Comment by rockbruno

>technical applicants cannot do basic things like write a very simple linked list class, or explain to me how a hash map works

In my experience people know these things, they just don't realize that what they're doing can be described generically.

An example: If you're in an iOS interview and ask the person to describe a graph, they will get very angry and complain that this is useless knowledge and they don't need it to get the job. But if you ask the same person to describe an UIView hierarchy, they often have no problem doing so. So they _know_ what a graph is, they just didn't know it had that name.

With that in mind, my tests shows that generic algorithm questions suck and questions themed around actual features of the product are the best. If you word the question in a way that feels relevant and is familiar to developers, they will be more likely to know the answer even if deep down the solution is exactly the same as the generic ones.