Basically, for every person that works at some company (say, Google), there is a least one set of employees (the anti-panel) that would reject that person in an interview.

http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/03/get-that-job-at-goog...

Filtering out obviously bad employees is really not an issue. It's the fact that you're asking a committee to do exactly what a committee does worst at: making a decision.

So every interview panel collectively decides that it's best to not make the decision (i.e. reject the candidate). It's the path of least consequence for the members of the panel. If it turns out the hire was bad, they don't look like a bunch of fools.

> it's highly likely that someone on the loop will be unimpressed with you, even if you are Alan Turing.

I fully believe this. The only reason you will ever get hired is because the company is desperate to fill a seat at that particular moment in time. It has zero to do with technical skills, social skills, or anything. It's 100% pure luck.

Almost every tech company is "hiring." These companies don't stop hiring. Hiring being the advertising of positions and the interviewing of candidates. But that does not mean those companies are hiring right now. Or even have positions available for those they are advertising. It's often a big bureaucratic ship that doesn't have the capability of even knowing what their needs are at any given time.