In general it's very difficult to interview in a way that would give insight into previous work experiences at a practical level. Every interviewee will have th

In general it's very difficult to interview in a way that would give insight into previous work experiences at a practical level. Every interviewee will have their own unique experiences and even though they may all have similar backgrounds, designing an interview question that would be general enough to gain insight into all of their experiences is nearly impossible. I've interviewed at places that attempt this and I've never felt that it worked out the way they were intending it too. They usually become too specific to the ideas/experiences of the person who designs the question. I think algorithm and data structure problems can be useful if used correctly. I think the main issue is that most companies tend to use leetcode style problems which are a bit more on the brain-teaser side and are often usually harder to solve if you haven't spent a significant amount of time solving such problems. These questions might make sense for super competitive positions at places like Google where they can afford to reject good candidates, but at most companies it doesn't make sense. I think simple problems that involve working with the same data types required at the job would suffice. The purpose of the question should be to screen out candidates who can't solve them, not to judge how good they are.