[wpietri]

For sure.

And I also am not sure I want to work at a place where being really good at interview skills is what gets people jobs. The correlation between "interviews well" and "collaborative, productive coworker" isn't very strong.

[Kranar]

Definitely has not been my experience. People who interview well are generally excellent communicators and communication is of utmost importance when working with a team.

[Zancarius]

This was my thought as well.

Also, generally being likeable makes a positive impact on people. Teams would much rather someone they feel they can work well with than someone who is going to be a total stick in the mud and drag everyone down.

[wbsss4412]

Are you implying there is a negative correlation or no correlation?

Unfortunately “being good at interviews” is generally what gets people jobs everywhere, so I’m not sure what point you’re making to begin with.

[mitchdoogle]

How are you determining your lack of correlation ? Is there data on this somewhere?

Because I would assume that people who study and prepare for the interview are more likely to be studious and prepared in other aspects of life, including their workplace.

[wpietri]

I have worked with a number of people who are really good at interviewing and then continue to focus on impressing important people and climbing ladders, but without being particularly skilled and/or particularly collaborative.

I have also worked with a number of people who are quite bad at interviewing but were excellent colleagues: highly collaborative and technically excellent.

When I create hiring processes, it's the latter people I try to select for. So assorted coworkers aside, the data I have come from those hiring processes. The glibbest and most charming people often do poorly in the pair programming portion; the most awkward often settle down into doing excellent work once you get them in a familiar context.

Some people are great at both, of course, and some people are bad at both. Which should be unsurprising given the number of people recommending a focus on developing interview skills. The whole idea requires that job skill and interview skill are not well correlated.