This is precisely what we do when hiring at our web dev/game/app agency. We have a somewhat casual meeting to first determine if the candidate is the type of pe

This is precisely what we do when hiring at our web dev/game/app agency. We have a somewhat casual meeting to first determine if the candidate is the type of person we'd want to work with every day and then we give them a challenge to take home with them. We provide a direct line to one of our developers that fulfills a similar role to what we are hiring for and encourage them to ask questions as they are completing the challenge. It's a very telling process. We are a very collaborative team and expect people to ask questions and grow together. When candidates ask questions that would be really easily answered by a quick Google search, or take far longer to complete the challenge than it should take someone who even sort of knows what they are doing, these are major red flags. At the end we review their code and see if their solutions are well thought out and up to basic standards. I should mention the challenge is typically extremely simple... Some candidates don't make it a priority and make excuses for days or weeks on end why they aren't finished. These don't tend to be the type of people we like to hire.