He wants companies to give students homework? It sounds like he just wants companies to bypass college completely.

I mean, isn't that the professors' jobs? They design a course, assign work (solo or in groups), give tests, and then give you a grade based on how well you did. Then the companies look at your grades.

Also, I'm not sure what type of students he's met, but me and all the engineering students I knew were, generally, not "quite motivated" to do homework...

Yeah I'm not sure if this could work. The "work for free" element has been debated numerously on here.

But I do like how this idea addresses several critical flaws in the system right now. It takes care of ranking applicants by GPA, it takes care of weeding out the intelligent but unproductive crowd from the hard-working, gets-stuff-done crowd, and it shows students that there is a viable path to employment that is based on their current effort. This might eliminate problems like cheating, which I've written about publicly: http://chronicle.com/weekly/v55/i24/24a03601.htm

. . . which is behind a $10 paywall.

I know, I can't help it. That's why I haven't posted the link to HN yet. But it should be available for free in a week or so I think.

If you are at a University though, chances are that you can get it for free by checking with your library.

Better to just have personal projects that do the same thing while also demonstrating initiative.

People used to call this "being well-rounded."

People who wait to be assigned homework are not "go-getters."