Skills: a tool for identifying expertise and passion in developers
skillsapp.com
skillsapp.com
Before the BB test, the other guy they were interviewing practically had the job. His resume looked much better than mine. But after the test, they said it was exactly the opposite.
The company eventually stopped using BB, probably because it was too expensive to give to every candidate. (I'm guessing at the reason. I never knew the prices.)
I recently had a job interview that had a pre-test that consisted of a simple CRUD application you have to built from scratch, to spec, and a puzzle. The puzzle was simply explaining how you'd write code to solve a scenario which happened to be a modified Traveling Salesman puzzle. The changes were just to make it a lot easier.
The CRUD app just showed that you can follow spec and actually deliver working code. Also, you can write instructions on any deployment steps needed.
The puzzle showed a few things, too. You can understand complex issues. You can reason out a solution without code. You can explain that solution to others clearly.
All that was before the interview, making sure they only interviewed people who were up to snuff!
I actually got hired at another company before I went to that interview, but I was hoping they would use the interview to go over some of the code and puzzle and ask why things were done that way as a final check that you really wrote it, and that you can explain verbally as well. It's possible it would just be a normal interview, though.