Stressful situations happen a lot more than never in the real world (and sometimes they even involve talking to people, like customers) -- I don't want to have coworkers who can't handle that.
Stress in a job situation is like building a fortress over many months and getting invaded. You know the layout of the terrain like the back of your hand and you can focus on the problem.
Stress in an interview is like being air dropped into an enemy fortress. It is hard to know where to turn and you spend as much energy trying to suss out the layout of your new environment as you do reacting to your adversary.
This completely contradicts the argument that a candidate who has difficulty handling interview stress will not have the ability to handle any stress. I can't speak for everyone who gets nervous during interviews, but in my case it's due to the combination of the uncomfortable environment, lack of access to tools I've grown to rely on, and an awareness of how fickle people's opinions are.
Then you are doing it wrong. There are different types of stress. Holding up well under "stress" is a misnomer, as someone can hold up well under one type of stress, and completely fall apart in another situation entirely.
What you are testing for is the ability to handle the stress of interviewing. If anything, you are hiring for people who can more easily leave.
While it's appropriate to test for situations where stress is a factor, it's equally important to realize that talking to a customer and doing pre-sales and an interview are about as far apart as possible on the stress meter. One hardly equates with the other.
And that's coming from someone who enjoys interviews, because I'm almost always smarter than the other guy (and it's usually a guy) interviewing me. Every job interview I've had has resulted in an offer.[1]
But their unique and outlandish nature sets them so far out of anything experienced in a job situation, except possibly for sales. Trying to give them the meaning you're going for is rather pitiful given you're so earnest!
[1] For similar reasons, I generally decline to interview prospects, because I'm afraid I judge too narrowly.
No.
If you're only willing to consider people who can somewhat function under artificial pressure, then you're passing up a lot of top-notch candidates for very bad reason.
Freezing up in interviews would probably be a red flag for a job where you're doing cold calls or something like that. I wouldn't accept that kind of job, let alone interview.
Then you're like the guy who punishes interviewees because they didn't estimate the number of sewer ducts in New York correctly. Interviews can cause anxiety and stress to an extent that a typical employee may never encounter in their work.
A client meeting, code review, or dispute with a manager can be stressful, but you can answer from a position of strength. You know your code, have reasons for your decisions, and have met some standard to get the job. Interviews may be less demanding, but for some people it's a huge problem that there's no solid place to stand.
And empirically, we endlessly observe very nervous people at interviews that do not exhibit nervousness in meetings (after getting the job).
We know that people behave differently in interviews; I suggest using that behavior to predict behavior in non-interview situations is noisy at best, and probably entirely random.
[>>>This is great when you've got to climb a tree to get away from a tiger. This is horrible if you are trying to demonstrate your ability to function mentally.
Climbing a tree won't get you away from a tiger; it's a cat.]
You fail the interview for not getting the a-ha question right.
For me the former situation leads to lots of bad feelings including irritation and incredible anxiety. I have often considered the latter type of situation fun times. For a lot of programmers difficult puzzle solving stress is good stress.
From what I have witnessed from current in-the-box hiring practices is a lot of extroverts get hired who are good at spin and presentation. Quite a few managers never detect that they are actually not great programmers because they are brilliant at sucking up and putting on a show. Those skills dont always hurt, but they shouldnt be considered a deal breaker for a programmer who actually gets good work done.
Best practice I have ever encountered is when interviewers give out interview questions in advance to allow to the interviewee a while to think about the problem in quiet.
I love the idea of short term contracts for both parties to suss each other out.
(I was in charge of running the system that produced the bills and I think the CTO might have reported to Vint at one point )
How a person does on a pressure interview certainly tells you something, but it would seem to put a high priority on a particular skill at the expense of others. It probably effectively screens out anxious types. I'm not sure you can generalize what you learn too broadly, though.
Different people differ in how strong this effect is for them in an interview. I'm unusual - I actually relax. Whereas the author of this article tenses up. And, of course, once you're tense and you notice that you just flubbed something obvious, then you tense up even more. Leading negative reinforcing cycle. And if you experience this in one interview, you'll experience it in the next.
It does not matter how reasonable your questions are. If this is what someone faces, you do not get an accurate picture of how good anyone with interview anxiety is. And a lot of people suffer from this. The author of this article to an extreme degree.