I recently ran an interview process for a relatively senior eng role at a tiny startup. Because I believe different interview methods work better for different people, I offered everyone a choice:
1. Do a takehome test, targeted to take about 4 hours but with no actual time limit. This was a non-algorithmic project that was just a stripped-down version of what I'd spent the last month on in actual work.
2. Do an onsite pairing exercise in 2 hours. This would be a version of #1, but more of "see how far we get in 2 hours."
3. Submit a code sample of pre-existing work.
Based on the ire I've seen takehome tests get, I figured we'd get a good spread between all three, but amazingly, ~90-95% of candidates chose the takehome test. That matches my preference as a candidate as well.
I don't know if this generalizes beyond this company/role, but it was an interesting datapoint - I was very surprised to find that most people preferred it!
replies(7):