If a candidate passes the basic phone interview, we bring them in for a technical chat. I'll ask the candidate to send some code of their choice before the inte

If a candidate passes the basic phone interview, we bring them in for a technical chat. I'll ask the candidate to send some code of their choice before the interview and use that as a jumping off point. I tend to keep a few other questions in hand in case the conversation comes to a dead end, but I find it useful to let things go where they naturally go, since the candidate can show more about themselves and what they know. We only ask candidates to perform a test if we're really uncertain that they can code at a basic level, and don't bother with puzzle questions at all, since they've never told us whether the candidate is competent or not, just if they've done a bunch of puzzle questions in preparation. It's a waste of our time and theirs. Some candidates are great at blagging, which can be hard to identify, but it's usually unearthed if you start asking about a subject on their CV, away from their day-to-day duties, in any depth (depth being more than 30 minutes of study, since this is all most blaggers have really looked into things).