[throwmeout]

First off, I've read most of your books. Great job with them! Now, your response seems fair enough and I completely understand what your trying to say.

However, without going into specifics. How does an interviewee handle/convince an interviewer with a preconceived solution?

For example, Interviewer A has an interview tomorrow and plans on asking this really slick problem that has one way of being solved well. A looks this way up and knows the ins and out of it. Now as an interviewee,if B were to come up with a 100 ways of handling the problem (starting from brute force) but fails to reach the "cool" solution because he has only 45 minutes of time . Do you think the interviewee would be considered a good candidate?

I'd say that the interviewer has hardly learnt anything about the candidate by asking such a problem. But then again, I could be wrong.

[gaylemcd]

Eh... it depends.

You could have a question that can really only be solved optimally one way but that still provides adequate room to demonstrate problem-solving skills (even without knowing the "slick trick"). Such a question could still be a reasonable question.

Of course, many questions with slick tricks aren't like that. The interviewers who ask these questions also tend to be worse, which exasperates the problem.

In the situation you described - the candidate might still be considered a good candidate. It depends what the interviewer is looking for.

[seanflyon]

> but fails to reach the "cool" solution

I think it is rare for an interviewer to have a "cool" solution in mind and reject a better (or as good) solution. If they did I would be suspicious of the quality of the company.