Are Brain Teasers Good Hiring Criteria?

theodp writes "Your brain teaser prowess may win you a job at Google, but the folks at 37signals don't hire programmers based on puzzles, API quizzes, math riddles, or other parlor tricks. 'The only reliable gauge I've found for future programmer success,' explains 37signals' David Heinemeier Hansson, 'is looking at real code they've written, talking through bigger picture issues, and, if all that is swell, trying them out for size.'" Those of you who have hired employees: have you seen correlation between interview puzzle success and job competency? How should an interviewee best handle these questions?

Comments

Re:It's important to understand

[Anonymous Coward]

Google isn't giving brain teasers to find good programmers.

Google does *not* give brain teasers for engineering positions, and haven't been for the last 5+ years.
The WSJ article is based on urban legends, and *very* dated information.

Re:I had a hedge fund ask me physics problems

[Anonymous Coward]

I work as a quant in the hedge fund industry and use puzzles in the reverse way described here to weed out physics and math/finance majors that can't program well enough. I give them a programming puzzle (rather than a physics or math puzzle) and grade their performance. I am usually not hiring these people for their programming skills but I cannot afford having a math whiz that requires support from professional programmers in order to be productive. The most productive quants in my industry are the ones who are also programming whizzes.