Google admits brainteasers were useless for hiring (2013)
Aren&#x27;t a lot of so called &#x27;algorithmic problems&#x27; similar to brain teasers? If you have seen it before, you&#x27;ll know it. But otherwise, there is not much chance of you cracking it without an &#x27;Aha&#x27; moment, which may or may not come during the one hour allocated for an interview.<p>Weird tricks in bit manipulation, linked lists, array, hash problems etc. are all standard in interviewing and are still used,  even at Google, at least 2 years ago, when I last interviewed there.<p>This works though as Google&#x27;s, and the industry in general has a policy of rejecting candidates, rather than accepting them, because hiring is very risk-averse. Candidates switch jobs frequently at the beginning of their career and so there is a rotating pool of good candidates the companies can pick from.