Okay my experience was, i didn't have to take leaves from my regular work. I had to simply dedicate a couple of hours post office time, to work on the task (the couple of weeks was given owing to time constraints due to my regular work). Post office hours, i would have to anyway commit to interview prep if i had decided to switch anyway is what i meant to say.

In any case, this is not the only method or approach that is the better alternative :) Maybe it will work for some and not for others. But evaluating alternatives is a good exercise. Currently we are stuck with this method because we do not have a better solution to the hiring problem.