&gt; But I really would hesitate to work at a place that just took people&#x27;s word on their programming ability.<p>This is how I&#x27;ve hired for every open position in my company. You&#x27;d be amazed how easy it is to weed people out based on a conversation. It&#x27;s very rare that someone can talk the talk without actually knowing what they&#x27;re doing. There are too many obscure concepts and it gets clear really quickly if someone is bullshitting or has no idea what they&#x27;re talking about.