Against The Whiteboard

Coders are regularly asked to jump through bizarre hoops in job interviews, and perhaps the most notorious example of this is that programmers are often asked to implement algorithms or complex coding structures in the artificial environment of a conference room whiteboard. 

Needless to say, that contrived requirement has started to engender a bit of deserved criticism.

So why do we even have whiteboard coding tests as part of job interviews for programmers?

It turns out, the point of this entire exercise was to inspire a thoughtful conversation with a candidate about the way they solve problems.

It is an idea that originated in the early 2000s. The whole area of tech recruiting was even more of a mess than it is today, and the idea of focusing on how a candidate solves real coding problems represented a huge leap forward in making interviews much more pragmatic and relevant.