I like the fact that this writer ends up discussing how all interviews are really people interviews. Finding out in the interview whether or not a candidate can

I like the fact that this writer ends up discussing how all interviews are really people interviews. Finding out in the interview whether or not a candidate can fit into the team is probably more valuable than finding out their level of technical skill. Also, the blind focus on coding interviews forgets the hiring market. So what if a candidate fumbles in front of the whiteboard. When there are 10 jobs chasing every candidate, you would be better off hiring people who barely demonstrate the technical skill you need, but who fit in the team AND DEMONSTRATE A STRONG DESIRE TO WORK WITH YOU. Employees who have a strong desire to succeed, will learn what is needed for your technical environment, and won't run away for a higher salary after 6 months. People don't really consider the downsides of the whiteboard interview. They often fail miserably on the criteria of dialogue and end up being a candidate's monologue in a room full of silent observers. I've gone through such interviews in which only one of the observers ever spoke, and mostly just hints/reminders about the coding problem. At the end, I knew nothing about the company's technical environment or the way that the team worked. And they knew little to nothing about me and my technical skill. People view whiteboard exercises as a proxy for getting to know the candidate, and in my opinion, this is far from reality. I still see some value in a test about the same level of complexity as FizzBuzz, but only as an opener for an actual dialogue with the candidate about what they are capable of. I think the fascination with whiteboard tests comes from the influx of CS types used to greenfield development into the flood of startup companies doing greenfield development, who were faced with a flood of candidates whose entire previous work experience was in brownfield development. In reality, most of those who failed at the whiteboard tests were competent developers who simply had no experience working with a blank slate Given an existing system, and a feature to be added or a problem to be fixed, they do just fine. And most greenfield companies get to the brownfield stage within months of starting up. In fact, now the industry has become more of a brownfield industry than it was a few years ago and needs more people who can refactor legacy code, or at least cope with the mess. I suspect that the mess would have been less if whiteboard interviews had not become so important because more startups would have hired brownfield developers who could have warned of how quickly technical debt can overwhelm you. Common to see a startup go from startup to legacy big ball of mud in only two years.