Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is the work sample done in person or take home? If it's take home, then they can just cheat on that by hiring someone else to do it.
At Compose (YC, S11) we had a two part hiring method. The first was a blind work-sample. You had unlimited time to complete it. Identifying information was obfuscated and graders would yes/no objective criteria. The best samples proceeded to the "work day". During the work day, you'd join is in Slack for 8 hours. You'd need to ask probing questions to mock-up our infrastructure and pitch a feature based on "how we wo…
How much did you pay people for the two days worth of work?