As someone with a pretty long career already, and who's comfortable talking about it, I was a bit surprised that in three interviews last year nobody asked a single thing about any of my previous work. One was live coding and tech trivia, the other two were extensive take-home challenges.
To their credit, I think they would have hired "the old guy" if I'd aced their take-homes, but I was a bit rusty and not super thrilled about their problem areas anyway so we didn't get that far. And honestly it seems like a decent system for hiring well-paid cogs in your well-oiled machine for the short term.
Your method sounds like what we were trying to do ten years ago, and it worked pretty well until our pipeline dried up. I wish you, and your candidates, continued success with it: a little humanity goes a long way these days.
So, did you find a company that you are happy with (interviewing or otherwise)? I would be really interested to know how you are dealing with tech landscape changes lately, and your plans for staying in tech ...
To their credit, I think they would have hired "the old guy" if I'd aced their take-homes, but I was a bit rusty and not super thrilled about their problem areas anyway so we didn't get that far. And honestly it seems like a decent system for hiring well-paid cogs in your well-oiled machine for the short term.
Your method sounds like what we were trying to do ten years ago, and it worked pretty well until our pipeline dried up. I wish you, and your candidates, continued success with it: a little humanity goes a long way these days.