[firebones]

Never underestimate the influence of narcissism in hiring, manifested as the kind of blink decision you describe. Teams in a large company develop a personality and culture that more often than not extends to attributes that have less to do with skill and competence and more to do with similarity of physical characteristics and outside interests. (The degenerate case is flat out nepotism, but the more typical case is a team of people fitting a core profile--5'10" 30-something males from second tier colleges, or taller-than-average mustachioed conservatives.)

Most large company hiring practices are not so much a selection of specific traits as they are a filter for ensuring a lack of negative traits. When you factor in the bias of narcissism in interviewers, you'll get competent people who are skillful at reflecting the interviewers' traits back at them (such as the author, who didn't demonstrate incompetency with his first answer, but aced the interview by reflecting the cleverness the interviewer must have self-identified with as "Google material".) After a certain point, four or seven or nine layers of interview will certainly guarantee the incompetent ones don't get through, but at the same time it will also select for the kind of highly adaptable social personality that is often found in political operators.

[enjo]

My go to story to describe this involves a guy who was a EMT. He spent his interviews describing his life as an EMT, and rarely dealing with any meaningful technical discussions. He was offered a ton of jobs....

I saw something similar with a badly underqualified sys-admin who had been in marine recon before embarking on a technical career. He had zero issues finding a high paying job.

[zeraholladay]

Yes. I've heard of multiple studies concluding employers hire those candidates that are the most "like" them.

I read a book called "Money Ball" last year. One of the lessons I took away is that a successful baseball team can be created from undervalued stats (i.e. irrational beliefs in value cause inefficiencies). This trend you described forms teams of walkers xor home-runners, for example. I don't know why I believe this (I'm subject to my own criticism), but I strongly believe teams with multiple talents outperform teams with one talent (generalists vs niche).