Interviewing can take up a noticeable number of developer hours precisely when a team needs more of them. I suspect they're trying to cut down on the number of full day interviews needed. Too often, it's clear within minutes that a person isn't a match.
Or maybe they're reacting to how little we can learn from a single interview by adding more hoops. Either way, it's a broken system. If anyone has a solution, I'll build it :)
Funny you should mention that. Are you aware with how Matasano interviews[0][1]? It sounds like they pretty much figured out a 'moneyball' strategy. But, like any other type of system, it took time to develop.
Unfortunately, I don't see any companies going in that direction. Every company I've spoken to, from huge corporations to tiny startups, treat technical interviewing as an afterthought. Which can be funny and surreal in an Orwellian way, considering the big companies have very well defined systems for non-technical interviewing. So everything will be running like a swiss watch until it comes time to test your technical knowledge, then it's treated as one big unknowable wild card.
[0]: Or used to interview. They were bought out by the NCC Group and I have no idea how they go about things.
Or maybe they're reacting to how little we can learn from a single interview by adding more hoops. Either way, it's a broken system. If anyone has a solution, I'll build it :)