Hire fast fire fast is by far the best one, should you really need it. A 20 minute technical conversation and then firing within 2-3 weeks if they do not seem self-directed has worked in my experience.

If you can't get someone up to speed with your internal processes fast enough to at least gauge if they're following along that indicates an internal problem.

The problem is, I think, that HR does not want technical staff to see the hires for (probably made up) legal reasons. So the decision is mostly made by people who can't actually gauge competency.

How do you handle the obvious problems of churn and reviews at places like Glassdoor? I can just see it now:

"Interview was weak. They don't know what they're doing."

"Aced the interview. Fired after two weeks. Leadership doesn't know how to hire or manage."

"Never seen a place with so much churn. In the last six months, I've seen at least half a dozen engineers exit after two or three weeks."

Know what raises the level of difficulty for finding candidates? Shit reviews about the company. You can have the best tech but if you have a toxic smell, you can't hire. To the outside, perception is reality and reviews are how you get that perception. You can't do the opposite though and say "J Smith passed interview but we let them go after two weeks because they couldn't do more than pseudo code on a whiteboard." and even if you could, you'd look like a shit company and you'd still have an impossible time hiring but for other reasons.

This idea of quick hire/fire is so bad that all you have to do it go one or two steps further to find the obvious problems. But hey, start a company and use that model. See how it goes. Prove us all wrong.

Low performing folks are ubiquitous and them being let go sounds good to me, would put a plus in their column if I read that.

Yes but the damage that they’ll due to your reputation online will make you have to pay more for better talent. They are going to read the glass door and see your company environment as shit and say “I want an extra 20 grand”

Not to mention the amount of technical debt high turnover causes for tech companies

Not that many people actually get fired in a hire fast fire fast workplace. The whole point of hiring this way is allowing yourself to not overprepare in an aversion to hiring poor talent. When you get a poor performer, you just let them go, but the average is not that bad, and you end up filling your billets faster where another company may not at all.

The opposite is 7 interviews and shedding most of your applicants for trivial reasons. Most businesses can't support that, too much work would go undone and they would stop being competitive.

No question the interview process is akin to testing a marathon runner by their 100m dash time.

I was just talking about to implications of poor company chemistry which stems from lack of trust and job insecurity.

I think the best way to evaluate a person is just to talk to them about their experience and why they do what they do. Passion is a critical indicator

Indeed. I remember interviewing for several positions and could have done them with one hand behind my back. A ~year later they were still trying to fill the position but hadn't.

> Hire fast fire fast is by far the best one, should you really need it.

I can only say that: Oh my gosh do I not want to work for a company that "hires fast and fires fast". For many different reasons.

Working is one thing. What about when you need to get hired and don't have six months to waste? If it weren't for finding a quick place to give me a chance I'd be unemployed.

Fired after 2 weeks if they don't seem self directed? I have been at one place where I didn't even have my laptop in the first two weeks and multiple places where I did not have access to the codebase yet.

Most people except for a few outliers will be fumbling around the first month while they learn the code and the company.

this is rather terrible for people who leave a job to come work for you. Hire fast fire fast only really benefits the employer -and only if they successfully manage to pick up on toxic people that fast. It can take months for someones true colours to show and then in many countries you are past the point you can "fire fast".

All of these are used in the wild at various companies. Maybe these companies are entirely staffed by subpar engineers, but FAANG style whiteboarding is extremely gameable, especially if you know someone in the inside already, but even if you don't and leetcode enough.

I personally suck at pairing interviews but I still think they're some of the most relevant & illuminating- if the problem is easy and you're looking for how the candidate works and communicates.