One anectdote, for whateever it's worth - Our company adopted online code testing, in which the screening interviewer (as opposed to the entire interview team) tossed out sample coding questions, and had the candidate write code real-time with feedback from the interviewer - it COMPLETELY revolutionized the quality of candidates that started coming in for in-person interviews, and increased the percentage of candidates interviewed in person being hired from around 20-30% up to 70-80%.
The single greatest advantage of "pre-testing" candidates is that the amount of time engineers had to spend interviewing candidates was reduced dramatically. A secondary advantage for the candidates, is that they didn't have to waste their time coming in for interviews for jobs that they were really not qualified for - win all around.
I don't understand how anyone can't see that it would be useful to determine whether a developer can code prior to coming into an interview.
All of the top engineering managers (by that, I mean the ones who are really effective at hiring and retaining great engineers) have always told me, that part of the interview for a developer who is expected to code, is that they should demonstrate their ability to code, during the interview.
I'm not sure why being asked to demonstrated this ability online is considered an issue.
I had an opposite experience - years ago, I drove 8 hours for an interview. Got there, was asked some basic perfunctory stuff that could have been done over the phone (they knew I lived in a different state). I'd brought a printed portfolio (laptops weren't too common, wasn't sure if I would have wifi access, etc). I had printed code samples ready to discuss, and offered them, but was told "no, that wouldn't be fair to the other candidates who can't bring example code".
I was slightly flabbergasted to say the least. That said, I was offered a job (after a second 8 hour drive to meet the owner the following week), and I took it, and it was a pretty darn good gig for the first year. But... "not fair to the others" is just odd reasoning.
Like you, I think understanding if someone can do at least basic programming ('basic' relative to the skill level you're hiring for) should be a non-issue. How it's done - automated tests, screen sharing, etc - may be up for debate.
The single greatest advantage of "pre-testing" candidates is that the amount of time engineers had to spend interviewing candidates was reduced dramatically. A secondary advantage for the candidates, is that they didn't have to waste their time coming in for interviews for jobs that they were really not qualified for - win all around.
I don't understand how anyone can't see that it would be useful to determine whether a developer can code prior to coming into an interview.
All of the top engineering managers (by that, I mean the ones who are really effective at hiring and retaining great engineers) have always told me, that part of the interview for a developer who is expected to code, is that they should demonstrate their ability to code, during the interview.
I'm not sure why being asked to demonstrated this ability online is considered an issue.