Project based but on-site for like one or two hours. Something where they consume a public api and build a UI usually a list on it. Will allow you to see their dev setup, etc... This will give you by far the most signals.
Discussions around state management, js libraries (react, vue, etc...), testing strategies (storybook, etc...) should also give you some signals too on their experience.
I recommend to tell that manager to learn about how people can be motivated, because yeah, deadlines are one kind of motivation, but there are a huge amount of people who responds much better to other kind of motivations.
I've seen similar things said by Duke Ellington and Kevin Kelly.
I think the reasoning KK gave was the deadline will force you to drop all the unnecessary cruft to focus on delivering the essential as fast as possible.
https://www.journable.com/
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