| For their own expedience. It's an employer's market. It costs 2.5k/yr to keep an SO posting up and get thousands of resumes in your inbox. I'd also say a fair share of those in Who's Hiring on HN aren't in dire need of filling seats, but just trying to see how far people with fling themselves through the mazes. Blissfully unaware they're not the only startup and have no way of offering the stability of a large company. At one of the places I've seen, we didn't read every resume. We overlooked mountains of talent and shot ourselves in the foot. Instead of hiring coders that had their heart in the right place, we hired streetwise careerists that put their own interests before the team. But they could do palindromes, fizzbuzz, and whiteboard data structures and algorithms. But when we wanted them to do something generalist or in another language, they'd refuse. One even went so far as saying if they could program X in Y editor, they'd just leave the job. What use is passing all these tests if you're totally inflexible? We also snubbed people enthusiastically espoused the startup gumption and idea of building, but didn't cope well with the white boarding we thrown at them. Those whose heart was in teamwork and open source, we overlooked ignorantly, while continually putting up walls to see who finally gets past all of them. There is some toxic cultural thing amidst in startups of insularity and smugness. If I could go back, I'd say screw it with the whiteboard games, come freelance with us for a week. That way I can gauge your temperament, how you work with teammates, your technical skills, etc. in a realistic setting. And if someone asks for a code sample, and you already have projects on GitHub or your portfolio, don't be afraid to redirect them to that instead. If they don't look, assume the employer is not serious about filling the spot, but just putting in the least effort themselves to see how many hoops people jump. It's not you OP / other programmers. If an employer doesn't bother to give you a phone call to talk to you as a human being, maybe they're not so eager to have a position filled. Don't let it effect your self-worth. Always be coding. Don't be afraid to stick your head out there at a meetup and shake some hands, you'll be surprised how much more decency you court when you represent you're a human being, not another resume in a stack of thousands. |