I have hired people as well, any capable engineer is able to prove its worth in a couple technical interviews at most. And no, I'm not talking about "inverting the tree" and similar bs, give them a real-life problem that your business usually encounters, let them do their thing, observe, ask questions.
I worked for a company that was building wireless infrastructure for a big region, the engineers we hired like this were great and stayed for years, some of them had no real education or a chaperone, still, they performed and that's all we cared about.
> I have hired people as well, any capable engineer is able to prove its worth in a couple technical interviews at most.
There is so much more to being a good employee than just the ability to demonstrate technical aptitude. How do they handle a crisis, how well do they cooperate with other employees, how's their work ethic, how diplomatic is their communication? The aspect of the engineers you hired which you chose to highlight was that they stayed for years - how did them solving a technical problem give you insight into their long term personal life plans?
I've seen countless brilliant engineers who I would never in a million years hire. I'd much rather teach a good employee how to be a good engineer than teach a good engineer how to be a good employee.
Last time I managed a team, the worst employee was technically brilliant. He was a former professor at a good university.
He basically went off and did his own thing, mostly unrelated to what the rest of the organization wanted or needed. He disregarded corporate policy, including in ways which might have exposed us to liability. For example, we deal with highly-sensitive, regulated personal information. He copied files onto his own laptop, where he also downloaded and ran warez he found on sketchy web sites. That was the tip of a very deep iceberg.
I think I spent more than half of my management time on issues related to him.
He left for a different team within the org, and later, left the organization. He's now at a FAANG, analysing sensitive personal information.
I'm not surprised he passed their interview process. There might even be a good spot for him there, but NOT dealing with sensitive, personal information.
I have hired people as well, any capable engineer is able to prove its worth in a couple technical interviews at most. And no, I'm not talking about "inverting the tree" and similar bs, give them a real-life problem that your business usually encounters, let them do their thing, observe, ask questions.
I worked for a company that was building wireless infrastructure for a big region, the engineers we hired like this were great and stayed for years, some of them had no real education or a chaperone, still, they performed and that's all we cared about.
Your method seems just lazy, honestly.