What exactly are you suggesting here? A standardized test that applies to all your job applications? Or, a candidate having to drive to a test center for every company they apply to? Or something else?

I have done interviews with Karat which just outsources technical interviews to engineers elsewhere.

All of these technical interviews still suck though! I basically never code with someone watching me and find it very difficult to do in interviews. I also find it hard to find the time to actually practice this skill

Im revisiting technical interview prep because it has been awhile and it seems like a good time for a refresher, and it is striking how similar it all is to SAT and GMAT prep these days. A pretty cookie-cutter performance that is mostly about demonstrating that you have the time and means to properly prepare. Might as well just go the extra step at that point and have it be exactly like those standardized tests… take them once at a test center, get a score that is valid for a few years that you can just send in with your application…

That maybe end up happening. Send them to a test center to do their remote hacker rank interview. Doesn’t even need to be standardized. I don’t like it but it’s one of the lower friction options.

In the US and Canada, to get into university, there is, or at least used to be, a standard entrance exam or something close to it (the SAT in the US, OAC scores if you were from Ontario, Canada, etc..).

Additionally, Undergraduate programs in the US and Canada, at least used to, despite their varied reputation, have a pretty standard program.

Maybe things have deteriorated so far at the high school and university level that new standardized exams are needed. But we also have a plethora of verifiable certifications whose exams are held in independent test facilities.

Another commenter on this called it “Licensing” but it’s more like credentialing to me.