[pthreadses]

Assuming n isn't very large, I don't see why. People will spend sometimes days in on-site interviews. A simple coding challenge can tell you a lot about a developer and provide a shared basis for discussion in a subsequent interview. Of course "build a CMS from scratch" is ridiculous but simple simulated bug fixing and small feature additions that mimic real life work can be quite useful and not time consuming.

[kasey_junk]

As someone who has spent a lot of time implementing & arguing for work sample based hiring, the hardest part is getting places to remove the useless interviews from their filter process.

Very few devs given the choice between 8 hours of interviews & 7 hours of work sample/1 hour of interview will choose the former. But companies just add the work sample & leave the interviews defeating the point.