Well at the peak dotcom era you often could get away with spelling HTML without stuttering and you were hired. Microsoft could afford to discern however, being the top employer at the time.<p>I am with you though in principle. Some fizzbuzz-like test is OK, I understand they want to know if you can code at all. Something like code review where you think aloud is fine too. But take home assignments, whiteboard coding, huh.. An acquaintance of mine had to conjure a working spreadsheet application in one and a Space Invaders clone in the other. Mind you, none of the jobs had anything to do with spreadsheets or gaming.<p>If my living would depend on it I&#x27;d do it, no question. But in a relatively liquid job market of today I&#x27;d ether pass or offer to do it at a competitive hourly rate.