I'm not sure what you mean by "every year", but when I screen candidates, yes, I'll ask multiple candidates the same question? It allows me to compare candidates directly without introducing the additional variable of wondering whether one had a harder question, it allows me to gain & retain experience at asking the question in how it is presented, and if the candidate does well, how we proceed to make it more difficult to suss out the candidate's skill.
I do agree with the parent above though that this use of xor is trivia, and not a great interview question.
It just surprises me that they aren't rotated out more frequently (annually?). I can think of a number of arguments for doing so and really only one small one against.
The fact that not rotating questions makes it trivial for someone who’s been through the process to tip off future applicants. Sites like Glassdoor and leetcode already do this, but it’s tempered by the fact that most companies rotate these type of screener questions regularly.
It sounds like some of these questions are bad screeners anyway, but it makes them even worse if half the people going through the process are feigning surprise at the tricky question then quickly developing a “brilliant” solution.
XOR-only questions are poor unless you're interviewing someone for a very specific kind of role.