[Sorreah]

There's various levels of bullshit, of incremental bullshitness

a) I won't believe you got your PHD legitimately, do fizzbuzz for me.

b) You're faking both your diploma and your 4 year experience at Megacorp, prove me wrong via fizzbuzz.

c) Alright your credentials check out, do this entirely unrelated to the job assignment to prove that you have what it takes to do the job.

d) Alright you aced your assignment which despite being entirely unrelated to the actual job, domain and language, convinces us you got what it takes. Now, tell me an example of when you resolved a conflict with a colleague and how you did it...

[qw]

We had a surprise at my company. The candidate had a masters degree and 2 years experience in a known software company.

We relied too much on the resume and mostly talked during the one hour interview. After hiring the person turned out that our new employee would have had serious issues with FizzBuzz. Maybe even looping through arrays...

When we interview people know we test for basics, regardless of their resume.

[Sorreah]

I'd consider the interviewer as much of a problem as the hire in this case. Talking to someone for an hour and not being able to figure out if they could write basic code? Hiring someone based on their background and not doing a background check (after getting their approval ofcourse)?

[mcguire]

How do you find out if they can write basic code without asking them to write some code?

If you talk about past projects, they talk about architecture and project management. If you ask about code they have written, they say it's all proprietary.

[tkxxx7]

Ask them to think up a way to implement a function to do X. Keep X simple, simplify further until you find common ground. Any other ways to implement? Tradeoffs? What about under this or that constraint?

Ask about some peculiarities of their favorite languages.

Have them describe a recent difficult bug (very insightful - in their description's wording, the scope of the bug itself, steps taken to solve, etc. - but could be 'proprietary').

[ballenf]

At smaller companies who have trouble attracting better talent, avoiding technical questions is a (flawed) way of showing deference to the prime candidate. It's a way for the company to say, you are special to us and we respect you so much you don't have to do tricks for us.

Again, it's flawed, but trying to find and attract talent at a small company who maybe can't pay top dollar makes people take risks like this.

At least that's my experience!

[bogomipz]

Your attitude seems to be that of a bad cop - "you are guilty until proven innocent." If I were interviewing with someone that expressed the level of suspicion that you have here, I would cut the the interview short. Interviewing is a two way straight and I can't imagine working with someone with that level of skepticism. Obtaining a PHD illegitimately? Honestly you sound very jaded.

[mcguire]

I used to believe that. I even passed up on a job that I should have taken because of it.

Then I sat on the other side of the interview table too many times. If my company is going to pay you or (more importantly) if I'm going to trust the success of my project to you, I really do want to know you can do the job. If that offends you, I'm sorry.

[Sorreah]

I suggest you reread my comment and try to understand my point.

[bogomipz]

I understood your point just fine.

[always_good]

Spoiler: Their four scenarios are written from the pov of a hypothetical hiring manager that offends the applicant with bullshit (the "bullshit" they refer to at the start of their post) no matter the context.

You think that they wrote those scenarios with their own voice, so you are misreading the point.

[bogomipz]

Nowhere in the OP's original comment is it clear that this is third person point of view from a "hypothetical hiring manager."

Had they articulated "A hiring might think" at the beginning or even anywhere in their post then yes it would have been clear.

Regardless you don't want to work for anyone - fellow team mate, hiring manager or company that harbors that level of suspicion towards candidates. It's a red flag. I did not miss the point.

[Sorreah]

"I did not miss the point".

Really though? You're going to be like that? You're going to be the guy that tells the person making the point they didn't mean what they meant, after failing at reading comprehension?

The post I responded to said:

"Why even ask for resumes if you're going to ignore them? I also get very annoyed when people ask about your experience, then in the very next breath pretend none of it matters and you should do fizzbuzz."

Which I called bullshit. Then I listed a bunch of things that are also bullshit of the same kind but they get incrementally more bullshitty, among them was this:

"Alright you aced your assignment which despite being entirely unrelated to the actual job, domain and language, convinces us you got what it takes."

Which somehow you took literally.

Because somehow, you believed, someone would actually not only do that, but they would actually think that. They would actually knowingly hand a candidate an assignment they know is entirely unrelated to the job opening, and they would go online and detail their though process on this.

Was this a one time incident or do you go responding to every piece of irony on the internet pointing out that the writer must have meant what they said.

[ruleabidinguser]

I also don't think you did

[s73ver]

I think they did. If the point was that easy to miss, then the author needs to rethink their point.