[chrisbennet]

Usually, you interview with a few people in sequence, that's why it can take so long.

In my experience, many technical interviewers are not very good at this interviewing thing; it isn't their core skill and on top of that they are human.

One of the early technical questions should answer the question: "Are you here by accident?" Google "fizzbuzz" for an example of this sort of question.

A poor but all too common flavor of interview question goes like this: "How would you write something that you would never write in real life but should have learned about in school?"

The interviewer looked it up before the interview so it's blindingly obvious to him. When you stumble trying to remember the Taylor series for the sine function they will think you are a bit slow. I always brush up on linked list and tree operations to prepare for this type of question. Try not to hold it against them - remember, the person asking them probably doesn't know what they are doing and all they may have been exposed to are other bad interviewers asking them this sort of question i.e. they know not what they do.

The good interviewer will try get you into the relaxed state you would be if you were actually working with them, and then ask you a technical question that's actually relevant to what they do day to day.