[tokipin]

> they're prepared for tasks being assigned to them that exercise those skills and by the end of the half they'll have a deep understanding rather than just a wrote understanding.

I think it's entirely possible to memorize algorithms superficially. These types of interviews are selecting for exactly the type of person that is good at that rote memorization, and are otherwise selecting for a very narrow type of skillset.

It's unreasonable to not expect pathological outcomes with such a rigid system, especially when some people are themselves specialized for the ability to game social systems. Nothing is free. There are always trade offs when choosing one approach over another.

[tokipin]

Well, that's an appeal to authority. It also assumes the companies wouldn't be successful with a different hiring approach. In reality the issue is way too complicated to really break down. These companies operate at a large scale and went through rapid growth spurts, and what they believed was a great way to hire was also an implicit tradeoff they were making for the sake of growth.

I'm sure the companies themselves understand that much, and understand a variety of the tradeoffs involved with the way they hire. What they might not understand is that they are at the exploitation stage of their lifespans. There's an entropy-like process as a company matures and cycles through its workforce which leads it to becoming highly specialized.

My bet is these companies don't understand the various ways in which they're limited, and therefore the ways in which they're limited in filtering candidates. And even if they did, they couldn't really hire any other way now even if they wanted to because they don't have the internal diversity for it, that possibility has long since closed on them.