In my position, I interview almost 100% of the applicants for our (50+ developer) department. My interviews consists of coding and design. The applicant is up at the whiteboard or at a piece of paper, writing code. Syntax doesn't matter; neither to language-lawyer nits, but they need to show thoughtfulness and ask good questions about the "requirements" of the test problem. I generally do two or three problems for a 1.25 hour session. I tailor the problems and "hints" to the level of the applicant of course. I've yet to see a lousy coder get through this. Of course, this isn't enough to weed out all undesirable hires, though, as you need to also take into account social ability. Yeah, it counts, and counts big. Even if the social factor is "nothing" more than respect for fellow developers in terms of thoughtful design and comments. But being able to work with other people is essential in any size organization. As it turns out, the give and take during the problem solving offers a lot of insight into the person's ability to work with others.