Practical close to real world application and code review are always the best choice to asses a candidates skill.

Github repos and tech blog are tie breakers.

medium.com/javascript-scene/10-interview-question…

As someone who has never published code in a public repository or even written a blog despite many years promising myself to publish this or that project on github, and knowing a good number of excellent developers in a similar situation, I know very much not to give undue importance to these. Like @oded says, there is no better way to make an assessment than to engage a prospect in a problem solving exercise. Some people can talk (or write) impressively about things that they know little about in practice - that is their gift. Equally, some really good practitioners can find it difficult to express themselves - that is the way they are.

I would usually ask for code samples which may or may not be in a public repository, but these can only give you part of the picture. For me software development is more about a certain type of mindset - more so than knowing this or that language or writing code in this or that style or applying this or that methodology.

Just in passing, I know two people, one a company director and the other a lecturer who I think are great programmers that are not software developers !

We hardly even look at those, technical interview, technical test and if we're happy, that's it.

Honestly, every one of those things is a major plus. In rising order:

• Asked questions on SO

• Answered questions on SO

• Has repositories on GitHub

• Contributed to other repositories on GitHub

• Has a technical blog

Those things help, but I think the best way to asses a candidate's technical strength is with a practical test. Let them write some code and then talk to them about their design choices.