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A comment on I've been a software engineer for 10 years and I can't do interview questions. Parent comment

Re:I've been a software engineer for 10 years and I can't do... by zzzcpan on Monday March 06, 2017 @02:36PM (#13805379)
"There are people out there (not you, obviously) who can talk their way into an interview for programming jobs that they simply can't perform. We're talking about no skills whatsoever, apart from the ability to sling buzzwords around enough to impress a recruiter. God only knows how they get their degrees, but they have them."

"I am not making this up. It's a real problem. "

No, it's a survival bias. You have no way of knowing how they perform, unless you hire them, but you don't hire them, because they can't pass your interview process.

There are many reason why someone capable and experienced would "fail" an interview like that. But ultimately it just doesn't test for skills related to software development.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:I've been a software engineer for 10 years and I can't do... by pklausler on Monday March 06, 2017 @05:00PM (#13806431)
If a candidate can't construct a simple Boolean predicate to characterize a well-defined condition in an interview situation, do you really think that they're going to be able to do much more complicated work later if we hire them?

Be serious.

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Re:I've been a software engineer for 10 years and I can't do... by synicalx on Monday March 06, 2017 @05:28PM (#13806653)
This is HN, we can't be serious unless everyone gets a medal
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Re:I've been a software engineer for 10 years and I can't do... by nissimk on Monday March 06, 2017 @02:44PM (#13805442)
It's not just survivorship bias, it's also confirmation bias. These folks fail to acknowledge the adverse selections made by their process. What about the people on your team that didn't work out? What about the net-negative producers? I don't believe you that your whiteboard heavy process eliminates all of those people. I've seen the counter-examples.
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