[alex_lav]

Right, among other things and not “on the spot”. And I would argue that being unable to communicate about your experience is, to an interviewer, pretty similar to lying as they’re just a candidate making unverifiable claims.

Many people lie about their experience. Usually it’s glaringly obvious.

[b20000]

your answer makes it clear that you must not have built anything yourself of substantial size or complexity. if you worked on something for 10-15 years chances are you cannot answer some random specific question about that project because you haven’t worked on that particular part of the code base recently. so that does not mean you are lying about having built the thing.

my point is that assuming everyone is lying, biases you to the extent you want the outcome to be that the person is lying such that you can pat yourself on the back for a good job done rather than coming to the awkward conclusion you were wrong. and that is a real problem in interviewing because it means you discard top candidates.

[alex_lav]

> your answer makes it clear that you must not have built anything yourself of substantial size or complexity.

lol

> if you worked on something for 10-15 years chances are you cannot answer some random specific question

Again, the "random specific question" we're discussing is "Tell me about a project you worked on." So, again, if you can't answer "Tell me about a project you worked on", if you're claiming to have worked on that project for 10-15 years...I suspect there's something larger at play than just an inability to communicate about one's experience.

> so that does not mean you are lying about having built the thing.

I can and do routinely answer these types of questions about my work without issue. So nope.

> my point is that assuming everyone is lying,

Is verifying that someone isn't lying the same as assuming they are? (Hint: no).

> and that is a real problem in interviewing because it means you discard top candidates.

I would guess fewer than .1% of "top candidates" fail interviews at the "Tell me about a project you worked on" stage.

[b20000]

"Tell me about a project you worked on." is not a specific question

"why did you choose to order the members of this struct in your C code the way you did" is one.

[alex_lav]

> "Tell me about a project you worked on." is not a specific question

Exactly. That's the point.

> "why did you choose to order the members of this struct in your C code the way you did" is one.

Neat!

I'll leave this chain now. This does not seem productive.

[b20000]

Good. Take this as an opportunity to treat people you don’t know more fairly and don’t assume everyone is a liar.

[alex_lav]

Lol