20 year recovering recruiter here (now more focused on providing services to help job seekers). I think at least some of the animosity job seekers have for rec

20 year recovering recruiter here (now more focused on providing services to help job seekers). I think at least some of the animosity job seekers have for recruiters is that they may feel recruiters are designing these types of esoteric interview questions and exercises. The overwhelming majority of recruiters are entirely incapable of designing them because they lack the technical skills (myself included). The recruiter is primarily responsible for identifying a (hopefully) qualified candidate and managing the hiring process along to ensure the "candidate experience" doesn't get in the way of a hire being made. The recruiter might be just as frustrated with that hiring process and the methods as the candidate, but probably has little control over it. If we want to end these types of interviews, the people to change them are engineering managers. If the engineering manager wanted to end whiteboard exercises and trivial questions on minute details, I assure you the recruiter wouldn't be against it.