[matwood]

Although I agree that home tasks and trick-algorithm questions are useless.

I don't think home tasks are useless, but they have to used properly. A home task geared to 1-2 hours seems reasonable for an exercise between the first and second interview. Some may say they'll just look up the answer (it's encouraged!), and that's why during the second interview the employer should discuss their answer. If the candidate can explain why they made particular decisions on the take home piece and have an intelligent discussion about the trade offs they took then who cares if they looked up the answer. In fact, the home test is probably closer to real programming since I don't know anyone who codes without Google nearby.

So, my preferred method is to use FizzBuzz as a first cut on the first interview and then give a take home quiz that should take the candidate 1-2 hours or less if they are good.