[ryanbrunner]

Doesn't it seem like an absurd scenario to you though, that you need to prep for an interview by relearning skills that aren't relevant to the job you're interviewing for?

I've been in coding interviews that matched the work that the company is doing, and I've found those useful - I get something from taking the interview (an idea of what their codebase is like, working with a partner, maybe some interesting code design questions), but I'm never going to do another "code this CS algorithim that 100% of people use a library for nowadays" type questions.

[seanmcdirmid]

It is absurd, but is so easy to counteract by just prepping. I’d be a lot more negative about it if it wasn’t so easy to game.

[a_square_peg]

I think this is the point - that it's so easy to game (albeit a waste of time) and that this doesn't reflect on the quality of the hire coming through this process. Assuming this is the test for senior engineer, the greatest candidacy pool would be second-year CS students.

[seanmcdirmid]

True, but I guess they are also judging our pliability in jumping through hoops, because even us senior engineers have to jump through many. To be honest, I'm probably not jumping through enough of them, cramming for a coding interview is one thing, but jumping in on every welcome!/goodbye! email is something that I really wasn't ready for.

[a_square_peg]

Then it’s no longer a skills test but an aptitude test. That’s fine if we’re all happy to call it that.