[AlotOfReading]

I'm not sure it's a given that prep is an alternative to the hard work of becoming better. Imagine a hypothetical office job with bench press round. Improving your job skills wouldn't be the way to pass it, going to the gym would.

That's obviously an extreme hypothetical to illustrate the point, but it's along the same lines as common criticisms of e.g. leetcode and c-suite interview processes.

[iamnafets]

Definitely. Much of it _isn't_. But the parent comment was referring to the waste of the process, which is necessarily the part that isn't directly useful in the job.