#5 is still a bad rule. It eliminates anyone who currently has a job. That leaves you with people who don't have a job (for whatever reason) or are working as

#5 is still a bad rule. It eliminates anyone who currently has a job. That leaves you with people who don't have a job (for whatever reason) or are working as a freelancer. Freelancers really don't want to work at a company, and in my experience, it doesn't work out. I'm thinking of one person in particular who was an amazing coder, got along great with everyone, and all that... But he wasn't happy there. He quit before his 3 months review came. Last time I interviewed, 1 of the companies asked me to write a sample app that was useless, but would show I knew what I was doing. I had 48 hours to do it. So yeah, I lost a weekend (well, 16 hours of it) but they were able to know I was capable without a lot of craziness. I actually ended up taking a job somewhere else before my interview with them, though. I had found a better paying job at another company that didn't do any of that stuff. It was just a 1-on-1 interview and discussion of my past work. I'm still here a year later.