I had one great interview once that worked out very well; it's only downside was the length of time it took.

I went to the interview, did a sit-down back-and-forth in-person discussion about my past work and resume; the usual. No whiteboard.

Then I was told I had to do a practical exam; they basically gave me a laptop (MBP with MAMP - this was for a PHP/MySQL position), sat me in a cube with the rest of their development team, and gave me a test to work thru. First half was just question-and-answer (multiple choice and t/f - maybe some written too IIRC). The second was to code up a simple CRUD app using PHP and MySQL.

They said I could use any resource I wanted - google, etc. This was about 3pm, and I had until 5pm (quittin' time) to finish. During this time I was working in the area I would be normally working, among potential future colleagues, with all the office distractions normally found at this place.

Oh - I forgot to mention where: Fender, in their marketing department.

So - randomly - people would start to play amplified bass guitars, or a drum solo out of nowhere. At one point, someone rang a cowbell and stuck a triangle. Fortunately, there wasn't any artists being introduced, but that was a possibility too. Various people on the team came up and introduced themselves. Distraction galore!

But that was how it was going to be - so that's how they tested you.

5pm rolled around, and they came by asked how I was doing - I let them know things were coming along well, but that if I had another 15 minutes I could get things more solid. They said, sure - take your time, we sometimes stay late - no problem. So I finished, and gave it back to them.

Went into a separate f2f with the director of the department and some of the team, chatting about my experience and such. The SWE supervisor and lead SWE came over, shut the door - and basically made me an offer right there.

I worked there for a couple of years before they did a downsizing and I had to "move on". But during that time, I found that this kind of test was actually very, very difficult for more than a few people. Some didn't even do anything - they just sat there. One guy sat for a few minutes, then got up and left, never to be seen again. Some would complete the first half of the practical, but completely blank on the second half. All of this, despite having a completely set up system in front of them, plus ability to reference the entire internet. If they didn't know PHP or MySQL, it wasn't for a lack of resources that they couldn't or didn't write anything...

Then again - I've heard of people failing to write fizzbuzz, so...

But overall - that was one of the top interviews I've ever had for an SWE position. I guess it was partly the practical testing, but also putting you "on the floor" to see how you'd fair in that environment (and yes, the whole instrument playing thing was a daily thing). I guess some people couldn't handle it. Others might've just not wanted to do the practicals feeling it was beneath them or something? And still others might have actually just "frozen up" for one reason or another - or really couldn't do what they claimed.

For me, it was one of the easiest and relaxing interviews I had ever done, and I would do again - and would love to give a similar interview to someone, if I were in that position.