If I see good code, I know that (absent some sort of fraud) you are a good coder. That's a pretty solid "lets talk". In numbers, I'll interview 3 people with go

If I see good code, I know that (absent some sort of fraud) you are a good coder. That's a pretty solid "lets talk". In numbers, I'll interview 3 people with good code and maybe hire 1. If I don't see good code, you put yourself into the same category as all the bad coders out there who can't code. I may need to interview 10 or 20 people before I find someone decent - I simply can't differentiate between you and them without spending hours on code interviews. Obviously I'm going to talk to the people with visible code first, and only hunt for the needle in a haystack if I get desperate.