

Developer litmus test - senko
http://senko.net/en/developer-litmus-test/

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iftecan2000
I have been looking for an opportunity lately and encountered these sort of
tests. While some of these tests are interesting they take a while to
complete. It works out well if the candidates have spare time in their hands.
If not you might end up losing some good devs.

One of the interview techniques I found to be useful is to talk about certain
topics in as much detail as possible. This provides the interviewer a solid
understanding of how deep the candidate has delved into the subject matter.

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pagekalisedown
So basically expect good devs to have lots of free time on their hands to do
every company's day-long test?

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senko
Assuming the test project isn't something complicated, good devs wouldn't need
to spend an entire day fixing it. It definitely would take more time than just
sending CVs around, but other screening techniques take time as well, and can
be a lot less effective (eg phone interviews).

~~~
pagekalisedown
This is how I feel when I'm asked to do a programming test that takes a
significant portion of my day:

<http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2006-05-06/>

I should start charging my daily rate to do them. :)

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peteretep
I've sent people links to my CPAN modules before and asked them to critique
the code; if they come back with something sensible, that's a good starting
point for discussion.

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prodigal_erik
Open != not "real". The code needs to do something obviously not useful for
your business, otherwise I'd have to assume I'm cleaning up after a botched
outsourcing job (or possibly your next-best candidate so far).

