I wonder if he didn&#x27;t like you because you didn&#x27;t look like a hipster....<p>I&#x27;m totally serious: I really wonder how many of these baffling interview experiences where seemingly highly-qualified candidates get turned down is really about non-technical and non-work-related factors, but no one wants to actually admit it.  How much of it is due to personal biases by the interviewers, who may discriminate against people for various reasons?  A lot of people want to surround themselves with people just like themselves, so if you have a company full of hipsters wearing fedoras and someone comes in for an interview and they don&#x27;t look like that, they could easily be passed over because they&#x27;re &quot;not a fit for our company culture&quot;.<p>I don&#x27;t think I&#x27;m half as competent as the guy who wrote this article, but I&#x27;ve had a much easier time getting jobs in general.  My background isn&#x27;t even CS, it&#x27;s EE, so I totally suck at all the algorithm questions.  But OTOH I generally apply for embedded programming positions where knowledge of algorithms isn&#x27;t that important anyway.  I even interviewed at Google (one of their recruiters contacted me) and had pretty much the same experience as him; I won&#x27;t waste my time with that company again.  A bunch of recruiters have tried to get me to interview at Bloomberg LP, but I would never work in that crappy open-plan environment that they&#x27;re infamous for.  But I frequently wonder how much of my success is just from being tall and in-shape, not having any obvious personality quirks, and &quot;fitting in&quot; with the look and the company culture (I interview with more stodgy places, not places with hipsters with arm-sleeve tattoos), rather than due to my technical proficiency.