While I think paring has some value, someone is not going to be productive in an environment that they just came into, tribal knowledge such as business intelligence has not set in and there are acronyms, business realities and other common knowledge elements that this person will be just exposed to and have to deal with. Some of that information is garnered over the course of months so depending on the problem domain, a single afternoon could tell you very little about the candidate. I contend that with today's reality (2.7% tech unemployment) that it is more expensive to accidentally pass on a good developer due to bad interviewing techniques than it is to hire a bad developer. A bad developer is spotted within a week on the job, a good developer can easily be passed over in an interview, it may be a long time before another good developer comes through the door. Especially considering that good developers usually have groups of peers, that probably will not interview with a company if they pass on one a peer that they respect.
You've made at least a half dozen good points in this thread. I wish you'd write a longer piece on the topic and post it. This stuff is important, and you seem to be a bit ahead of the curve (or maybe it's just that I agree with you).
I am passionate about the subject because, I used to be really bad at interviewing people. I took a lot of reflection on what I was doing wrong and to be honest some ego issues on my own part, when I was younger. When I started evaluation what I was doing wrong and what other people where doing right I started to see a common trends among those that are effective at hiring and a common trend among those that where complaining about talent. Once I started doing what the effective hiring managers where doing, I began to be able to spot true talent. I don't think I have misidentified talent since that realization, nor have I had a false positive.
I thank you for the encouragement, and I have thought about putting together an article on the subject. I think the information is valuable and could be of use to a lot of people. I will see if I can free up some time to put one together.
Thanks, I have dyslexia so that would be a great help, it is one of the reasons that I am hesitant to write articles and one of the reasons I post prolifically, writing is a challenge that I must always exercise to keep my ability to do so.
