The puzzle-givers were onto something, though. They were trying to test for intellectual agility and creative problem solving. There is some merit in asking these sorts of questions if you're interviewing younger kids for entry-level jobs. At that stage in the game, you're really just trying to find smart and hard-working people who can be trained. You're not overly concerned with years of experience, or crystallized knowledge base. So puzzles make sense (again, to a degree).

Puzzles for more experienced hires? Probably not.