[Timothee]

Besides the apparent mismatch between hours in a day and hours necessary for all that to happen in 1.5 weeks (well, it's technically possible), what surprised me was just even that 40 companies out of 50 were responsive enough to schedule phone interviews in that time. And next stage interviews after that. And make a decision to hire him. Especially for a self-proclaimed bad coder.

So, I agree with you, but this is not really the point of the post. The point is that interviewing is a game that you can master with practice.