[hunglee2]

You're right. Nothing beats actually working with someone to learn whether you want to work with someone. However there are inefficiencies in doing this, which is why assessments (which are all proxies for the work) are used.

I don't think it's unreasonable to use subtle testing like this. We likely do it anyway (i.e we make judgement calls when reviewing someone's online profile, portfolio etc) - all equally sub-optimal but we use it because we need a short cut