I work with a small Django team as part of a bigger organization. Our hiring process is pretty simple: we send the candidates a specification (that actually hap

I work with a small Django team as part of a bigger organization. Our hiring process is pretty simple: we send the candidates a specification (that actually happens to be one of our open tickets!) and they build a simple Django app around it. Currently the specification is a simple inventory tracking system, complete with some anonymised (and inconsistent) data to import from a spreadsheet. That, a phone interview and an hour-long face to face interview is all we need to figure out if the candidate is a good fit. The programming exercise can be done in good time by the candidate, using their tools and with no pressure. The resulting code is a great indication of how well they know Python and Django and gives us a lot to talk about in the face to face interview. I'm not sure why some companies need a gruelling 4+ hour interrogation style interview process. Asking someone to code on a whiteboard would be as uncomfortable for me as it would be for them.