Oh, I think I misunderstood what you meant by "get real work" out of somebody. IMHO, pair programming isn't getting real work out of somebody. I'm with tptacek on this one: take home programming tests. Specifically, tests where they give you specs for something and you build it however you like.
I'm ok with something like that if it's a reasonable amount of work, and if it's not going to be followed up with the standard interview loop. Extremely long take home work is unreasonable to me. Studying for interviews is at least applicable to many companies. A take home is just for the one. And if it's followed up with a normal interview loop, then it's just more but not better.
