An interview that forces you to do something that is otherwise not part of your daily routine and measures how good you are based on that is bad. I understand t

An interview that forces you to do something that is otherwise not part of your daily routine and measures how good you are based on that is bad. I understand that you need to get insight into the skill of the candidate but forcing her to work on an editor she does not know, giving limited time etc. is probably not the best way to get that. I used to interview software engineers for a big company and we usually gave them a problem that they could solve in 48 hours using anything they want (internet, library etc.) and we just asked them to explain their solution in person during the final round of interviews. You are interested in how good the candidate is not how fast she can fail a synthetic test that has nothing to do with the actual work you are doing.