[taurath]

The alternative could maybe be something actually related to the job at hand. Like “I’ve got a database here and we need a view on this page - how would you approach this problem?”

I guarantee you will find people who do the actual work. Companies don’t need massive amounts of coders that can minmax an arbitrary book algorithm. If you want someone to be “clever” in exactly that way then you can push them in that direction while solving a closer to real looking problem.