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Comment by Apocryphon | Hacker News Reader

All of these recurring interview threads makes me wonder: why are there only two interview preparation-focused boot camps right now? (Outco and Interview Kickstart)

It’s one thing to take an algorithms course, and it’s another to excel at competitive programming, and still another to use those skills on the spot in an interview. Surely like any other admissions process, one can train for technical interviews in a group setting.

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The point that is being made by the original post is that the process is bad in many companies especially when hiring senior engineers who have a proven track record and have other options. These engineers don't want to spend time and money learning how to crack the coding interview in some bootcamp. They can find work and are put off by the process some companies use and such companies are missing out on good people. Suggesting bootcamps for leetcode and whiteboarding as a solution misses the point as these are not great interview practices.

They definitely aren’t, but I wonder if their existence will force big tech employers to realize their interviewing process is being gamed and is even more of a sham.

I think it's ok for big tech companies to do this (from their point of view) because they have an endless list of candidates and don't care too much if many good people are put off or fail. They will get good people through the sheer volume of people applying and these processes do get good people if you can afford false negatives.

I think the middle and smaller companies need to change their processes more. If they just copy what the large companies do without understanding they don't have the same ability to attract candidates and pay high salaries they will just lose good people that they actually really need.

There should be courses to fix HR. The candidates already know what they need to do and would get hired if not for the endless bullshit.

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