1. Walk through in real detail the candidate's past work. This requires preparation on your part, as you will need to review the candidate's past work, any code

1. Walk through in real detail the candidate's past work. This requires preparation on your part, as you will need to review the candidate's past work, any code samples, etc. If you do your homework and manage the conversation well, it will be very difficult for someone faking it to get through. 2. Present one or two real-world challenges related to the work the candidate would be doing for you and talk about how he or she would solve them. If the candidate wants to draw or write code on a piece of paper or white board, fine. But this should be a conversation, not a test. 3. Although they aren't always viable, contract-to-hire relationships are your friend.