I've been hiring programmers recently, mostly contract, then on to full-time for the best fits. One thing I've never asked is to see them code, and I'm not sure

I've been hiring programmers recently, mostly contract, then on to full-time for the best fits. One thing I've never asked is to see them code, and I'm not sure I'd want to. I might skip a candidate who fumbled around, who was actually really good. This isn't appropriate for every company, but we simply give programmers we are trying out a project, something we expect can be done in less than a day. We pay for the project, and we're always asking them to build things we actually put into production. If you make it to a phone screen with me, 80-90% of the time, I'm going to be willing to pay you 200-1000 to show me what you can do. I have to let go most of the candidates after this trial, but it's cheap, and the people we keep are all really outstanding.