My observation is that a lot of interviews come down to "stump the chump" questions; a question that is meant to show a single issue the interviewee has under t

My observation is that a lot of interviews come down to "stump the chump" questions; a question that is meant to show a single issue the interviewee has under their belt and is used to gauge the entirety of the interviewer's ability. Math puzzles/logic puzzles are in the same category: they require domain knowledge that probably doesn't translate to any job I've ever worked on. That aside, one must have a way to measure the abilities of a candidate -- and asking the same set of questions to many people allows you to compare the answers as apples to apples. I generally don't restrict my people from asking any particular question, but I will ask them to consider what a failed answer really means for the specific job (questions are generally adjusted then). As an aside, some questions of mine that aren't specifically about coding: * do you code outside of work (a love of coding translates to good coders) * send me a link to some code you've written that you are proud of (let see what you got) * tell me about a problem you had where your solution wasn't correct (how have you dealt with failure).