> Then, you give them a fake schematic of the circuit board, and ask them to troubleshoot the problem.
> Here’s the test: the fake board schematic should be absolutely riddled with errors. All sorts of errors - errors that you’ve seen before, errors that you’ve heard about before, errors that have thrown your product development efforts for a loop. These errors should run the gamut of severity
I think you need to communicate to the candidate that this is a board with a lot wrong. If you hand me something that looks like a real board made by the organization, and it's of exceptionally poor quality-- panic will ensue. Is there a single issue I'm supposed to point out? Is the interviewer not aware of how bad this is? Do I even want to work at a place producing shoddy work like this?
Just give your opinion as you would to a coworker on your best day. That's what any reasonable interviewer is looking for unless otherwise stated. Similarly, you can tell a lot by how your comments are received.
Of course you should be polite in an interview - but for a desirable employee it's not only the company judging the employee, it's the employee judging the company.
And if the employee sees a sample of the company's work and it's awful, they're liable to judge they're unlikely to learn much from working there.
> Here’s the test: the fake board schematic should be absolutely riddled with errors. All sorts of errors - errors that you’ve seen before, errors that you’ve heard about before, errors that have thrown your product development efforts for a loop. These errors should run the gamut of severity
I think you need to communicate to the candidate that this is a board with a lot wrong. If you hand me something that looks like a real board made by the organization, and it's of exceptionally poor quality-- panic will ensue. Is there a single issue I'm supposed to point out? Is the interviewer not aware of how bad this is? Do I even want to work at a place producing shoddy work like this?