[vp89]

Good design instincts takes lots of hard earned real world experience to develop. I wouldnt expect the average 21 year old programmer to really know how to design stuff maybe they can provide me crammed textbook answers but that is as "irrelevant" as whiteboarding.

I think a good approach is to not emphasize the whiteboard as much for senior hires, so people with good work experience can mostly get in on their resume and design questions and people with lesser experience still have the opportunity to break into these top companies by grinding algo questions.

[mikulas_florek]

I once hired a senior programmer because of his perfect resume and it was one of the worst choices I made while hiring. He was probably a net loss for the company. What difference can be in CV of two people, who both have 15 years of experience in the industry?