When I interview candidates I sit with them for half an hour or so to get to know them. Then I give them purposely broken, poorly written piece of code which I

When I interview candidates I sit with them for half an hour or so to get to know them. Then I give them purposely broken, poorly written piece of code which I tell them to pull apart. This proves incredibly effective as even if they miss some of the more obvious errors I can at least point them in that area and then see if they can see the problem on their own. There are about 100 different things to talk about so it really gives me an idea of the level they are at, and also the type of programmer they are; passionate, lazy, smart, meticulous, inexperienced, confident etc. Then if I feel they are worth a second interview, I get them back to sit with me and my team for the day to see how they fit in with the team. Then all being well I offer the job.