[qdog]

I agree with #2 a lot, although when I start interviewing not sure that would make the first couple of interviews go smoothly. Usually takes me 3 or 4 interviews to get warmed up to the type of problems people like to solve in whiteboard interviews.

When I just randomly interview a single time, I feel like a dolt, do pretty miserably. After a few interviews all the whiteboarding starts to take effect and I do much, much better.

When I interview people I usually explain a problem I'm working on and see if they can think through it, then ask a lot of questions about what they've learned from their past failures. People that can go into detail about something they failed at and learned from usually impress me, as I suspect they won't make the same mistakes over and over. Also, if you haven't failed spectacularly with something very hard and you've been a software dev for 10+ years, you might not be doing it right.

Obviously, I've been a dev for 10+ years, and I can't pass whiteboard tests very easily, so I suppose maybe I'm not doing it right, either...