This sounds good, but experience has taught me it’s just not true.
It’s so easy to claim credit for accomplishments where other people did 90% of the work. And in a big company it takes about 2 years for a bad hire to get pushed out, if they ever are.
Two wrongs don't make a right. I wish that engineers would spend half as much time trying to correct the organizational dysfunction of their companies as they do on leetcode and the like.
The tech industry that likes to brag about "innovation" and "disruption" seems very conservative and resistant to change as far as hiring is concerned. Everyone seems complacent about that and stuck in the status quo. Then they complain about a talent shortage...
> then sitting down with them and they can't even come up with a for loop
If someone has been writing succesful production code in C++ for ten years, there is zero possibility they can't write a for loop. I hope you do realize that is not actually possible.
What is extremely likely, is that they get subjected to a random algorithm memorization puzzle question for something they've never seen before under the extreme stress of an interview and then the interviewer extrapolates from that to assume "they can't write a for loop".
I would love a widely recognized and rigorous credential that I could study for and work towards if it meant I never had to do another technical interview again. They can be less rigorous than surgeons since we're not saving lives, obviously.
Yet software engineers with 7 years of experience are still assumed to be fakers.
The reputable institution is called their previous employer(s). If someone has worked for a recognized company for 7 years writing production code, that's the same as the surgeon having done those 7 years in a reputable hospital.
Someone who has a resume with accomplishments means that person has a proven record of getting the job done. Not being able to do a FAANG FizzBuzz has no relationship to their ability to get the job done.
You never hired these people so you have no idea how they would do either.
Have you ever heard of someone hiring a surgeon by giving them an over ripe orange and a plastic knife and asking them to cut out every 2nd segment without getting any juice on the table?