Yes to this 100x. I actually did this last year with outstanding results. We were looking to bring on paid interns. We narrowed all the apps down to 5 and paid

Yes to this 100x. I actually did this last year with outstanding results. We were looking to bring on paid interns. We narrowed all the apps down to 5 and paid each $50 to complete real stuff that we use in our environment. 2 out of the 5 completed the work within an hour, 1 took 3 hours and the other 2 returned uncompleted work. We hired the 3 that completed the work and the one that took 3 hours ended up being the best out of them. This person also had very little prior experience but what I liked was that she stuck with the task and not only found the bug but improved some other code within the app. All 3 ended up being very valuable and 2 of them stayed on well beyond their internship. Oh, and these projects were done from home before we ever brought them in for an interview and we hired them before ever meeting them.