It doesn't take much public creativity to stand out as a job candidate

And money. Mostly money, at some times and places. Many examples of ostentatious displays of wealth being discouraged or forbidden. Lots of good reasons for that, social and individual.

e.g. 1 Timothy 2:9.

I'm also the guy that found low hanging fruit in a huge codebase to replace things like frequent linear array lookups with hash table lookups for 10x+ speed improvements in the build process. This is IMO precisely the type of capability that "Oh, that's O(n^2), surely we can do better. Is there any way to do this in O(1)?" is designed to tease out in the interview process. I did it! In a build process effecting 1000+ engineers, used to build for millions of shipped units! But talking about this in an interview makes eyes gloss over as we prepare to move on to sort algorithm trivia, how would I design search, or doubly linked list implementations.

With that said, having a conversation with someone solving a problem right in front of you, gives you a very good insight into how the person thinks. To that end I've censored a lot of pupils where they have to "defend" (i.e. talk about or explain) a piece of code that they made, sometimes beforehand as a bigger project, or sometimes on the fly.

I'd often give them extra problems and talk with them about it as they solved it if I was unsure about the grade. I find that this gives me far more insight in where the pupil is coming from, and hence his level of competence, rather than seeing the code on its own, or having him answer a multiple choice or SAT type test. I can see how an interviewer might make use of a similar technique if he's unsure about the candidate.

Okay well that's a bit surprising.

> But that is not how I personally hire, it's just reality. I'd rather have someone I can work with. In my experience, a lot of big open source contributors are not good colleagues. Are they going to focus on their job or spend their hours in the office working on their passion? Are they going to put their head down and get the work done or write essays debating in a mailing list?

Interesting point that I hadn't really considered because I get paid to do what I want with Linux. That said, I'm not here to argue that open source developers are wonderful or this recruiter should have known who I was or been kissing my feet.

> If we can't even have a conversation about algorithm complexity then there are better ways I can spend my time.

You can in the right setting. I happen to think some companies probably take these to absurd levels that can't be a particularly good filter. But they have millions of applicants and have to filter somehow, so as long as they're up front about the process and treat applicants respectfully as you would any other human, they can do what they like. That's not what I'm complaining about either.

> I really don't think this is true contempt, at least not usually. Recruiters, for better or for worse, vary widely. They are rarely good representations of the rest of the business. They're usually just sharks. A good recruiter is worth their weight in gold. But mostly they're ignorant, greedy, and have no care for you or the company you're interviewing for.

The recruiter was not overtly rude and I'm sure they weren't intending to be contemptuous. I'm guessing the the practices and behaviors are so normalized that they might not even recognize there is any problem. So it's the industry as a whole which has some serious problems I think.

> Look, I'll be honest. I've conducted nearly a thousand interviews. I've hired at FAANGs, unicorns, YC companies. I almost never look at a candidate's resume/CV. If I'm not doing a coding interview and I want you to go into detail about something you worked on, I might take a glance. But otherwise, I actually do not care. I don't have time to peruse your GitHub profile or past projects. I don't even have time. One in a hundred applicants even get interviews, and I'm often interviewing 2-3 times a week. If it's important to you, tell me about it! I'd rather talk to you than read about you! In my experience, the resume/CV/published work is not a strong signal for making a good hire. It sounds like it's already helped you get your foot in the door, I wouldn't recommend expecting it to do anything more.

You don't even read the resumes of the 2-3 people per week you decide to interview? The resume is what the applicant wants to tell you about themselves. If I apply for a job, I would be sure to read the position description and read up a bit about the company, their work and people.

But so long as you're honest and respectful of people, and don't think that your time is more valuable than theirs, each to their own. If you tell them not to spend any effort updating their resume because you prefer to cover it in the interview for example, I don't have a problem with not reading them if that's not how you like to do things. Honesty and respect is all I ask.

> I'm sorry you had a shitty experience with this company, but I encourage you to be humble and give them the benefit of the doubt. Unless they're a tiny, boutique company with a lifestyle or OSS-focused culture, they are busy people. If they don't ask these questions, then more often than not, by the time we're in a room or on a call together it's a waste of both our time.

It wasn't a huge ordeal for me that I'm bitter about. I was just flabbergasted that they thought nothing of taking an hour or so of my time without spending 2 minutes to read my email. They were willing to say anything to try hook me and get me into some process. It's not the right way to treat people even if it is a buyer's market, not even if they're a new graduate or have poor credentials.