[prof_hobart]

What's unprofessional about it?

I spend a fair amount of my day job drawing up technical solutions on whiteboards - either helping to analyse a problem, or talking people (often people I've never met before) through my thought process.

For some roles, this kind of skill is absolutely vital. And if that's the role that someone is going for, then you're going to want to know how good they are with it.

It also allows you to see the person's thought process - how do they go about understanding the problem? How do they approach defining the solution? I could be wrong, but I doubt that they'd be looking out for syntax errors on the board - it's far more likely to be communication and structure of thought that they are looking for.

My wife is a teacher. When she goes for jobs, she often has to teach a lesson to a bunch of kids that she's never met before, hasn't got a clue what level they are or what they've already been taught, and with a bunch of observers standing at the back taking notes.

That's not a realistic scenario for the day to day job as a teacher, and doesn't test a fair amount of the other skills that they need. But it allows them to assess whether the candidate can structure a present an engaging lesson.

That doesn't seem entirely unreasonable, and nor does asking someone to talk through a solution on a whiteboard.

[jsudhams]

It is not about whether this skill is required it is definitely a skill required. Interviewers are expecting the actual exact answer with syntax correctness instead of looking at thought process. Also when you do whiteboard u look for view of audience and in interview it is not the case. Why would interviewers not ask if the candidate is comfortable with whiteboard or a simple paper based or even a oral?

[prof_hobart]

>Interviewers are expecting the actual exact answer with syntax correctness instead of looking at thought process.

Are you talking about this specific case or in general? I've sat in on several interviews where someone's been asked to write something up on a board, and we were definitely not looking for 100% correctness.

>Also when you do whiteboard u look for view of audience and in interview it is not the case

Why not? An interview isn't an exam. It's a chance for both parties to find out if they could, and would want to, work together. I expect them to be two way conversations.

I were being interviewed I'd quite happily say things like "At this point, I'd be looking to put caching in. I've used X for this in the past, but does your company have a prefered solution for it?". When I'm sitting in on interviews it's a positive if someone asks me that kind of question.

>Why would interviewers not ask if the candidate is comfortable with whiteboard or a simple paper based or even a oral?

If you're looking for someone who is good at talking other people through their solution, then you want to see them doing it. I've no idea on what this company was actually looking for, but I wouldn't want a technical lead who couldn't grab a pen and draw up their thinking.

[smt88]

> we were definitely not looking for 100% correctness

> An interview isn't an exam

That's not everyone's experience. Some interviewers do look for correctness, and an interview can be far more stressful than an exam, especially for people who are desperate for employment or just introverted.

The point is that whatever the whiteboard tests, it's definitely not someone's ability to sit on a computer and write good code all day.

[prof_hobart]

I agree with that.

It's more that a lot of companies are looking for much more than someone's ability to simply churn code out these days, and if this place was one of those then it simply sounds like this guy wasn't suitable for that role.

If, on the other hand, the company was actually looking for a coder to be able to write 100% perfect code on a whiteboard, and was planning on marking them down for syntax errors, then he's probably better finding out what sort of company they are during the interview than after accepting a job.