[quanticle]

Exactly. When I hear that someone has done the same algorithms book three times, I think of the Brazilian physics students that Richard Feynman encountered [1]:

    After a lot of investigation, I finally figured out that the students had
    memorized everything, but they didn’t know what anything meant. When they
    heard “light that is reflected from a medium with an index,” they didn’t
    know that it meant a material such as water. They didn’t know that the
    “direction of the light” is the direction in which you see something when
    you’re looking at it, and so on. Everything was entirely memorized, yet
    nothing had been translated into meaningful words. So if I asked, “What is
    Brewster’s Angle?” I’m going into the computer with the right keywords. But
    if I say, “Look at the water,” nothing happens – they don’t have anything
    under “Look at the water”!

Someone who's ground through an algorithms textbook three times, but doesn't have significant project experience is like a physics student who can name every equation, but cannot calculate the polarization angle of light reflected off water.

[1]: https://v.cx/2010/04/feynman-brazil-education