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Comment by akudha | Hacker News Reader

It is not about not knowing some topic. I am myself an average programmer on my best day and I don't expect candidates to be genius level thinkers. It is the lying, the making stuff up on the spot - like what are they thinking? The blatant arrogance and callousness towards the person/people interviewing them. How hard can it be to say "I don't know" or "I don't use this concept in my daily tasks, but let me try to explain from memory" or something like that?

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This is in fact one of my two requirements when interviewing: I want to hear the candidate say "I don't know" to a question. The other is that I want to hear them talk passionately about some project they once did. Bullshitting is an immediate fail.

You sound incisive :)

It's hard in the moment, but we'd do well to appreciate that not passing a myopic screen is likely a blessing.

Same. When I'm on a panel interviewing developers (as a developer myself), I don't actually care if you meet the specific listed qualifications directly, I want you to answer in ways that demonstrate how you think to prove to me that you can solve the problems the role needs. I don't want someone who can memorize a study guide, I want someone who can problem solve and think critically.

Each time I've gotten my way it turned out to be a great decision. When I've acquiesce to "but they knew all my java trivia questions" it's been a bad choice.

ho boy, I wish I were interviewed by more people like you. I never know what the hell is going on and it's almost impossible to get me to shut up about my stupid projects.

There is also small computer systems interface or SCSI.

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