>The concern is potential employers trying to bilk free work out of developers. This is why the "assignment" that I request takes less than two hours and is a

>The concern is potential employers trying to bilk free work out of developers. This is why the "assignment" that I request takes less than two hours and is a greenfield project that is not going to be used by the company -- and I tell candidates this up-front. Think something like a blog, recipe manager or to-do list app. It is trivial, but you may be surprised at the range of outputs that you get. What is interesting to me is how the resume isn't the best indicator for how well they will do on the coding project. Also, to avoid wasting people's time, I give the coding project as late in the interview process as possible, assuming the other filters have been passed.