Problem is, these algorithm based reinventing the wheel exercises don't filter out bad candidates. Being good at these has no relevance in 99% of companies. We

Problem is, these algorithm based reinventing the wheel exercises don't filter out bad candidates. Being good at these has no relevance in 99% of companies. We give candidates a take home exercise which is a simplified version of our business domain. We look for clean, readable, well tested OO code. We had to turn down a CS PhD because their solution didn't meet any of these criteria (no tests, for example). Were we to do algorithm trivia instead, they would have passed with flying colours and we'd be burdened with unmaintainable code.