In a new post to his blog Eli White looks at something that can be a difficult task at times - interview programmers to find the right fit for your job. HE has one suggestion that could help a good developer stand out from the rest.

I've interviewed my fair share of programmers over the years, and I find personally that how you interview a 'junior' versus 'intermediate' versus a 'senior' programmer needs to change. Specifically in regards to one topic. What's that topic? It's giving a coding test (as well as just whether you ask coding questions in the interview)

He suggests that its especially good for weeding out those for a "junior developer" role showing where they put their emphasis. For a senior role, however, he suggests a test of a different sort - ranking their experience, their history and how much they've publicly done in the community (talks/articles/etc).