I won the solo division for the Rails Rumble a few months ago. For me, the most valuable part of the competition was how inspirational it turned out to be. Seei

I won the solo division for the Rails Rumble a few months ago. For me, the most valuable part of the competition was how inspirational it turned out to be. Seeing how much was accomplished under severe constraints (48 hours, max 4 people per team) shed new light on all my other development efforts. I imagine that people who do well at such competitions would be better hires, but that would be due to other factors - passion for coding, good time management skills, etc. I doubt it's a major difference, though.