Coding problems in interviews can be a put off for me (though not a complete turn off if everything else about the job looks good).
1. It shows unfamiliarity with my work. It seems rude to invite me all the way into your office just to be filtered. In a perfect world (or at least the one I knew some years ago) I'd be invited into an interview because you were already familiar with my work and wanted to talk to me -- not just to see if I was worth talking to in the first place.
2. Anxiety. I don't operate normally under conditions where everything I say is being evaluated.
3. They can be easily regurgitated.
4. They don't really tell you anything unless you know what you're asking for. I've been in interviews for web development positions where we started getting into the finer details of C++, sorting algorithms, and file system implementations. These are positions where I was being asked to write web applications in Python. I've been writing web applications in Python for years -- I don't think I've ever actually needed to implement a file system or even write a sort routine (tim sort is pretty good and most sorting in web apps is done by search engines or rdbms's anyway).
The problem is most people seem to think that since Google does it, they should do it too. However, if you don't know how to ask the right questions, you're just going to waste everyone's time. My time has been wasted in interviews as the interviewee. Boring technical questions that lead no-where and have little to do with the relevant skills for the job; often just for the sake of asking technical questions and appearing smart. Anyone can do that even if you yourself don't know the answers.
In a perfect world you wouldn't need to look at my resume to remember my name when I walk in the door. You wouldn't need to bother "screening" me. You want me to be there to meet me and see if I'm the right fit for the job.
But I also understand that businesses get a mountain of resumes and that some large portion of them just aren't worth looking at. It'd be nice if there was some way that you could at least know where to look in the pile for relevant resumes. That way you could spend less time screening (how draconian sounding) and more time interviewing. Sounds like a problem some decent software could solve...
My company is currently in the middle of a lot of college recruiting. Most college students/recent grads have very little to show. If you're lucky they had the forethought to save some of their school projects and post them online.
Even a lot of industry people don't have much to show. Plenty of decent programmers don't have serious side projects (or aren't comfortable releasing them to the public).
As for regurgitated answers, I keep my eye out for those. You can usually tell if someone has seen a similar problem before. If I think they have I ask them. I sometimes ask a different question to see if it was raw ability or familiarity.
They do tell you a lot. They tell you whether the candidate can actually write basic code or not. I'm not trying to see if you are a great programmer, I'm trying to see if you are a bad programmer. It can be really difficult to spot a great programmer, but it's usually very easy to spot a bad one.
Anxiety is a real problem however. I try to take that into account but it affects so many people in so many different ways.
Personally I think resume's are worthless. I think the best form of application would involve some form of code submission - either a simple "screener" problem or perhaps a personal project. That might still be followed by an on-site screening interview (people lie and cheat all the time).
1. It shows unfamiliarity with my work. It seems rude to invite me all the way into your office just to be filtered. In a perfect world (or at least the one I knew some years ago) I'd be invited into an interview because you were already familiar with my work and wanted to talk to me -- not just to see if I was worth talking to in the first place.
2. Anxiety. I don't operate normally under conditions where everything I say is being evaluated.
3. They can be easily regurgitated.
4. They don't really tell you anything unless you know what you're asking for. I've been in interviews for web development positions where we started getting into the finer details of C++, sorting algorithms, and file system implementations. These are positions where I was being asked to write web applications in Python. I've been writing web applications in Python for years -- I don't think I've ever actually needed to implement a file system or even write a sort routine (tim sort is pretty good and most sorting in web apps is done by search engines or rdbms's anyway).
The problem is most people seem to think that since Google does it, they should do it too. However, if you don't know how to ask the right questions, you're just going to waste everyone's time. My time has been wasted in interviews as the interviewee. Boring technical questions that lead no-where and have little to do with the relevant skills for the job; often just for the sake of asking technical questions and appearing smart. Anyone can do that even if you yourself don't know the answers.
In a perfect world you wouldn't need to look at my resume to remember my name when I walk in the door. You wouldn't need to bother "screening" me. You want me to be there to meet me and see if I'm the right fit for the job.
But I also understand that businesses get a mountain of resumes and that some large portion of them just aren't worth looking at. It'd be nice if there was some way that you could at least know where to look in the pile for relevant resumes. That way you could spend less time screening (how draconian sounding) and more time interviewing. Sounds like a problem some decent software could solve...