I usually give my disclaimer: "These aren't real world problems. Some questions involve code that we wouldn't write in the real world. We only have 45 minutes. The goal is to have a conversation about code."
And then I point out that "it's not practical to spend 2-3 days on-boarding you for a job interview. Thus, these questions are contrived. The best way to succeed is to have a conversation about code, and sometimes you need to play a little bit of the 'tell me what I want to hear' game".
And then, for one question, I need to point out that, "I once had a candidate say, 'I like JSON better then XML. XML's outdated.' This question is to discuss concepts that are easy to discuss with C#'s XML APIs, because chances are, you've used them." (And if the candidate tells me that they don't have a lot of XML experience, it's okay.
And then I point out that "it's not practical to spend 2-3 days on-boarding you for a job interview. Thus, these questions are contrived. The best way to succeed is to have a conversation about code, and sometimes you need to play a little bit of the 'tell me what I want to hear' game".
And then, for one question, I need to point out that, "I once had a candidate say, 'I like JSON better then XML. XML's outdated.' This question is to discuss concepts that are easy to discuss with C#'s XML APIs, because chances are, you've used them." (And if the candidate tells me that they don't have a lot of XML experience, it's okay.