[pbrb]

I agree. I've done really good ones and really bad ones. A good test started in the office with the hiring manager. Really them just watching me write a simple CRUD app in asp.net when it was all the rage. This was for an entry level gig and was actually a really good test. At the end they had an additional feature for you to add from home. It took a couple hrs and ended up being a great test to find decent entry level ppl.

The bad one was about 2 yrs ago. I walked into a conference room for the final round, was sat down at a mac, and asked to write some code in their proprietary DSL without any documentation or anything. It was maddening. I almost walked out, but the salary was stupid high. Didn't get the job. Thinking back on it, maybe it was just a test and they did want me to say it was ridiculous.

[jaytaylor]

    I almost walked out, but the salary was stupid high. Didn't
    get the job. Thinking back on it, maybe it was just a test
    and they did want me to say it was ridiculous.

Thinking about it, I see two realistic possibilities:

- They are being unintentionally stupid by asking you to do this activity.

- If they are intentionally asking you to do a stupid thing and they expect you to revolt in the interview and decry the madness. How does that make you feel about your future day-to-day life at that organization?

In both cases those are not good "A-player" types of people to work for.

No need to torture yourself over more favorable prospects "lost" :)

[monksy]

> Thinking back on it, maybe it was just a test and they did want me to say it was ridiculous.

If that was the case ... then you don't want to work there. I've worked with a few business people that intentionally filtered interviewees by strange characterists. [Aka... graphic designers that were juinor, but didn't have web dev experience (I want to say it was something stranger than that)]