> It doesn't make much sense if they're looking for someone who can do the actual job, in my opinion. FAANG (& similar) have more applicants who can do the job

> It doesn't make much sense if they're looking for someone who can do the actual job, in my opinion. FAANG (& similar) have more applicants who can do the job than they have positions, so instead of checking for that and calling it a day, they filter for some combination of IQ and how bad you want it—willing to do a ton of otherwise-low-value prep work & practice, and to go through the painful interview process itself, likely several times at different companies, even for successful candidates. The reputation of their interviews also means they likely don't get a ton of candidates who can't do the job. So they could likely just start randomly selecting from their candidate pool and do damn near as well as they do with all the interview effort—except as soon as that become known, they wouldn't be able to do that anymore. Plus they'd lose the hazing factor, which likely helps build company in-group identity. Having a lot of your employees feel like they only have their job because the finally got "lucky" in an interview may also help with retention, especially when everyone else who pays as much interviews in similar ways. In a sense, being a huge, unpleasant waste of time is the whole point of their interview processes.