[edanm]

> At my experience can we just assume that I am a competent coder (maybe not the top 1%, but at least in the top %20) and talk about the job and how I can contribute ? I mean its almost insulting if you ask me to make a linked list/reverse a binary tree or other such nonsense looking over my shoulder me with a time limit.

If there was a way to verify what you say reliably, then of course that would be better. But there isn't, and writing down that list is extremely easy - in fact, half of the CVs I've ever seen look very similar in terms of the length of the list, amount of technologies mentioned, etc. Even for people with far less experience.

There has to be some way to check whether someone actually knows what they're doing. For sure some of the time a strong reference is enough proof. That's why people in the industry a long time with many contacts will often go from job to job without even interviewing anywhere - they just move to places with former colleagues that already know them.

But for a new place that doesn't know you, thinking it's insulting to show what you know is... weird. Is it going to be insulting on day one when you actually have to do the work?