Smaller companies don't always go through these extended formalities and you can get a good job and build a few years experience that way. Our company, which i

Smaller companies don't always go through these extended formalities and you can get a good job and build a few years experience that way. Our company, which is service and tech based (GIS) has about eight full-time developers among 400 or so employees and we're doing cross platform mobile development and some web and some server applications and plugins. When we interview, we usually do a phone interview with basic questions ("Explain inheritance" or "What's the difference between abstract and virtual"). It's weird, but a lot of people either panic or don't prepare. Missing things like this isn't a deal breaker, but we want to see the thought process. If that goes well, we do an in-person interview and tell the candidate to schedule at least a half day (or sometimes a full day). We introduce them around, chat, do a more formal interview, and then do a coding test that we concocted. Basically, it's pieces of our app and a list of like 10 things to accomplish, like "Make it compile and run" (usually there's a syntax error or two and we want to see how people use the IDE and tools) or "Add a label to the page or app that shows the current time" or "Fix the alignment of the buttons on the left side" (for web). They get progressively harder and we've only had one person complete them all on time (we hired him, naturally). We've also had candidates completely choke and not even know where to start (you are free to ask questions and look up things online - totally open book, as if you were working and had a list of tasks to work on). There aren't any tricky problems. The harder ones require a little domain knowledge in GIS (which isn't a requirement), but can be figured out with Google (or by simply asking us how to do something - it's kind of a joke that NO ONE ever asks). You're not watched, but we check in every once in while to see how it's going. We eliminate quite a few resumes, and eliminate others after the phone interview, but for those who make it to the in-person interview, we've eventually made offers to about 50% of them. And we've had great success in getting people who can do the job and excel, which you have to do with such a small team. We do look for github projects, open source projects, and any sample code you can share. We also like people who have completed successful individual projects, written on subjects, and we love it when candidates actually have domain experience, but, as I said, that's not required. My favorite interview question is "Tell me about a project, personal, school, or professional, that you are proudest of. Preferably something that presented a challenge you figured out." I like for interviewees to relax and geek out a bit. I honestly want to know if they enjoy coding, designing, and learning or if they're just looking for a paycheck or stepping stone (not that there's anything wrong with that, but I don't want to feel like we're paying someone to do something they're not the least bit interested in).