(354) Job Interview Cheating

Plus, fake job credentials. And no oversight.

Issue 354

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On The (Former) Columbia Student Who Sells Interview Cheating Software

Over the past few weeks, several people have asked me about, or wanted to talk about, the student who developed software for cheating interviews for technology and coding jobs, and was kicked out of Columbia University as a result.

It’s been a hot topic and one I’ve avoided, until now. But since it’s a topic of notoriety, I’ll share some thoughts — as briefly as possible.

• Columbia was entirely right to dismiss this student. His product was built and is used for deception, and/or fraud. It is, at best, unethical. The school would be right to dismiss a student for selling fake IDs, or fake diplomas. I see no difference.

• Rumors are, and this may have been reported somewhere, that a technology company — I think I remember it being Amazon — contacted Columbia to request action in this case, as the student’s activities were defrauding and embarrassing the company. I have no problem with this either.

• I believe that this issue and general academic cheating are neighbors under an umbrella of a cheating culture. When cheating to get the degree is treated passively, or not treated at all, cheating to get the job is the next logical step.

• Related, I will share two brief sections of recent articles about cheating in job interviews.

This one, from the NBC News article linked above:

Margaret Callahan, a spokesperson for Amazon, said that while the company welcomes candidates’ sharing their experiences working with generative AI tools when it’s relevant to the roles they’re applying for, they must also acknowledge that they won’t use unauthorized tools — such as generative AI technology — to help them during the interview or assessment process.

This one, from Business Insider (subscription required):

Henry Kirk, a cofounder of the software development company Studio Init, wants to hire the best engineers. That's why he asked job applicants not to use generative AI in the first technical coding part of their interviews — with the promise that they'd be able to show off their combined engineering and AI skills in a later section. "They still cheated," he tells me.

Hiring companies do not what job applicants using AI, even technology companies. AI companies don’t even want job applicants using AI (see Issue 338). So, this narrative that schools have to teach with AI in order for students to get jobs — it deserves some reconsideration.

Two more thoughts.

• I want to step back in time maybe three years ago when it felt as though the entire academic community openly revolted against the idea of online, proctored assessment — using cameras and/or recording devices to supervise students during tests. Invasion of privacy, added stress, and so on. Turns out, in order to get some good jobs — guess what? You have to take a test, online, recorded on camera. So, everyone who opposed online test proctoring and talks about how important it is to prepare students for modern jobs, please raise your hand. I didn’t think so.

• Finally, I do not buy for one single second that this student developed this cheating technology as some kind of protest against the way technology companies screen applicants, which is what he claims. If that was his motivation, why charge for it? The-system-is-bad-and-I-have-to-cheat-it-in-order-to-get-the-system-to-change is what Chegg says. And it’s hogwash.

750 Trade and Construction Workers Bought Fake Credentials in Australia, Many are Still on the Job

Since we’re doing workplace and credential fraud today, The Sydney Morning Herald has a story (subscription required) about 750 trade and construction workers who regulators know bought fake credentials. Most have yet to have their credentials and work authorizations revoked.

The newspaper is mostly interested in how, of 750 people who are known to have fake or fraudulent work certifications, only 63 have had their licenses cancelled. It’s a great question.

But I’m going to focus more on the fake credentials than on the slow or lacking consequences. Here is the start of the story:

Hundreds of tradesmen who bought forged qualifications from a criminal syndicate are working on NSW building sites in what is believed to be the tip of the iceberg for an industry plagued by vocational training fraud.

The Herald’s Shoddy Sydney series can reveal that Building Commission NSW last April identified more than 750 individuals who had been issued with licences on the basis of fake qualifications bought from an organised crime group impersonating genuine training providers.

This is also relevant:

Australian Skills Quality Authority (AQSA) annulled the qualifications issued by DSA Ventures when it cancelled the college’s registration, stating that all former students had been contacted and none had demonstrated they had been given the necessary training or assessment.

The more I read about the AQSA, the more jealous I am. In February, for example, they shut down another college for failing to address online cheating (see Issue 339).

I simply cannot imagine what it must be like to have a regulator that cares about education credential quality.

And I don’t want to have skipped over that “tip of the iceberg” phrase up top.

Anywhere you care to look, workplace credential fraud is rampant. The problem is, in the United States, most workplace credentials are provided by independent organizations that self-regulate their activities. No one is watching, in other words.

In 2023, a self-policing provider of the credentials to operate construction cranes had to revoke 1,000 licenses for exam fraud (see Issue 231). Construction. Cranes. In 2022, there was fraud in the exam licensing for elevator repair certifications (see Issue 164). Elevator. Repair. Last year, some 200 teaching certifications were issued through outright test fraud (see Issue 321). Teach. Ers. That one does not quite work.

In all three cases, did an oversight body find the fraud? Nope — none exists. Did the credential provider find the fraud? Nope. In all three, a tipster reported the cheating. In all three cases, the credentialing authorities are still in business.

In 2022, I shared a story that nearly half of all technology certifications were obtained by cheating (see Issue 165). Not a single credential provider in that story is out of the business.

It ought to be obvious that when your business is selling exams and certifications, stopping fraud is not your business. A closed eye can make a fat wallet. It ought to be just as obvious that self-regulation is no regulation at all. I guess that’s the same point.

In any case, at least someone in Australia is watching and acting. Here, not so much. As delicately as I can put this — we just don’t care that our teachers and crane operators don’t know what they’re doing.

Finally, I want to use these cases to underline the manifest absurdity of some folks in education who decline to engage and enforce academic integrity in schools because — you know — no big deal — if you cheat and don’t learn the skills, you won’t be able to do your job. And how that’s not the school’s or the teacher’s problem (see Issue 236 or Issue 294).

In Issue 236, here’s a quote from an actual “academic integrity specialist” in Canada:

"If you're not going to put in that work, that has consequences. Maybe not right now, but one day, when you are an engineer having to build a bridge … you won't necessarily know those skills."

I call this the you’ll-regret-these-choices-when-the-bridge-falls-down-and-kills-people approach to academic integrity.

As I wrote in Issue 294:

People with this approach somehow believe a magic learning nymph is going to come along somewhere and sort out the good, learning-centered students from the cheaters. Businesses will, they assume, weed out the cheaters when they can’t do the work. Sure, after the bridge falls down. And after those businesses stop hiring people with degrees from Arizona State. But that’s not the teacher’s problem.

Let me tell you what really happens. When people cheat, they keep cheating. They cheat their interviews, they cheat to get required or advanced certifications. They never do learn how to actually operate a construction crane, or work as an electrician, or as a nurse. When that happens, cheating becomes everyone’s problem.

In other words, no — cheaters are not only cheating themselves.

Cheating Interviews for Big Banks

Let’s just run out this theme, shall we?

An outlet called efinancialcareers has a story with this headline:

Inside the intense cheating to get a junior banking job

The story runs through how competitive it is to get a an internship or a junior bank position at big banks and investment houses such as JPMorgan or Goldman Sachs.

From the article:

Faced with these odds, students are increasingly taking matters into their own hands. We spoke to multiple students, at both target and non-target universities. Some had no knowledge of the cheating that occurs. Most, though, had either cheated themselves or knew people who had.

"The fourth floor of the LSE library is where a lot of this takes place," says one student at the London School of Economics, the UK's preeminent university for banking and finance jobs. "It's explicit and visibly outrageous," he observes.

And:

After being rejected by all banks at this first hurdle, the student says he clubbed together with friends. Instead of sitting alone trying to solve a succession of complex puzzles against the clock, he and his mates now sit in a room with a large screen. Each applies to a different bank, and while the tests are taken, the others crowd around to help and learn. "Someone will take the test, and we help by putting the questions into AI and directing them to the right multiple choice answer," he says. "It means you can get things right, quickly."

The story is also a little bit racist, saying that systematic cheating happens in student group chats too, and “especially [by] those of Chinese origin.” Gross. But I do believe that group chat cheating is very, very common.

If you put any faith in this article, some of it is deeply troubling. For example:

Does any of this matter? The students perpetrating it would argue that it's just a proverbial levelling of the playing field and that cheating is, in any case, commonplace.

And:

"I'm going into this without a banking background, and I'm up against people who are benefitting from nepotism and people who are using AI," says one student. "If I don't use AI at least, then I don't have a chance."

And:

One student said he doesn't think banks really care all that much: "The tests are just a culling method. They're a quick and cost-efficient way for banks to cut the applicant pool in half." If applicants don't realize that most people are cheating, maybe they don't deserve to progress further anyway?

If you’re not cheating, you don’t deserve the job. Great.

There’s also:

Whatever the industry opinion on this, rampant cheating is causing issues. When students are invited to in-person interviews, banks retest them and find that people who aced tests online fail miserably when help is removed. It makes recruitment more complex.

Seems like the banking houses do care.

And I say again — if the test is worthless because of the cheating, it won’t be long before the banks stop giving it, before they go right to in-person interviews. Same thing for schools. If the degree or diploma is worthless because of the cheating, it won’t be long before employers skip it.

Anyway, the article more or less concludes:

Students who don't cheat say banks could do a lot more to stop it.

I have no doubt.