Eighteen students suddenly dropped the course, while nine others didn’t even attend the final exam. Of those 27 students, El País noted, “22 had scored a perfect 100 in the midterm exam.”
Among those who took the test, the average score plunged—from 96 all the way down to 48.
Id hate to be a recruiter or interviewer for this generation of students
I just started a new job, and after I (imo) aced the remote interview, they brought me in for an in-person, which didn’t seem unusual. I was surprised when they started asking all the same questions as in the remote and take-home interviews, but clearly they’ve been hitting issues with this.
I was hired during the pandemic and it was quite an interesting experience to get there. They had an online assessment center, several hours (with breaks) of all sorts of quizzes, questions and tasks, mostly intelligence and memory-related, combined with math, general knowledge, language proficiency and a section on personality and personal preferences, with a relatively limited focus on IT questions at the end that felt tacked on for the job. There was no surveillance during it - no webcam requirements or anything. They just sent me a link and I could complete this timed test at a point in time of my choosing, in one go. Since it wasn’t very difficult at all and there was more than enough time, I had no issues with this one.
Before the interview, I was handed a 20 minute condensed version of largely the same type of questions to be completed in person (very small room, alone, under supervision, to eliminate any possibility of cheating), which I completed in no time, and finally an extensive interview (IIRC about 45 minutes) in front of what I can only describe as a tribunal of eight more or less relevant people sitting in a half-circle in front of a chair for the interviewee (at a distance due to COVID), most of which would just silently judge me with their eyes and take down notes as two to three of them switched between interrogating, I mean, interviewing me. They were actually very friendly, but it did feel quite intense. I was extremely nervous in the beginning, even stuttered a little, but as the interview went on, my nerves calmed down. None of the questions were surprising nor upsetting, but due to my initial nervousness, I still felt like I had failed.
Anyway, after they had hired me (I received a call about two weeks later), they later told me that they had done this twice with about 100 applicants each, just to hire a single person. In retrospect, I can’t believe I successfully made it through all of this. I was very well prepared for the interview and had previously spent a lot of effort (several weeks worth) on the application itself, tailoring it to the job and the organization, but still.
If you have the amount of resources this large org has, I think this is a very thorough way of doing things. The simple method of repeating a portion of the test in person (with different questions, but the same kind as online) eliminates cheaters and can be done by an org of virtually any size. The lengthy interview in front of a diverse group I’m not so sure about though. With shy and nervous applicants (as well as those on the spectrum), this can be very overwhelming, but since they all have to find a consensus in the end, discrimination and personal preferences influencing the hiring decision are less likely to happen.
There was also a background check involved, which I forgot to mention. But overall, it’s very much the former and not even close to something like the latter.
I was helping somebody (a professional with a degree) on a software and they were, among other things, struggling to manually tally over ten items with the cursor as a pointer. They kept starting back at 1 and recounting. After many attempts they asked me to count the items for them.
So I had to stop helping and explain they needed to speak to their manager about the issues. 🙁
Hot damn… Having issues because you’re used to the AI thinking for you is one thing … being incapable of counting to 10 (with repeated attempts!) is quite another thing entirely.
Its the worst one I have encountered. Typically its just a lot of not caring about figuring stuff out and hoping somebody else can do the work for them.
its that SEVERE?, its likely someone unable to finish grad 1-5. they likely used AI all the way to graduation, or most of thier education was spent online during covid, which dint help things.
That’s the worst one I’ve encountered. Usually its just disengagement. Like they ask for help, our techs start showing them the solution steps, and rather than watching the steps as we go, they are on their phone checking Instagram. Like they think help is somebody else doing their job for them.
I’m looking forward to my next round of technical interviews. The people who depend on AI usually end up looking very foolish. Especially on the questions designed to make various LLMs hallucinate.
they know they cheated, with a W on thier transcripts, assuming they arnt going for grad programs, it likely wont affect them anyways, a w is almost always count as a ZERO in some cases.
Id hate to be a recruiter or interviewer for this generation of students
I’d hate to be a teacher. Imagine how much time you’d waste grading AI-generated papers…
Not being able to go to bed because you have to read 20 AI slop papers…that’s hell
Or reviewing the work of junior colleagues. Fun times!
deleted by creator
To grade multiple choice questions, right?
… right?
I just started a new job, and after I (imo) aced the remote interview, they brought me in for an in-person, which didn’t seem unusual. I was surprised when they started asking all the same questions as in the remote and take-home interviews, but clearly they’ve been hitting issues with this.
I was hired during the pandemic and it was quite an interesting experience to get there. They had an online assessment center, several hours (with breaks) of all sorts of quizzes, questions and tasks, mostly intelligence and memory-related, combined with math, general knowledge, language proficiency and a section on personality and personal preferences, with a relatively limited focus on IT questions at the end that felt tacked on for the job. There was no surveillance during it - no webcam requirements or anything. They just sent me a link and I could complete this timed test at a point in time of my choosing, in one go. Since it wasn’t very difficult at all and there was more than enough time, I had no issues with this one.
Before the interview, I was handed a 20 minute condensed version of largely the same type of questions to be completed in person (very small room, alone, under supervision, to eliminate any possibility of cheating), which I completed in no time, and finally an extensive interview (IIRC about 45 minutes) in front of what I can only describe as a tribunal of eight more or less relevant people sitting in a half-circle in front of a chair for the interviewee (at a distance due to COVID), most of which would just silently judge me with their eyes and take down notes as two to three of them switched between interrogating, I mean, interviewing me. They were actually very friendly, but it did feel quite intense. I was extremely nervous in the beginning, even stuttered a little, but as the interview went on, my nerves calmed down. None of the questions were surprising nor upsetting, but due to my initial nervousness, I still felt like I had failed.
Anyway, after they had hired me (I received a call about two weeks later), they later told me that they had done this twice with about 100 applicants each, just to hire a single person. In retrospect, I can’t believe I successfully made it through all of this. I was very well prepared for the interview and had previously spent a lot of effort (several weeks worth) on the application itself, tailoring it to the job and the organization, but still.
If you have the amount of resources this large org has, I think this is a very thorough way of doing things. The simple method of repeating a portion of the test in person (with different questions, but the same kind as online) eliminates cheaters and can be done by an org of virtually any size. The lengthy interview in front of a diverse group I’m not so sure about though. With shy and nervous applicants (as well as those on the spectrum), this can be very overwhelming, but since they all have to find a consensus in the end, discrimination and personal preferences influencing the hiring decision are less likely to happen.
Yikes! Either that recruitment process is incredibly inefficient, or they’re hiring someone to take over the security of a nuclear weapon factory.
There was also a background check involved, which I forgot to mention. But overall, it’s very much the former and not even close to something like the latter.
Hopefully you didn’t have to go through all of that just to flip burgers or carry boxes in a warehouse.
They’ve already made it into the job roles.
I was helping somebody (a professional with a degree) on a software and they were, among other things, struggling to manually tally over ten items with the cursor as a pointer. They kept starting back at 1 and recounting. After many attempts they asked me to count the items for them.
So I had to stop helping and explain they needed to speak to their manager about the issues. 🙁
Hot damn… Having issues because you’re used to the AI thinking for you is one thing … being incapable of counting to 10 (with repeated attempts!) is quite another thing entirely.
Its the worst one I have encountered. Typically its just a lot of not caring about figuring stuff out and hoping somebody else can do the work for them.
I’m beginning to understand why management types like it so much.
its that SEVERE?, its likely someone unable to finish grad 1-5. they likely used AI all the way to graduation, or most of thier education was spent online during covid, which dint help things.
That’s the worst one I’ve encountered. Usually its just disengagement. Like they ask for help, our techs start showing them the solution steps, and rather than watching the steps as we go, they are on their phone checking Instagram. Like they think help is somebody else doing their job for them.
I’m looking forward to my next round of technical interviews. The people who depend on AI usually end up looking very foolish. Especially on the questions designed to make various LLMs hallucinate.
Do you have an example of the type of questions that will cause hallucinations?
they know they cheated, with a W on thier transcripts, assuming they arnt going for grad programs, it likely wont affect them anyways, a w is almost always count as a ZERO in some cases.