One of my favorite bombs is I was asked a "real" coding question, basically a function that returns some config or another function. Anyways they somewhat lead you into a simple if statement, or a switch in my case, and then dump more examples until you come up with using a map instead. Which is something I didn't do in the interview, and most definitely (implicitly) failed. It wasn't until I was back on my side project, happily solving the same problem but using a map of course (i dont generally use switch statements in my actual code). Oh, duh lol, that's what they were asking me. They probably think I don't know how to program.
That was a turning point for me, because as far as questions go it was very fair. And yet, it had the same effect. 20 interviews later I was acing far more difficult questions, being rather polished (and ahem, interview questions aren't generally very unique). So I guess I interviews at that place too early. Maybe its useful? IDK. For me personally, it seems like really good people have a track record of shipping good stuff (or doing other good things in life), and can generally explain what it is and how it works. They usually have former colleagues you can talk to as well. Some of them even have side projects you can look at. But ah when the interview mill is in full steam, its hard to individualize to the candidate. We have a feature factory sir, and what we need are some good cogs. That's how you maximize the value you achieve from a developer after all!