I also was in charge of hiring programmers at some point in my career. I made it a point to give programmers a simple project to take home and get back when the

I also was in charge of hiring programmers at some point in my career. I made it a point to give programmers a simple project to take home and get back when they where ready (at most a week). The project was very close to what the hired candidate would be doing if we chose them. I told the candidates that they did not necessarily needed to show me a working application (although that would have been great!), but simply to document what architecture, language and approaches they would use to implement the task. Also the task could be documented in a few hours, and those that got close to coding a few classes might have spent a day at it. Now the argument could be made that I did not remunerate this people, but keep in mind the work they did was not expected to be more than a few hours. For me, this is an ideal technical interview. Also, I ended hiring a candidate though this method, and he is by far the most productive and creative force in our team.