I think this is at the core of the problem.<p>As the infamous CodingHorror post points out, an awful lot of programmers can&#x27;t actually program.  That means interviews have to check for more than culture fit.  It also drives extremely high selectivity, and when you know you&#x27;ll be rejecting 90% of your applicants it becomes that much harder to give everyone a smooth and welcoming interview.<p>Of course, none of this deals with the problem that (as Sahat found) many software interviews don&#x27;t actually check for relevant skills.  That&#x27;s just stupid.