I think there are two main problems with software development recruiting:

1) Companies who are not Google or Apple like to read books about Google and Apple, pretend that they are Google or Apple, and imitate recruiting processes that come from Google or Apple. Which doesn't serve them very well, because they are NOT Google or Apple.

2) Candidates who are not "the folks who can walk out of Apple's machine learning department on Friday and into Google's on Monday" like to pretend that they are, congregate on Internet forums with other candidates who also pretend that they are, and exchange interview advice geared toward people who are. Which doesn't serve them very well, because they are NOT.

> Companies who are not Google or Apple like to read books about Google and Apple, pretend that they are Google or Apple, and imitate recruiting processes that come from Google or Apple. Which doesn't serve them very well, because they are NOT Google or Apple.

A million times this. I got rejected from a company because the interviewer decided he didn't like that I used array concatenation to find the correct solution to a problem he gave me. This was for a job at a 100 person company. Companies writing line of business software need to stop acting like they are google.