I have applied online through a job board, and they came back to me very quickly by email, asking me to complete a technical test. The test was easy, although the last question was a little bit challenging and required a bit of thinking, and a bit of time. Anyway, I completed the test perfectly - I've been programming for the last 17 years, 8 years as a web developer and I do way more challenging tasks everyday -, but I found a very quick refusal, stating there were stronger applicants. The only thing that could distinguish my test from a stronger test would be completion time. Which is not a good criteria by any means. What's puzzling is that they didn't even take the time to call and discuss the test technically. I have recruited developers in my former job and I know it is virtually impossible to assess the skill of a developer through a test without having an extensive technical discussion with him. I would rather assess a developer's capacity to analyze things and organize the resulting code rather than looking at sheer coding speed. That's not a good measure of the mind. In a nutshell, the beginning of the recruiting process is quite unique in the development industry, as they don't seem to do things in the right order, and that can be quite surprising if you're not prepared.