> To see this more clearly, consider interviewing a pilot. After establishing basic bona fides, it would be reasonable to ask the candidate about what to do in various emergency situations. Emergency situations aren’t representative of the daily work of flying, but safety is important so nobody would accuse such an interviewer of asking irrelevant questions.
Minor nit about what is really a pretty good post. This paragraph sounds quite reasonable to this non-pilot, but do you notice what it doesn't say? It doesn't tell you whether pilots are actually interviewed this way.
Here's an actual example I know of, though it's not making the point the author wants to make. At an old job, every so often, a guy used to wander over from the other side of the yard and ask us to cut a few random pieces of pipe. We then carried them across the yard for a candidate pipe welder to weld them. If the welds looked good, they'd probably hire the candidate. It was pretty close to actual work you'd do, and the results seemed ok.
I'm sure there are examples that would suit his point and be real, not just speculation.
Oral exams are part of certification for pilots. Additionally, pilots have to keep log books so you can simply examine their history and progress. So, repeating that during a job interview is kind of redundant because either they are certified and current, or not. For software engineers, certifications are kind of meaningless. I actually treat them as a red flag because in my experience it's not so great consultants that tend to overemphasize certifications in their CVs to cover up that they haven't done a lot of great projects. Usually, this is obvious from their CVs.
I've been on both sides of the table for technical interviews. If we're talking, that means CVs and linkedin & github profiles were scrutinized, etc. and we're now moving to the phase where we are going to mutually find out whether there's a basis for working together. Part of that is quickly verifying those things were accurate; but most of it is simply eliminating any red flags: any obvious reasons you should not hire someone.
I usually focus on just getting people to talk about what they've recently been doing and getting them to talk about things that they are interested in technically.
When I'm interviewed myself, I mentally reverse the roles. I already know I'm good enough; the interview is about determining whether the company is good enough for me. I've declined offers because of how the interview went or because I realized the interviewer would not have gotten past my own red flags: I'd never hire them.
This attitude works well on both sides of the table. Would I want to work for me based on how I'm behaving? Is my behavior making them more or less enthusiastic about working for me? Part of an interview is that its a sales job. Imagine you get an excellent candidate and that they have multiple job offers: how do you make them pick you?
Actually the pilot anecdote is nonsense. Emergency procedures are part of the procedures you're supposed to be able to execute, typically in a simulator.
A stronger anecdote would be asking an airline pilot to fly an aerobatic maneuver in an airliner like an outside loop or aileron roll.
(There are only a couple of aerobatic maneuvers done in an airliner. For example, when power is stuck at full throttle or the elevator forces the plane to climb, a quarter aileron role can be done for recovery.)
Minor nit about what is really a pretty good post. This paragraph sounds quite reasonable to this non-pilot, but do you notice what it doesn't say? It doesn't tell you whether pilots are actually interviewed this way.
Here's an actual example I know of, though it's not making the point the author wants to make. At an old job, every so often, a guy used to wander over from the other side of the yard and ask us to cut a few random pieces of pipe. We then carried them across the yard for a candidate pipe welder to weld them. If the welds looked good, they'd probably hire the candidate. It was pretty close to actual work you'd do, and the results seemed ok.
I'm sure there are examples that would suit his point and be real, not just speculation.