I know several really, really good programmers with pretty intense anxiety. Automatically ruling them out because of a poorly-formatted interview process would be a big mistake.
I mean, they're people. I'm still close friends with a few of them, and I didn't like some of them. It's no different than working with anybody with a disability or an illness (or kids, or elderly parents, or any of the million other human things that can make you a less-than-full-functionality worker bot) - you make the necessary accommodations, work around issues when they arise, and live with it. Specifically, it involved toning down a bro-y, combative work environment (which was a change that I really appreciated).
I worked with a guy who had pretty bad autism and social issues. He was a great guy to work with, incredibly smart and a really nice guy.
He wasn't going to come to any works nights out or even lunches and like you said certain accomodations have to be made, e.g. access to a private quiet room for him at certain times... Able to work from home when he had to etc.
His father had to go to his interview with him, luckily the company allowed this. We have since gone our seperate ways but wherever he is working now got a great developer. I'd happily work with him again.
You could extend your attitude to any sort of disability couldn't you. Why hire someone in a wheelchair, when there is someone who could walk up the stairs in half the time?
You can take the guy who starts frothing at the mouth when you ask him to code fizzbuzz, I’ll take the wheelchair guy who can code fizzbuzz during the interview. Deal?
In your head and the head of those with extreme anxiety it is quite different. You're meet people who might be nice or not and chat a bit, you answer some questions, maybe there's a free lunch involved, you either get a job offer or you don't and you continue your search, and your life continues on without the sky collapsing
You could say that for almost any job, but somehow you don't see the same hyperbolic whinging in all of those fields, do you? And your claim isn't even true. It's very similar to the kind of code discussion you might have on the job. "How would you solve this?" "What if I try X, Y, and Z?"
This whole thing reminds me of a shitty superhero spoof movie from the 90’s - Mystery Men - one of the characters’ superpower is that he can turn invisible when nobody else is looking and he is naked
Not if you can find others who are just as good. And what's your better suggestion for filtering out people who can't code and not filtering out the good ones with anxiety?
Take-home tests. Lower-stress environments for coding tests - working on their own hardware, working remotely, no panel interviews, no actively combative/aggressive interviews. Also, cool aspect of that: all of these options will make the interview process more appealing for everyone. And if the justification for angry/combative/aggressive interviewing is "well, that's how our culture is", I would say the company has a bigger problem to fix.
But people are already crying over take-home tests being like working for free for the company, and then there's no way to prove they aren't cheating, which is a showstopper. That by itself is definitely not a "better suggestion for filtering out people who can't code".
> all of these options will make the interview process more appealing for everyone.
No for people who can competently handle an onsite interview and don't want hours of extra work at home.
> And if the justification for angry/combative/aggressive interviewing is "well, that's how our culture is", I would say the company has a bigger problem to fix.
Maybe you being so disingenuous makes you feel better, but interviews aren't "angry/combative/aggressive" just because someone asks to see some code on a whiteboard.
I've participated in a lot of interviews on both sides of the process.
In my experience, the whole process goes a lot smoother when there's a take-home exercise. It turns the in-person interview portion into a technical discussion about a recent mini-project unencumbered by NDAs and trade secrets.
If you can't quickly determine if an applicant "cheated" on the take-home exercise through a simple discussion, then you may want to recuse yourself from performing interviews.
If an applicant can't make enough time for an appropriately scoped exercise, I think it's likely they're unqualified or they don't value the opportunity enough to make time. Those are undesirable qualities the recruiting/interview process is intended to filter out.
