With the ChatGPT being available readily how do you test your software engineers before hiring?

In this we will discuss what kind of take home assignment you can use as the first layer of filtering.

The problem
Anything you can probably test them on can be fed directly to the chatGPT prompt and you will get the solution.

Some tips on how to create such a task / problem statement that ChatGPT can't produce a solution as of now.

Constraints on the task

1. Should take not more than 2-4 hours.

2. Should have some parts such that ChatGPT output is not directly sent back to you.

Here is what might work

1. Ask the candidates to implement something obscure which is not documented well, like a nginx config. I have struggled with getting this right even with GPT-4o. So, if you could ask them to implement certain routing in nginx, for example, that could be a good way or anything that is little complex.

2. Ask the candidates to implement a part of your existing website without any change, a part that is small enough to be implemented in couple of hours and big enough to involve atleast one API call. The reason for using part of existing website is that you don't end up getting accused of using intern assignment for your own site without paying them.