* Non-technical recruiters using a list of technical trivia questions and a keywords list to check if you answer correctly (e.g. what is the default isolation level in postgres) - this is the worst.
* Code reviews but on non-generic code, like on a specific framework/product/SDK code in which you may or may not have prior experience - slightly less worse, but if you are going to do this, it is counter intuitive to hire someone who doesn't have production experience in that area.
* take home assignments where they say "we recommend you to not spend more than x hours on this", but then, they expect a very sophisticated work and will reject you if you turn-in a "simple" implementation. Maybe they expect speed and quality?
* leetcode is still a thing.
* non-leetcode, but livecoding, on a likely OOP many to many relationship problem
* give a spec in the first x minutes and leave the interview, you do your thing and then they join in the last y minutes - this is my favorite.
I haven't yet participated in a Agentic AI interview. It is not that common AFAIK.
a coding interview that is objective, repeatable, doesn't put the interviewee under pressure (and doesn't trigger unconscious bias based on accent/appearence)
* take home assigment with minimum requirements criteria and tell them "add a feature of your own" or "any extra work is appreciated".
* Pay them for their time and tokens.
* Use a custom agent to review the code and see how many "high", "medium", "low" issues the agent identifies.
It's good starter code for AI-enabled projects that are cloud agnostic and have good security practices :)
It also, probably, got me the job. At this point, that's honestly secondary. I can create new tools way faster!
One failed takehome assignment, years ago, became an amazing portfolio piece for 2 jobs down the line. The reason the original company failed me: not a standard full-stack web app. I broke the client-server model and made a P2P web app (drawing together etc.).
I never finished a take-home assignment within the given time frame. Once I even spent a whole weekend working on a solution to something that was described as a 2h problem. I feel it's just a way for the companies to make it look like it's a small commitment and they are not wasting your time excessively. If you decide to spend 2 days instead of 2 hours then "it's on you" ... But if you don't you'll fail.