I agree. I am totally against hiring based on either stupid interview questions or tricky programming problems you will never see again. However, I think these guys take it a bit too far.
Maybe give them a project that only takes a couple of hours, just creating a simple module that does some very basic thing. Try to find out how they work rather than the final result.
The project/task really depends on the position applied for. All i can say is, that the project is usually discussed in advance and things can be worked out here. There are some fine folks here who were given projects which took only a couple of hours.
Maybe give them a project that only takes a couple of hours, just creating a simple module that does some very basic thing. Try to find out how they work rather than the final result.