The serendipitous knowledge of the question isn’t the cheating. The cheating is the deception in the interview that this is a question being encountered for the first time.
It’s cheating because it’s the type of unethical behavior you wouldn’t want in a colleague: pretending that they are brilliantly generating insights on the spot that they have actually researched previously.
I don’t think it’s an unforgivable sin, particularly for someone new to interviewing. But as a candidate, I’ve considered it appropriate to make it clear to my interviewer what my level of experience with the question was before diving in. And as an interviewer, I’ve always looked positively on candidates who have done the same
It’s cheating because it’s the type of unethical behavior you wouldn’t want in a colleague: pretending that they are brilliantly generating insights on the spot that they have actually researched previously.
I don’t think it’s an unforgivable sin, particularly for someone new to interviewing. But as a candidate, I’ve considered it appropriate to make it clear to my interviewer what my level of experience with the question was before diving in. And as an interviewer, I’ve always looked positively on candidates who have done the same