[anip]

There are some problems with the trial period. It doesn't account for those that don't have specific domain knowledge. From my experience, I have worked with people that have hit the ground running and been really productive straight away, but in the long run have not been as innovative as others.

I prefer to hire a candidate that might take 2-3 months to get productive but have some really innovative ideas, that others in the company might have missed. Puzzle questions do give me a sense of how someone approaches and solves problems, and I think you can infer how they will handle real problems since the building blocks to problem solving are essentially the same regardless of what domain. Solving puzzle questions is just a component of things I look for:

1. Experience in solving challenging problems 2. Good university results 3. Personality fit, easy to get along with 4. Leadership potential 5. Enthusiastic/passionate

Not all five are needed, but candidates need to be strong in more than 1-2 areas.

If you have issues with interviews specifically, you could enter a TopCoder competition, or Google Code Jam, and use that as evidence that you can solve those types of problems.

[david_l]

I think your onto something.

As a passive job seeker, I think this is something I've used to filter out companies. Ones that want to hire someone yesterday are more likely to suffer from poor planning and may only care about short term results.

I'd rather have someone who may take 2-3 months to get up to speed, and then spend years with me returning that investment more than a simple mercenary that will be with me a year or two and then move on.