The style you propose probably has a high correlation with intelligence and adaptability without requiring too much upfront knowledge / experience. It's open en

The style you propose probably has a high correlation with intelligence and adaptability without requiring too much upfront knowledge / experience. It's open enough to allow for mistakes or answers which show intelligence without requiring perfection. Comparatively, LC-style interviews and "do you know the compiler of this language"-style questions are looking more for knowledge than figuring things out on the spot. Knowledge generally isn't a great indicator of future job performance, intelligence is. There might be some correlation between the two (you probably need a level of intelligence to acquire the knowledge for LC-style questions), but most jobs are layering proxy upon proxy to test something that has little to do with job performance. Being able to fuddle syntax or search basic solutions and mutate, is leagues different from what LC in an isolated environment is. Then you add onto that the alternatives tend to be even worse. Personality testing works when done right, but the vast majority of interviewers play pretend-psychiatrist and make the entire thing way too subjective to be effective beyond filtering obvious red flags. Take-homes work, but most companies won't compensate for time and there's no framework to show which take-homes individuals have succeeded (kind of like a certification process), making them an incredible time sink. And then there are always the cases who have little experience yet manage to pick everything up in 2-3 months and become anywhere from average to top performers.