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People ask algorithms questions not because they are relevant, but because they are a good proxy for your abilities. Well, at least they are perceived to be a

• georgieporgie 15y ago
  Right, that's my point. It become sort of a cargo cult of candidate selection by people who don't actually understand what they want or need.
  • lars8128 15y ago
    I suspect a "cargo cult" for hiring is not what rguzman meant. Rather, algorithm skills are one of the best signals you can extract from a short interview. I've always found them to be much better at predicting a candidate's ability to do the job than anything else I could ask in 45 minutes. That may mean I'm a poor interviewer, but until I can figure out better questions to ask, I'm happy to use this signal since in my experience it works well.
    • georgieporgie 15y ago
      That may mean I'm a poor interviewer Not at all. It means that humans are complex and ranking them is extremely difficult. My issue is with the fact that I've met too many very smart people who can prattle on about Big-O and optimal architectures for hours, but when it comes time to get dirty and finish a job, they lose interest, produce unmaintainable, over-engineered nightmares, and/or turn out not to actually understand the platform well enough to execute a clean solution.