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Comment by danielvaughn | Hacker News Reader

I agree, but the same can be said of any other interview technique. There's no rock solid, reliable way to determine in 30-60 minutes whether a candidate is going to be a good hire. I'm not in favor of whiteboards, but I'm also not necessarily in favor of anything else.

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I'm told that in the early days of the German branch of takeaway.com they would conduct interviews late and invite the interviewee to their after work beer and only hire the person if they thought they would enjoy future beers with them. Obviously only useful to somewhat determine personality but in my experience that is often a better predictor for a good hire than tech skills.

> often a better predictor for a good hire than tech skills

On the other hand, the inability to write a nested for loop is a reliable predictor for a bad hire.

That is an unprofessional, abusive way to treat job applicants. It's going to filter out those who don't drink or who have evening family obligations. Any hiring manager who engages in these shenanigans should be ashamed of themselves. And in the USA at least, they could potentially be exposing the company to legal jeopardy.

I think the biggest issue with this is that you leave yourself open to bias. The person you're most likely to enjoy food/drinks with is the person you're most likely to be friends with. You'll end up with teams hiring via popularity, and possibly excluding those from other cultures or who have different personality traits.

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