Absolutely, for a company that I want to work with. For companies that I'm not super excited about, I politely decline-for-now. Seems to me like that saves everyone tons of time. Do you really want to hire someone that doesn't want to be there enough to spend a couple of hours coding for you and doesn't have open source code to evaluate them on?

If a company approaches me there are probably some reasons for that. Because asking random people to prove how much they want to work for this particular company does not seem to be a very productive approach to me. You can post a job ad and get all the people who are supper excited to self select and then you can have your time making them to jump through whatever hoops you want. With somebody who expressed enough interest to answer the recruiter (in broad sense) you are not guaranteed to have a super excited candidate. Making him or her jump through the hoops will most likely terminate this and any future contacts.

> If a company approaches me there are probably some reasons for that. Because asking random people to prove how much they want to work for this particular company does not seem to be a very productive approach to me.

Why not? Make it a test that is easy to score and then finding people who do well on it and are interested in working for you is rather high, no?

It takes time and effort to get somebody who is not looking for a job to talk to you. It's going to cost a lot of money to hire anybody with a random approach. As far as I know, even Google or Apple cannot afford this - every time their recruiters contacted me it was about a job in alignment with my qualifications.

> Do you really want to hire someone that doesn't want to be there enough to spend a couple of hours coding for you and doesn't have open source code to evaluate them on?

I want to hire someone to do a job. That job requires a base level of competence. If they exceed that level such that I think they will bring positive value to the company I vote to hire them. I don't care about their motivation or "passion" beyond what is required to take them over that bar.

I would! I love coding exercises meant to gain information about a candidate; they're like yardsticks for my professional growth. I love evaluating how I solve a problem now vs how I would have solved it while interviewing for the job I'm leaving. I also just enjoy solving problems. To me, doing a coding exercise is like doing a Tuesday crossword puzzle (they're never hard enough to be stressful) that I get to show off: Look how correctly I solved this, and in ink, with no mistakes, with very well written, clear words.

I don't see it as a waste of time; it's about the potential payoff, which is a (presumably) better job with better opportunities. I wouldn't apply to a job unless I was reasonably sure I wanted to work there anyway. I might be very lucky in that I've worked for good companies in the past few years and the only reason I'd leave one of these companies is for a much much better one. Usually when I leave a job, I've become bored of the problem domain anyway and am looking to solve new problems.

Disclosure: 31 year old man, no kids, I live with my partner.

It's about the potential payoff for me too. When I am not looking for a job (i.e. I am happy with the job I have) an offer to write some code for some company does not look very enticing. After all, if I already thought that company offers a better job, I'd been asking them for a job myself. The most I can offer in this situation is a chance to sell me on the job.

On the other hand, when I am looking for a job (I am unhappy at the current job ) I go far and wide as I am applying to multiple companies. In this situation I talk to the ones that ask for interviews first, as they appear more committed, and push all the tests after the interviews. From my limited experience, by the time the interviews clear up I have at least a couple of offers on hand. Offers I can identify with people I've been talking to, the environment I've seen, the location, the projects etc. Spending several days on tests, which, at best will bring an interview, which may or may not lead to an offer, which, in its turn, may or may not be better than the offers I already have now looks like plain gamble to me. So I take the best offer instead of doing any tests.

> no kids

I hate to be that guy, but everything changes when you have kids. Trust me, a spare hour when you have nothing better to do than jump through some hoop for a company is an extremely rare luxury item when you've got little ones. I love solving problems too, but there aren't any technical problems as interesting as reading a book to your snuggly little human(s). :)

c.f. http://blog.codinghorror.com/on-parenthood/ (not about interviewing, but filter your thoughts about free time through the perspective that article provides...)