Interviews are a joke and are as useless as randomly selecting people.
I did 14 interviews at Google (two applications, first one after being contacted by them, for second one I contacted them to try again). As far as I could tell, I passed most of them, and for some of them I even provided new, unique solutions that the interviewers were amazed by. That being said, both times I got reject in the last step before the offer without being given any reason why. The only think they told me was that I should learn less from programming books and have more experience actually building things. I have never read a programming book, only learned by doing and had many projects to showcase.
Some interviewers were not even paying attention to what I was saying, seemingly working on something else on their laptops. My recruiter was both times so certain that I would get the job (based on the very positive feedback she received from some of the interviewers) that she started telling me about the relocation process.
Today, 4 years later, I am not mad about it as I got to work in a very cool gaming startup for 2 years and now I run own company where I have created a product used by thousands of webmasters. I am honestly just confused about the process, as I know that I am a top-tier programmer and, based on what others said, a nice person to work with. I guess that ultimately it was their loss, but it's just a machine so no one really cares if X gets the job or not.
Some states have GDPR-like laws that will absolutely allow you to request a copy of your assessment. That can be a good way to know exactly what went short (most companies don't expect this and will get VERY coy about what they wrote, but the law's the law~)
Either way, more interesting is your first line:
> Interviews are a joke and are as useless as randomly selecting people.
I don't have a source, but I read a study once that showed most engineering interview process is roughly as accurate in assessing success as flipping a coin. I didn't look into the methodology, but based on experience I'm willing to believe it.
Other fields don't have that issue because they don't use interviews as a proxy for performance. Either they use portfolios (eg: designers) where you can CLEARLY see the person's skills, either they use credentials (certifications, or just resume). The interview is just to assess those data points and to make sure expectations are clear.
In some fields (eg: trades like carpentry), people will look at the person's history and hire them. Then based on actual performance over the first few months, they may get let go or even demoted. Can you imagine a big tech company DEMOTING a software engineer? Blasphemy! But really, that's the only way to properly assess an employee.
Hire them based on their experience and claimed skills, have clear expectations, adjust after a few months. Then you can give a shot to the person with low experience who claims they "promise to work very very hard and learn quickly". You can have apprenticeships too! And we can save everyone the trouble of silly useless interviews.
I did 14 interviews at Google (two applications, first one after being contacted by them, for second one I contacted them to try again). As far as I could tell, I passed most of them, and for some of them I even provided new, unique solutions that the interviewers were amazed by. That being said, both times I got reject in the last step before the offer without being given any reason why. The only think they told me was that I should learn less from programming books and have more experience actually building things. I have never read a programming book, only learned by doing and had many projects to showcase. Some interviewers were not even paying attention to what I was saying, seemingly working on something else on their laptops. My recruiter was both times so certain that I would get the job (based on the very positive feedback she received from some of the interviewers) that she started telling me about the relocation process.
Today, 4 years later, I am not mad about it as I got to work in a very cool gaming startup for 2 years and now I run own company where I have created a product used by thousands of webmasters. I am honestly just confused about the process, as I know that I am a top-tier programmer and, based on what others said, a nice person to work with. I guess that ultimately it was their loss, but it's just a machine so no one really cares if X gets the job or not.