I'm not convinced they correlate with years of experience. In fact they may well inversely correlate. I give a relaxed algorithm design screen to candidates (of

I'm not convinced they correlate with years of experience. In fact they may well inversely correlate. I give a relaxed algorithm design screen to candidates (of which roughly 70% pass -- I'm a soft touch) that include a problem that is mildly academic in nature. New grads are the ones that tell me they already know it and I have to move on to the next problem (which, amusingly, they never have experience with). Experience people often have a vague recollection of what it does, but not enough of a recollection to prevent me from learning something from the discussion about how to get it done.