Everybody hates those ridiculous whiteboard-coding tests that people are forced to take in interviews, and for good reason. The main problem is that they tell you absolutely nothing useful. When I'm hiring, I want to hire people who will integrate well with the teams, who have demonstrated their ability to _learn_, who are creative and show some initiative, who can communicate effectively (both in code and in English—I'm in the US). I'm looking for a contributor, not a code monkey. I don't really care if they can pull code out of their heads like a rabbit out of a hat. That's a learnable skill. Software development is primarily a social activity nowadays, so I'm also screening for "soft" skills. The whiteboard tests are telling me that you're hiring somebody to work alone in a cave where you'll throw a slab of meat to them when they get hungry. That's the least effective way to build software and not a skill set worth filtering for.

The best way I know to assess all of that is to put the candidate into a mob/ensemble for a day and have them do real work with a real team (and PAY them to do that—they're out of work; they can use the money). Dump those Mickey Mouse code-writing games into the trash, where they belong.

Source: x.com/allenholub/status/1842629277642015042