[itamarst]

They do, yes, but that's what companies think they want; it's not what they actually need. And if you present yourself the right way you can get past that and get hired anyway.

(Blog post I linked to talks about that in more detail, and I talk a bit more marketing vs. skills here: https://codewithoutrules.com/2017/01/19/specialist-vs-genera...)

[Bahamut]

But how do you screen for these things without tipping off to candidates that that is what you are looking for? As soon as you explicitly mention a set of requirements, you will have candidates looking to game interview processes built around those requirements.

[itamarst]

If I'm trying to hire people, why wouldn't I want to "tip people off" to what I want? I'm supposed to lie and then trick people into telling me what they're really capable of? That seems ineffective.

Interviewing people about their experience is a traditional way to verify things. E.g. If I'm looking for someone who can solve hard problems I can ask for examples. If they're beginning programmer who just got handed tasks like "code this function"... they will have no good examples.

I can also explain a problem I'm working on and see how the candidate approaches it.

But writing job posting that hides the fact I need someone who can solve hard problems seems silly.