We once interviewed a former national [racket sport] champion from [country] for a React/JS SWE role. Our in-house [racket sport] expert, who happens to be the best player among us, was sure they’d ace the coding exercise. The next day, when we asked for his verdict, he gave us a few words: “He sucks. He got absolutely nowhere.”
Lesson learned: extreme talent in one domain not always a predictor of aptitude in another.
It's a good filter for drive/ambition, not immediate talent.
The best grad/intern I have supervised had the least domain knowledge starting out, but was an olympic finalist level swimmer. They were easily the most competent by the end of the graduate rotation.
Unfortunately, they were also annoyingly perky first thing in the morning as they had already been awake and training since 4am.
We once interviewed a former national [racket sport] champion from [country] for a React/JS SWE role. Our in-house [racket sport] expert, who happens to be the best player among us, was sure they’d ace the coding exercise. The next day, when we asked for his verdict, he gave us a few words: “He sucks. He got absolutely nowhere.”
Lesson learned: extreme talent in one domain not always a predictor of aptitude in another.