Re:Why we don't hire programmers based on puzzles and tricks
by autarch on Friday February 22, 2013 @12:14PM
(#5265287)
At my current job, we used FizzBuzz when we were interviewing potential senior devs. One of the candidates who looked good enough on paper to talk to could not complete FizzBuzz, and in fact spent 20 minutes struggling with it before I decided to end the screening.
It's certainly possible that some of the people who completed FizzBuzz are not good programmers, but it seems pretty clear that the one person who failed it cannot possibly be a good programmer.
Having people go through FizzBuzz (which generally took 5-10 minutes per person) saved us the trouble of a longer interview with more people for at least one clearly unacceptable candidate.
It's certainly possible that some of the people who completed FizzBuzz are not good programmers, but it seems pretty clear that the one person who failed it cannot possibly be a good programmer.
Having people go through FizzBuzz (which generally took 5-10 minutes per person) saved us the trouble of a longer interview with more people for at least one clearly unacceptable candidate.