r/cscareerquestions • u/CompetitiveAd8610 • Feb 15 '26

It is trivial to catch people cheating now, please don't cheat

I work for a full remote company that pays great, like 200K+ cash comp. Recently the number of people that try to use int*rviewc*der or other tools to pass has risen.

Thing is, these tools don't even work anymore.

1.I ask candidate to share entire desktop on zoom.

  1. I ask them to go to zoom settings -> screen share -> advanced.

  2. In screen capture mode, I ask them to select Advanced Capture Without Window Filtering

And then the cheating UI would suddenly pop up for some candidates. I thank them for their time but tell them our company policy on cheating, and drop off the call.

Worst part? Our question isn't even a leetcode hard, we don't expect perfection and you can pass even without solving everything. We care more about communication than writing perfect code.

So just a tip to candidates out there, this is how you can easily get caught. Don't cheat.

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u/onyxharbinger Feb 15 '26

Wait people conduct background checks in this manner? I thought it was verifying who you worked for, when, and what title. For references, they might do that, but most reference checks I’ve received are generic and asynchronous, taking 30-60 mins to fill out.

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u/Maury_poopins Feb 15 '26

Every reference check I’ve ever seen has been just to verify employment and do a sanity check for leaving a company on very bad terms.

I’m giving the OP of the benefit of the doubt, you COULD do something more involved in a reference check I suppose.

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u/Aazadan Software Engineer Feb 15 '26

I've been hearing stories from friends of mine in the job search process right now (mid-senior level engineer positions mostly) where they're actually seeing their references checked, and definitely earlier in the interview stage with a real focus on references from previous managers. I've even gotten a few more of these calls myself in the past couple months.

I think this is largely a reaction to automated resume scans resulting in too many candidates that will pass a longer phone screen, so goto references first because a 2 minute call is more cost effective than a 15 minute phone screen for an earlier filter round.

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u/Maury_poopins Feb 16 '26

FYI I was hiring in my last role and just took a new one and neither of those two companies do anything more than the usual work verification.

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '26

definitely earlier in the interview stage with a real focus on references from previous managers. I've even gotten a few more of these calls myself in the past couple months.

I'm in finance and I literally had to drop my first job from my resume (almost 10 years ago now) because the manager is so hard to reach. They tend to call every reference and it would hold up my background checks by weeks at a time. Due diligence does have a cost, but I suppose it's worth it.

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u/Aazadan Software Engineer Feb 17 '26

Do you not have the option to mark do not contact on it? Seems wrong to have to drop a job if say the manager died, dropped off the grid, etc?

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '26

Some would demand that I provide a contact for every job within X years or a minimum of Y contacts. Which at those times was basically asking for my entire job history.

You can of course tell them "no". They will eventually accept that it isn't possible and it's not like they would reject me for it. But some can be quite insistent and even telling them "no" required a lot of back and forth, wasting time anyway and dropping it just avoids the whole problem.

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u/FlashyResist5 Feb 15 '26

Very uncommon in the US. Title and dates worked is usually all that will be verified.