I'm responding to a post on Hacker News, not writing the complete history of morality and culture.

I agree that lying and fraud by businesses, employees, buyers, and sellers are all reprehensible. Nonetheless, I would contend there's no problem discussing the actual subject at hand without expanding it.

I'm not being hypocritical, I'm simply being topical.

It’s really simple. Don't lie or cheat and don’t abide those who do.

As a software development manager, I find the most important quality I need in my direct reports is honesty. If you are not honest with me it makes it very difficult to do my job.

That some developers have been conditioned to dishonesty is a shame on our industry.

It is okay to cheat when the game is rigged. At least this is what star trek has taught me (Kobayashi Maru).

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