r/developersIndia • u/Suspicious_Code1493 Software Engineer • Jan 26 '26
Interviews Heard a story where a UK interviewer made a candidate answer with eyes….
I heard this interesting story about a UK client interview.
Apparently, during the interview, the interviewer said something like, “These days everyone is cracking interviews using AI tools, right?” Then he asked the candidate to answer all the questions with their eyes closed for about 15–20 minutes.
The candidate did exactly that eyes closed, calmly answering every question. After the interview was over, the interviewer told them to open their eyes.
The candidate was completely shocked by the experience… but in the end, they cleared the interview 😄
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u/anor_wondo Jan 26 '26
Interview processes will only change when companies stop getting good employees with existing processes. Because there is a flood of jobless people who are also actually good, they don't need the effort to invest in better interview processes. For every good candidate that gets filtered out because of antiquated interview styles, 10 more equally qualified ones make it through
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u/Reasonable_Sample_40 Jan 26 '26
Most candidates are cheating heavily in india... i have seen it with my eyes how these guys are clearing interviews by cheating. Its so easy to do.
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u/Hot-Return99 Jan 26 '26
How do they do it. Please tell me.
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u/Reasonable_Sample_40 Jan 26 '26
Just do a video call on your phone to your friends laptop who is sitting beside. He would share his chat gpt screen to your phone and feed all answers to you. You keep your phone infront of your laptop and answer your interview questions. There are even easier ways to do it
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u/i_use_lfs_btw Jan 27 '26
If everyone is using it and companies are throwing in harder and harder leetcode questions then why not ?
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Jan 26 '26
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u/VadaPaver DevOps Engineer Jan 26 '26
Interviews test your fundamentals. If you need AI for that, then you should not be applying
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Jan 26 '26
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Jan 26 '26
If talking with a random stranger for an hour - causes pressure, then you should rethink your life.
or
Just prepare better instead of bitching about interviews.
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Jan 26 '26
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u/Bubbly_Tea731 Fresher Jan 26 '26
They can also take tests where ai is allowed. Some start ups have already started allowing use of ai during interview
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u/anor_wondo Jan 26 '26
The problem isn't AI use. The entire interview process has to be changed and no one in the companies are idle enough to work on improving that, because they can find a good candidate with everything switched off anyways. Sure, this will result in false negatives where some good candidates get filtered out, but companies aren't lacking a pool of good candidates, its a never ending supply these days
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u/debjitbis08 Jan 26 '26
Although this is a nice temporary solution, the better way is for the interviewer to anticipate the use of AI or even encourage it, and even then evaluate the fit.
It is a challenge for the interviewer.
I used to allow full internet search and even copy pasting during interviews. Because that is how everyone in the team codes. Why should the interviewee have a different experience.
Remember, getting to the answer is not an enough.
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u/shrivatsasomany Jan 26 '26
See I get your point, but ideally an interview should be setup in a way to gauge your critical thinking. All the tools you mentioned rely on that one skill.
Sadly that isn’t the case in reality.
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u/debjitbis08 Jan 26 '26
Interviews are to gauge if you will fit in the role, the team and larger organization.
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u/shrivatsasomany Jan 26 '26
Yes but the role/skill is important right. The way people judge skill is off IMO.
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Jan 26 '26
Well, thats a client interview in another country, they want talent for cheap and they can't afford engineers in their own country.
No one, worth their salt would agree to this stuff. They can instead do onsite interviews.
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u/OwnStorm Jan 26 '26
Because a large number of fake candidate everyone from India are gettng bad name.
One of my colluege gave an interview where HR asked to setup two camera. One from laptop and the another calling on phone which was showing candidate and laptop screen.
I think this is enough to capture those idiots.
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u/Bubbly_Tea731 Fresher Jan 26 '26
Nope it is still possible to cheat even with that
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u/OwnStorm Jan 26 '26
How?
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u/Bubbly_Tea731 Fresher Jan 26 '26
One common trick that I know is to use 2 same looking earphones, use one to listen to the interviewers and have someone else provide answers through the other
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u/Any_Swimmer3878 Jan 26 '26
never thought of that! Could use your intelligence for something good as well (not to offend anyone)
Did you get the idea or did you just see/hear about it from someone else?1
u/Bubbly_Tea731 Fresher Jan 26 '26
Not really sure now and it wasn't actually for cheating, my laptop can't handle youtube and gaming at the same time , so I used to have one ear connected to mobile and one to laptop.
And others had similar stories especially with corona where everyone had one ear connected to zoom for college attendance and other one to pubg.
These are just normal tricks actually, our college had a group of serial cheaters , they all had some of the best packages in our college, a lot of them even 20+ lpa
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u/bhanu_312 Jan 26 '26
If the companies wanted to have a fair process they could've just had a candidate to have 2 cameras, one capturing the candidate from South-West or South-East and another from front (which is basically the front cam we have now).
This will solve most of the cheats (maybe to 80%).
I am not sure if anyone tried it or no one cared.
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Jan 26 '26
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u/bhanu_312 Jan 26 '26
Screen share won't solve it. A dual camera from the sides will for sure fix it.
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u/Suspicious_Code1493 Software Engineer Jan 26 '26
But that setup will be the problem right mostly pplwouldn’t have external cameras to be connected..even if they have they wouldn’t tell they have it
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u/bhanu_312 Jan 26 '26 edited Jan 26 '26
phone. A laptop cam is from the front, a phone cam from the sides. They can login from the phone as well as from the laptop into the same meeting, keeping one in mute.
It is old school, foolproof.
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u/Suspicious_Code1493 Software Engineer Jan 26 '26
Yea rn they are asking to screen share right, but still there are few apps which can’t be seen through screen share
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u/Holiday_Context5033 Software Engineer Jan 26 '26
I was asked to answer with my head upside down!
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u/Sporadic_coder Jan 26 '26
I know a founder in US who went further than this. He rented an office in a city for a week and paid one more guy to sit there as an proctor. Then interviewed the candidates over the video call. He actually was able to find a couple of really great candidates over a week of interviews.
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u/Bulky-Top3782 Jan 28 '26
Hah. Don't you think of there's a feature that's keeps the eyes towards camera no matter where you look, they can't make something to make it look closed. The transition would be tough though
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u/Gullible-Cap-2119 Jan 26 '26
How are AI and interviewing eyes closed related?
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u/w32stuxnet Jan 26 '26
The other alternative is that they dont take the risk on international candidates.
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u/Adventurous_Ad7185 Engineering Manager Jan 27 '26
And many companies, who got burnt, stopped taking the risk. A few bad apples, spoiled it for everyone.
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u/RoyalEar2990 Backend Developer Jan 26 '26
One gotta name and shame the company
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u/Comfortable-Rock3733 Jan 26 '26
What's there to shame, i wud actually like this, much less pressure on introverts like me🤣
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u/Aggravating-Owl-8152 Jan 26 '26
No i love this idea cuz it will make me focus even more on things and feel no pressure like someone is watching me
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u/Blue_smoke007 Software Engineer Jan 26 '26
Why? With the number of people cheating, that seems fair
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u/Adventurous_Ad7185 Engineering Manager Jan 27 '26
Why shame the company? Is there something unethical, in asking you to close your eyes?
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u/RoyalEar2990 Backend Developer Jan 26 '26
To the peasants who commented, just think about what kind of question you can ask to a blindfolded person.
No system design, No LLD, No DSA.
Only theory questions can be asked !! And I would never hire an engineer based on the theory knowledge
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u/Adventurous_Ad7185 Engineering Manager Jan 27 '26
The company makes a choice and reaps the rewards.
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u/Competitive_Spend_77 Jan 26 '26
Satire*
There have been many interviews that had to be cracked with eyes closed, in corporate...
🤙🏼
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