That’s why I’m advocating the GitHub job interview. Open-Source projects are a fantastic way to collaborate with people you don’t know too well. And GitHub in particular, with its ease of forking and pull-requests is just the best (and biggest) platform for open-source collaboration.
Here’s what you do. You come up with a cool idea of an open-source project. This becomes your company’s development sandbox. Candidates are asked to then contribute to the project in some way. You want to see them code? Ask them to develop a module. You want to see them tackle a bug? Ask them to choose one from the bug-list. This works for every aspect of development work. You can design features together. You can gauge their communication skills. You can see how well they handle reviews. You can ask them to document their work and see how well they can write. But above all, you’re not taking advantage of anyone, and true developers probably won’t mind investing time into an open-source effort.
Choose your GitHub project wisely. It should be something relatively fun. It ought to use the same technology stack your company uses. And it should be relatively simple to grasp, because the point is not to be investing too much time training people you’re not yet hiring.
via Gigantt Blog – The GitHub Job Interview. This sounds like a really solid way to do a job interview.