I've done several of those. I think there is a luck factor involved. One company asked to pick a language I didn't know before end, it was just okay - because I

I've done several of those. I think there is a luck factor involved. One company asked to pick a language I didn't know before end, it was just okay - because I truly didn't know the language before. Another picked a maze puzzle that I thought was fun, and I did it well. Anyway 4-6 hours is still a lot of time, specially when you have a resume + github that is showing you should already know your shit. You can false positives and false negatives very easily with a test like this. I think the best approach is to select 3 candidates based on feeling/resume/github/etc, give them a true piece of code to wrote that will be used for real. Give them a week, but pay them real money. Hire the best.