Using proxies for competence is a slippery slope towards misdirection and irrelevance - and as a result, incorrect hiring decisions.

In another thread today, someone mentioned they reject every CV that has two typos or more. It's a proxy, and it is irrelevant for the job.

Once you start going down the path of proxies, you add more and more far removed ones. To keep hiring performance high, resist adding the first proxy. Actually ask questions relevant to past work experience that maps to the actual job. Maybe do work samples.

To circle back to the two questions in the blog post, no interviewer can answer them because they use proxies too far removed.