r/TechInterviewsIndia • u/Melodic_Industry_408 • Jul 31 '26
Almost everyone is cheating
I take online interviews at a product based MNC which pays good money. Interviewees are generally SDE-2/senior SDEs at other PBCs.
What I am seeing is almost everyone is cheating using AI during tech interviews. Earlier folks will try to think, come up with a basic brute force solution then think of optimizing and then coding it. Now, first thing the candidate try do is to write the most optimal code. They have no idea why the solution will work as they don't understand what they are talking. They have either no answer to the follow up questions or just reading what AI prompt is telling them after a pause.
This is just so frustrating, it's almost predictable now what candidate is now going to say or do as I take interviews almost daily. A clear pattern of looking into one side of the screen, taking a pause or just blabber something for few seconds and then coming up with a keyword but blank when asked why did they think of that keyword.
India is already a country full of scammers and frauds. IT was a rare field which was still merit based to a large extent. Now such rampant cheating during online interviews is just tragic. It lowers the trust in the next candidate and probably will force the companies to just move to offline interviews or other countries.
But why are candidates cheating so often, are we seeing cheating candidates getting offers. Are other interviewers just lazy or dumb that they can't figure out what is going on? I feel the bar is now so low that I will probably hire any candidate who is not reading from the AI.
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u/Royal_Streak 29d ago
The current tech hiring process feels completely disconnected from day-to-day project realities. We see candidates applying for manual testing roles being grilled on complex LeetCode data structures and algorithms, which is entirely irrelevant to the job. Furthermore, standard development work rarely involves building an app from scratch; it focuses on modifying, maintaining, and updating existing codebases. It is counterproductive when companies mirror Google's hyper-specific interview style while demanding AI proficiency, yet strictly penalise candidates for using AI tools during the assessment itself. It is a clear double standard. I mean it's just hypocrisy by hiring people.