As in, a significant chunk of candidates cannot write code, have outright lies on their CV, have never used anything other than visual basic, etc...

In addition, basic statistics suggests you need all new hires to be better than 50% of the existing company, or your average skill level will go down, which makes hiring just hard mathematically.

Can't you rule a lot of those candidate (other than CV liars) out algorithmically?

>In addition, basic statistics suggests you need all new hires to be better than 50% of the existing company,

This seems especially difficult when hiring graduates/junior roles due to the lack of unknowns.

Thanks for taking the time to respond!

> Can't you rule a lot of those candidate (other than CV liars) out algorithmically?

I think all companies do this, but it's really easy to game the metrics. People do it unconsciously, even.

> This seems especially difficult when hiring graduates/junior roles due to the lack of unknowns.

Yep, so it takes hours of interviewing per candidate, across dozens of candidates just to hire to minimise the risk for one role. At a global level, FAANGs are hiring loads, but at a team/local level there's never enough people due to specific team needs or turnover.

Cannot write code is very different from cannot write code on a whiteboard to solve a difficult problem in a limited amount of time in a stressful setting where you constantly have to keep talking and explaining what you are doing and cannot pause to think.

I know that's a popular trope, but I really mean the 'cannot code' crowd. They are separate groups.

I don't understand how cannot code would even hold a job for more than a month.

There are many people who can't do anything except React.js, for example.