[zainny]

I once worked with an individual with a PhD in Mathematics who wrote some of the most god-awful code you could possibly imagine. In an algorithmic test, he would have bested anybody I can think of.

Intelligence and usefulness at tasks are incredibly complex topics for discussion. If you think you can reliably go from A to B, you're dead wrong. The only reliable metric is, if you want skills A, test for A. If you want skills B, test for B.

[timr]

Indeed. You want people who can code, and who know algorithms. You must test for both.