[jmillikin]

I think you misread my post. Rejecting 99% of interview candidates would provide a result of hiring the top 10% of coders, because 90% of the interview candidates cannot write code. Hiring the top 1% requires rejecting 99.9% of candidates.

You're assuming that other levels of screening (resumes, phone screens) must not be working properly if there are so many bad interview candidates, but really they're working very well. A large company will receive millions of applications for any position, and needs to winnow that down to a few hundred interview candidates. How many nines of rejection do you expect out of a phone screen?

[rizzom5000]

I don't disagree with anything you're saying, but I expect a baseline phone screen session to reject someone who cannot FizzBuzz.

Is that so hard to accomplish without inviting someone in for an interview ? I cannot answer in the affirmative as I do not work in HR.

[mseebach]

I think what is meant is that 90% are rejected at the phone screen, and the top 10% or 1% are of those who can code, ie passes the phone screen. That makes them 1% or 0.1% of your initial applicant pool.