Technical Interviews Reject the Wrong Engineers

Technical interviews often reject good engineers due to flawed methods. Common practices like whiteboard tests measure anxiety, not skill. Pair programming interviews lack collaborative trust. Personality tests like MBTI are unethical and unreliable; growth mindset measures have negligible predictive power. Big Five personality traits offer modest but validated insights. The Dreyfus model explains why expert candidates may appear less articulate, leading to rejection by competent interviewers. Bias, ego, and cognitive shortcuts (like Dunning-Kruger and confirmation bias) distort evaluations. Google found no link between interview scores and job performance. The FATE framework (Feedback, Accuracy, Time, Effort) helps assess interview quality. Business scenario interviews that test domain knowledge are more effective than abstract algorithm puzzles.