[NTDF9]

The point is:

If the candidate asks a relevant question that the interviewer cannot solve in time, the company failed at its own game because the candidate proved that he/she is better qualified than the company's representative, given the rules of the game.

What excuse does the company have for not hiring the candidate now?

[mahyarm]

The company is paying you money. The company is the customer of your services. This is why.

[hayd]

Except they're not. Companies rarely, if ever, pay interviewees.

Sure, it's true if you become an employee or contractor... but til then they're speculating (as are you).

[mahyarm]

Kind of like a salesman trying to sell you something... Enterprise software companies don't get paid until they say buy, and in the mean time the company hasn't been paid anything.

[true_religion]

The 'excuse' that there are better or equally qualified candidates out there.

Many companies hire to fill in expertise, so the person who you are interviewed by may be less experienced than you in a particular technology.

[NTDF9]

> The 'excuse' that there are better or equally qualified candidates out there.

In that case, these companies should be ok with registering their names in an online registry saying they rejected a candidate for someone who is better qualified. For the following 6 months, they cannot complain that that cannot find qualified candidates.

> Many companies hire to fill in expertise, so the person who you are interviewed by may be less experienced than you in a particular technology.

So the interviewer should be asked a question by the candidate in that particular technology and if they can't answer, the candidate should be hired.

[sokoloff]

Suppose I have two technologies that are relevant, foo and bar and that I'm weak on bar, so seek to hire someone with bar expertise. If I'm constrained to hire the very first person with more bar expertise than my least bar-skilled interviewer, I probably won't make much progress towards my goal.

The goal is not to hire the first "not worst", but rather the reasonably best, where reasonable is a function of time and money, among others.

[asQuirreL]

This of course assumes the candidate knows the answer to the question they asked, which is something the interviewer can't verify because they also don't know.

[anonymoose123]

What if the interviewer refuses to do it. You walk away? And remember, you're the one looking for a job and applied there (unless you're jeff dean, of course :)

[NTDF9]

When enough candidates walk away, it prevents the company from doing productive stuff. Not only did they not hire someone who could do something, they also wasted so much time interviewing instead of doing productive stuff.

They'll feel the heat and hire a reasonable candidate.