You learn a lot more about a candidate by seeing them tackle a reasonably tough problem than you do by pop-quizzing them on language features. Language feature

You learn a lot more about a candidate by seeing them tackle a reasonably tough problem than you do by pop-quizzing them on language features. Language features and "how do I"s can be googled, and can reasonably be learned in the first weeks on the job; a good understanding of algorithms generally requires study, and takes much longer to do well at. Further, even if the algorithm is completely new to them, you can still learn a lot from their problem solving methods. Finally, it shows that they can code. You would be surprised how many people can interview well but cannot actually code. I learned this the hard (and expensive) way several years ago, and since have made coding a central part of the interview. Sure, I probably lose some candidates who think it's "beneath" them, but in all honesty with that kind of attitude they're probably not the ideal hire either.