> You don’t seem to have thought very hard about what employers are optimising for.
Have you ever seen a hiring process that's simply not effective?
The undercurrent of this irks me a bit. It assumes a kind of omniscience on part of the employer, and enough time for them to develop a good interview process. I think this is really hard to do.
I think you're generally right. And a lot of the time, employers are empathetic, pragmatic, self-aware and really are doing us a favor when they deny us. Some take into account I-O psychology stuff, too.
I (and others probably) are eager to hear what companies you feel do a good job at hiring.
> Everyone realises that programming interviews produce lots of false negatives.
Let's assume a bad scenario. A company can disregard evidence of competency, like having a portfolio, to basically have a rolling, year round tech Olympiad. To them, it's about fronting as a strong candidate in events, even at the expense of being good at the role.
You can be a pro at pole vault or discus throwing, but a poor carpenter. But there's a mentality out there - with some - that a strong, fit candidate can handle any technical challenge.
Can a chemist be a great chef? I bet, I also bet some could overthink and/or overengineer preparing a simple meal. Does the interview process do anything to check for soft skills, like curiosity, simplicity, etc? Hopefully.
> The goal is minimizing false positives. Failing to hire a strong candidate carries a much lower cost than hiring someone who can’t do the job.
I think some companies - not all - can create a "squid game" contest out of candidates. Worse, I feel candidates can unduly suffer and be humiliated in these cases.
The company gets a superb interviewer, who is no doubt a very intelligent person, but not necessarily one that can adapt to technical reality, contingencies, ambiguities, etc. Some interview processes end up focusing on theoretical and rote knowledge, not integration and synthesis, when they deeply need that. Turnover happens.
But we're back to the beginning, did the company: 1. really know what they needed for that position, 2. interview process check for that? My guess is when you wrote that you were assuming situations where both were true?