The whole process of evaluating candidates can best be described as "completely random."

I applied to Bloomberg for a similar position a year ago and was easily able to get through two rounds of technical interviews and interviews with a PM and a team lead. This time around, I was turned down right after the very first technical interview.

I believe it can be safely stated that, according to Bloomberg, this means I got WAY WORSE over the course of the year and probably lost all of my near-decade C++ experience.

The only thing for me to decide right now is if I want to apply in a year again to see how far I'll be able to get that time.

What is the difference between a pointer and a reference in C++? When would you use one instead of another?

What does the "static" keyword do? How does the "static" keyword affect a source-file-level variable? The latter question was asked in a lame manner, as the interviewer basically wanted to know about external linkage as opposed to internal linkage.

What's the purpose of the "const" keyword? When would you use it?

What's the purpose of the "mutable" keyword?

Given a set of classes and a small function that uses them, figure out what will be printed on the screen. This is a typical construction/destruction order C++ question.