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 ?