For some reason, the majority of technical interviews consist only of talking. Sometimes there’s a written quiz of some sort. Rarely, there’s a programming challenge; typically the candidate is free to complete the challenge on their own, in any amount of time whatsoever, in any manner whatsoever, with no opportunity for the interviewer to observe the candidate’s thought process or methods.
And yet, there’s general agreement that professional software development is a team sport involving collaboration skills as well as technical knowledge, and that software isn’t written once and discarded, but rather must be “habitable” for many years into the future. Weak screening methods don’t separate people who can handle that kind of work from those who can’t.
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