Small companies don&#x27;t have to filter thousands of candidates, and can innovate around how they hire. They have to be like moneyball.<p>Big companies whiteboard because that&#x27;s how it started, everyone who works there knows how to whiteboard, and you can argue that it&#x27;s correlated with skills used in development. They don&#x27;t have time to pair program. They can afford to throw away people who could be good based on their arbitrary metrics.<p>Startups can make innovating around hiring a selling point to candidates.  They can talk to candidates about what sort of process would best demonstrate their skills and be in their comfort zone.  They can look at non traditional candidates based on github accounts or OS contributions. They want people who can deliver.<p>Google&#x27;s hiring innovations are more likely to be small steps.  By being agile, startups can get ahead of them.<p>As to what best practices are, behavioral interviews that ask people what they would do in a particular situation are correlated with job skills.  So is actual work, so paying someone to work for you, or perhaps even volunteering to help them with something by pairing, may give you insight into them.