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I wonder how he knows what they're downgrading him for? Most interview processes don't give the candidate any feedback - just "hire" or "no hire".

From the other side, I certainly don't expect perfect code on a whiteboard, especially if they're typical mistakes that even experienced coders sometimes make.

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> I wonder how he knows what they're downgrading him for?

She. And yes, probably she knows. One usually has the feeling which part of the interview they fail.

Oh I always know why I'm being downgraded. During whiteboard coding sessions, I often need hints. But given these hints, I get to the answer most of the time. In this economy, everyone is looking for "A" players. My blog post says that. "Today’s interviews seem heavily geared toward software engineers who rarely need to look stuff up. Those who code at an alarmingly rapid rate, who get complex code compiled and running the first time around.". So sorry, but this does not describe me. Nor does it describe the majority of good programmers out there ! But interviews do seem to screen for these whiz kids. Joel Spolsky said it right -- top notch "A" player software engineers don't apply for jobs. They don't need to. Jobs find them. But does this mean that B or B+ players are utterly worthless and unemployable ?

It doesn't, and am against sorting people into A, B etc buckets at all. Nor am a big fan of interview puzzles in principle. Looking at how my grandparent post sunk though, seems like an opposite came across to a number of people.

Good luck to you with job search.

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