Agree pretty much completely with this. I don't think I saw this mentioned but another technique that companies use it to subject you to formal tests. Usually

Agree pretty much completely with this. I don't think I saw this mentioned but another technique that companies use it to subject you to formal tests. Usually produced by some 3rd party. I have huge experience with Excel and spreadsheets since Lotus 123 and have worked on and produced some enormously complicated, but successful spreadsheet/VBA solutions. I am almost invariably seen as the resident Excel expert in all the organizations I have been employed, yet have failed a test to prove my Excel "competence" because somehow the Dictionary Object was considered all important by this 3rd party test and yet in 15 years of spreadsheet is never something I touched. I don't doubt that the Dictionary object is very useful in some use-cases but to fail an Excel competence test because some test producer decided to get cute is hardly an indication of real world knowledge and experience with a product. That is just Excel, I shudder to think what a test in C++ would do to even a highly experienced C++ programmer if it decided to explore all the edge cases and obscure gotcha's that exist in C++. This is not to say that some tests cannot be useful - just be very careful of what you are actually testing for and how you are doing it.