Interviewer Interviewee and ?

Post covid, almost all hiring is done over video calls. I have had some good and bad experiences. Let me narrate an incident which was not so pleasant.

A candidate had cleared a few technical rounds. I was supposed to conduct the management round.

Well, I started the interview with some basic questions such as where were you born, which city did you complete your schooling, graduation? The usual icebreakers.

Then I moved onto a few technical questions just to understand the team structure, the project SDLC, overall technologies used.

For most of the technical questions, the candidate asked me to repeat the questions. While answering technical questions she looked down, perhaps at some screen. There was a pause before she started answering, she might be mentally scanning the answer. Then the answers didn't just follow, they flowed. The answers were theoretical as if being read from some technical source.

I suspect the setup must have been like this. 

• Candidate was facing a laptop, obviously to join the video call.
• There must be a monitor / screen next to the laptop. 
• Another person might be sitting facing her, behind her laptop. He / she must be typing in the questions which I asked and project those answers on the monitor.
• She conveniently read those answers looking down.

Towards the end of the interview, I opened ChatGPT on my computer. Before asking any question, I typed them into ChatGPT. I patiently waited for the candidate to start answering and I tallied the words with the output on my screen.

As you might have expected, the answers matched closely.

I felt betrayed. I consider such behavior as fraud. I have seen lip syncing; I have seen people give an interview and someone else turn up in office to collect the offer letter. I have seen people absconding after background check failed. All this happened mostly with candidates from Hyderabad. The thing that makes me super sad is that it is the first time I experienced such behavior from a candidate in Mumbai. 

Just to give her a fair chance I asked the candidate to come to office for a face-to-face interview. 

She first asked whether it would be a technical round. We said yes, to which she later replied, "I am not keen on one more round of interview".

“Let us accept truth, even when it surprises us and alters our views.”

– George Sand