[antoinevg]

I feel like you misunderstand me entirely.

You're going to have a really hard time finding good hires if you restrict yourself to the pool of people who can "problem-solve something basic" according to your definition of "something basic".

Maybe ask: "How can this person help the team ship working software that solves the problem of our customer?"

It's less adversarial and opens your recruitment up to that pool of folk who have literally decades experience answering that question.

[jenscow]

It's more like: There are so many candidates with impostor syndrome. I don't want to hire another turkey.

So, I will come up with a little problem which is something related to the work they'd be doing - like, a real thing they would have done if they where hired a month ago. (hmm, I wonder how they would have fixed jira-123)

I'm not looking for "the answer" - I'm actually hoping they don't know it (if they do, great: here's another...), but.. do they have what it takes to solve a problem? How much hand-holding would they need? Am I able to have a technical discussion with them? Even, where are they on the passive<->arrogant scale?

This, among other questions, will answer "How can this person help the team ship working software that solves the problem of our customer?"

Job history and qualifications don't tell me this.

If a candidate feels they're too important or experienced to do this, then by all means walk away.