Well, I'd disagree with at least two of your premises: 1) That the proposer of the question often understands the job. (by which i mean, in real world intervi

Well, I'd disagree with at least two of your premises: 1) That the proposer of the question often understands the job. (by which i mean, in real world interviews. I'm not commenting on the specific poster). 2) I am not saying that I couldn't do the question, per se. On the contrary, my professional work shows not only that I can do the question, but that I've probably done it innumerable times and to the standard of (and sometimes greater than) other professionals. The subtext of my response to the bond question shows that, in an absolute juvenile sense, I "know" the answer that's being looked for because I've notionally been trained as en economist. Which is to say, I am aware of the rote learned current models/theory. I'm saying that I probably couldn't answer it in the interview environment in the way that most interviewers would deem "acceptable" or "right". Why? Because I both haven't memorized Bayes theorem, and wouldn't accept there as being a simple probabilistic interpretation applicable to real world problems. Now its true, I could probably attempt to re-derive it there in the interview from some even more basic understandings of probability, but is that what interviewers want? I'd almost certainly offer the answer of "Can i look at the two sides of the coin?" or "the probability is either 0 or 1". And then we'd go down the path of probability interpretations, and then only after they made it clear that they wanted a Bayesian approach, we could start heading in that direction. Is that what they're looking for? I don't think it is. But they are all valid responses. I think they want someone who has remembered Bayes and its application recently and then just applied it. I think in the bond question, they want someone who has rote learnt some economic/finance theory. And I think the worst aspect is that the stronger candidate, who pauses, who thinks, who questions, and who doesn't just go down the regurgitated answer will probably, in real life, be marked as the weaker candidate. And I'm also saying this as someone who is already employed, being paid and and working professionally on things the questions are supposed to be screening for. So while the original poster is in a position of authority to speak of such things, so am I. Are you familiar with Project Euler? I've completed many of those problems as well, but I would never expect myself or some other candidate to be able to do them spontaneously in said interview, or think worse of them if they couldn't. And if they could do them, I don't think that would be an indicator of very much more than the fact that they happened to be working on said problem recently, had just taken a course on said problem, or had just been doing interview questions for my field.