Every time this comes up, I find it quite depressing how everyone becomes so self-centered. Half the comments here are along the lines of: I'm good at X, but bad at Y, so X is a better way to judge programmers than Y and if you do Y, your process is broken because I'm awesome despite being bad at Y.
Another small fraction of the comments are: I don't care if you can't do X despite being good or won't do Y because it's a big hassle - the bug is a feature and it filters out people who are not into our instasnapsocialmobileresponsiveapp. Get real guys, no one's that into you, some people are just desperate. Pretending that you're some prestigious company where everyone wants to work doesn't make it so - you have to earn it and if you get there, you won't have to pretend because you'd get so many resumes that you'll be forced come up with a quick way to be selective.
The secret to hiring is just like what pg said about the secret to VC investing - get better at distinguishing good programmers from bad ones so that you don't need to waste so much of everyone's time to make a decision. Being indecisive, after being clearly presented with enough information is a sign of incompetence.
Another small fraction of the comments are: I don't care if you can't do X despite being good or won't do Y because it's a big hassle - the bug is a feature and it filters out people who are not into our instasnapsocialmobileresponsiveapp. Get real guys, no one's that into you, some people are just desperate. Pretending that you're some prestigious company where everyone wants to work doesn't make it so - you have to earn it and if you get there, you won't have to pretend because you'd get so many resumes that you'll be forced come up with a quick way to be selective.
The secret to hiring is just like what pg said about the secret to VC investing - get better at distinguishing good programmers from bad ones so that you don't need to waste so much of everyone's time to make a decision. Being indecisive, after being clearly presented with enough information is a sign of incompetence.