While I think the focus on knowing undergraduate level algorithms verbatim and gotcha riddles are silly and a waste of time, they're exaggerations of very usefu

While I think the focus on knowing undergraduate level algorithms verbatim and gotcha riddles are silly and a waste of time, they're exaggerations of very useful techniques. Something like fizz buzz is simple enough and trips up a surprising number of people that were able to talk their way into the interview. Puzzles allow you to assess their critical thing skills without letting them get caught up in semantics that tends to happen if you make it about programming (too many questions about libraries, coding style, etc). An immediate answer, even if correct, tells you nothing because it was something they memorized. I'm much more interested in how they assess and approach--I don't even care if they come up with an answer. Completely unstructured interviews seem to be meandering and often you walk away with gaps in your assessment. This approach is only really applicable to jobs where those skills are needed and isn't the whole interview.