I did this for the first "real" job that I got and then again for a startup that I got a job with I did something similar. In the first case, the company was a

I did this for the first "real" job that I got and then again for a startup that I got a job with I did something similar. In the first case, the company was a few years old and the task they gave was very obviously just to gauge skills (not a real-world task). In the second, the startup was fledgling, actually the previous "main" developer wasn't getting things done and was essentially being shuffled out the door so I agreed to basically take a part of the project he was struggling with and spent a day getting it working as I was told if I could do this I would get the job. I doubt I would ever do that again but at the time it made sense because it was a step up for me and I hadn't proven myself enough yet. I would be willing to do something like the first job again, however, as I think its fair for them to give a test if its obviously not something they are using as part of their business. For my current job, for which I'm a contractor, the only thing that I did as far as skill evaluation was take a basic language-specific evaluation test from the recruiter.