Ask HN: Is it reasonable to have job applicants complete a test before applying?

I'm advertising an SDET position and I've included a test as part of the job application.

The test is something like this: I've described a fairly simple json specification in words and requested that applicants submit a cover letter that conforms to that spec. The spec has an optional value called challenge_checkvalue which can be derived by completing a challenge - querying a url with an id between 00 and 99 for json payloads that may or not conform to the same spec. The checkvalue is derived by combining the ids of all the ones that are not compliant.

So it's a decent amount of work. I've deliberately made the number of payloads to check high enough that no one is tempted to check them manually. Validating JSON, even making http requests like that is not something that every valid candidate will have ever done, but I think that these concepts should accessible with some research.

My question is; is this too much to expect people to do before I even look at their application?

Did you complete this exercise, or have a colleague complete this exercise? If it took more than an hour or you couldn't complete it then it is too hard/long.

If you haven't completed it or had someone complete it then you shouldn't be sending it out at all.

> My question is; is this too much to expect people to do before I even look at their application?

I can understand your desire to pre-filter somehow. But: I would skip this job ad as it is.

You need to have a real good selling point for your company/product/project that makes the applicant really crave the job. (You left that one out to anonymize your post, right?)

You might deny yourself a pool of smart people who either dislike jumping through hoops or have easier access to jobs they deem equally (or more) attractive.

You might attract folks who are more desperate than skilled but nonetheless able to solve your task.

On the other hand: I am not a lawyer and i don't know under which jurisdiction you are operating. Some countries have laws requiring you to consider all incoming applications. So please consult a lawyer, too.

I think having to submit the cover letter in this format is kind of cheesy - it's difficult enough to express oneself concisely. I wouldn't mind posting an application to some well documented endpoint, which included the code to do some task so you could run it. I have been wondering lately about the utility of asking people to do some puzzles on leetcode or whatever if they don't have a github.

Forget about the social expectation for a bit - I don't think it's a good idea in terms of attracting the best talent that you can get. There are people who have better things to do with their time than spend an hour or more on a programming puzzle for a company they've never talked to. You want to hire these people.

In terms of economic efficiency, it's much better overall to do resume-screening before the coding challenge. Both you and the candidate spend something less than 5 minutes each checking if it might be a good fit before committing to spending much more time on the process. With the challenge that early, you either make people waste time when you could have found out more cheaply, or you convince people that it's too expensive to find out more about your compatibility.