Credentialing in software probably has a really short half life. I agree with the comment about how insanely inefficient it is though! I have this near conspir

Credentialing in software probably has a really short half life. I agree with the comment about how insanely inefficient it is though! I have this near conspiracy theory about why the interviewing process includes such ridiculous things as balancing red black trees. Like every other regulation/tax, the propagation of crazy ideas about interviewing practices is really self serving for the tech giants. In a large orgy of stupidity, companies which can neither afford the impedance of nor are particularly good at these CS type questions mimic the practices because they are probably trying to show that they have a high bar. Unfortunately, the multi-billion dollar companies can churn through the candidate selection process and waste more money in the process than many other companies' annual revenue. But I am sure they realize the halo effect of making a great deal of noise about this practice, because this is one of those strategies with very little downside and all kinds of unintended upside. If I were a recruiter at one of the top 10 companies, I would spend half my time creating fictitious accounts on various social platforms to ask about the CS question du jour at these interviews. It would be the equivalent of click fraud in tech job search. On a more serious note, I wonder if companies trying to hire these employees ever really do a cost analysis of the interview process itself? At what point does it stop making sense to "just wait till we get that truly exceptional candidate"?