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I have not tried it. But in my next business venture, I plan to actually do peer programming with the candidate.

This is will allow members of my team (or myself) to get to know the candidate, evaluate the 'wave lengths', and how effective he/she is at finding patterns on the internet/books -- rather than thinking things up.

It also demonstrates to the candidate commitment on our side, and it naturally forces us to find problems of a proper size/effort (as we are spending the effort too).

We would not do it for all applicants, though -- only for once that pass basic screening / competency process (there are no trick questions or exercises there

    I have not tried it. But in my next business venture, I plan to actually do 
    peer programming with the candidate.

As a candidate, I can highly recommend peer programming. One of the greatest interview experiences I had was interviewing with a local shop where the employee and I reimplemented a Set class using TDD and pair programming. The employee sat at the keyboard, so I didn't have to deal with not knowing keyboard shortcuts or the unfamiliar operating system (OSX), but he was very careful to only write the code that I asked him to write, and to let me make my own mistakes.

It was one of the most enjoyable, and, dare I say it, relaxing interview experiences I've had. Though I didn't get an offer, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend that company to any of my peers who're looking to make a change. Also, like you said, it was a second tier screen; after an initial screen consisting of a more traditional phone interview where I had to write some Javascript.

Yeah. You can save a lot of your time, and the candidates' time with a simple coding interview - even FizzBuzz will knock out half of the candidates. Then pair up and/or give a take-home, then discuss the solution in a one-on-one session.

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