I would submit that humans cannot easily be ranked from “best” to “worst”; and even the most genuine attempts at doing so will only capture it for a moment in time as both the individuals’ skills and the business’ needs are constantly in flux.
And yeah, I feel you can adequately gauge someone’s skill level across a technical subject area in 4 or 5 simple “how would you” questions. The way they explain it will tell you a lot about their understanding of the subject matter. In the old days (when we were in-person and I was still a technical SME) I would have them use a whiteboard to explain a technical concept to me.
This job is not that hard. I think a lot of companies have an overly fond view of themselves and most of these complex interview processes are for their own ego.
And yeah, I feel you can adequately gauge someone’s skill level across a technical subject area in 4 or 5 simple “how would you” questions. The way they explain it will tell you a lot about their understanding of the subject matter. In the old days (when we were in-person and I was still a technical SME) I would have them use a whiteboard to explain a technical concept to me.
This job is not that hard. I think a lot of companies have an overly fond view of themselves and most of these complex interview processes are for their own ego.