The latest trend for tech interviews: Days of unpaid homework • Hacker News Board

Re: The latest trend for tech interviews: Days of unpaid homework

#51

Post by cdoxsey » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 10:33 AM UTC

NTDF9 wrote: post #3

Can someone explain why we need: 1. A phone coding interview (Potentially another phone coding interview) 2. A homework 3. An onsite with 5 rounds Seriously, what does that additional tree traversal round prove?

It provides a diversity of opinion. You might be surprised at how much disagreement there is about most candidates.

Its probably one of the few parts of the process that actually makes sense, but the fact that people rarely agree belies the deeper problems with tech interviews.

The selection criteria is way too subjective and the bar at so many companies set artificially high.

In my experience your best bet is still to know someone on the inside.

Though even that doesn't always work. A former intern of mine was rejected for a full time job at the company because he was "shy". Mind you this was someone who built something still running in production today.

I do 3 or more interviews a week and the process seems like complete nonsense. (but its my job so I do what Im asked)

Re: The latest trend for tech interviews: Days of unpaid homework

#52

Post by longsigh » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 10:34 AM UTC

As a potential employee, I am just not going to do this. Nor am I going to complete puzzles (and I LIKE puzzles) or dance around in front of a whiteboard. What I would be willing to do is work as a well paid contractor for 1-3 months to make sure that we are a good fit for each other. I'm not sure how anything other than actually working together could suffice. I am fortunate enough not be concerned about immediate benefits like medical due to my wife's employment--I recognize that this might not be a good option for everyone.

Re: The latest trend for tech interviews: Days of unpaid homework

#53

Post by gaius » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 10:35 AM UTC

xab9 wrote: post #50

gaius wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you get 2-4 days to work on an entirely speculative project?

Weekends, plus you may want to take a day off. Otherwise chip it off from your evenings. 7pm to 11pm through a week does the job.

These are unreasonable asks for just an interview. A read of their CV and a 30-minute phone screen, maybe two with different people, is all that is needed to determine if a candidate is worth bringing onsite, unless the interviewer and their company is utterly incompetent.

Re: The latest trend for tech interviews: Days of unpaid homework

#54

Post by cornholio » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 10:37 AM UTC

raducu wrote: post #34

danielh wrote: post #17

I don't get it. The whole industry is complaining about not being able to hire developers, yet there seems to be some kind of competition who can come up with the most awkward hiring process. Requiring homework is a great way to deter the kind of people companies should be most interested in hiring: those who are not actively looking for a new job. I find this trend especially surprising considering that the U.S. has…

All of the complaining is just a tantrum fit of an emotionally immature industry who, just like a spoiled child has had it very easy so far. "Why aren't there 100x more people than I actually need (because we only hire top 1%, right?) with 100 years of working experience with this technology that I just dreamt last night that want to work for free?"

Developers have a similar attitude, despite currently being one of the most privileged segments of the workforce save perhaps investment bankers. We have a straightforward professional path that does not require massive debt and burning half of our youth doing academic busywork and entry level drudgery - like it happens in almost any other professional field with similar compensation.

The industry requirement to prove that you can produce software is not unreasonable, coding is a craft and selecting developers is like selecting painters: ability to bullshit your way through an interview is orthogonal to the skill.

Re: The latest trend for tech interviews: Days of unpaid homework

#55

Post by i_dont_know_ » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 10:44 AM UTC

Despite some of the comments here, I'm actually a fan of the 'homework' format. I'm not always great at hiring, but I know how to gauge the 'homework' interviews, and I've usually been right about the interviewee's abilities afterwards, WAY moreso than whiteboarding or riddles or any of the other alternatives.

That being said, I would add some constraints:

1. The 'task' shouldn't take more than 30 min to understand, and no more than 1-2 hours to do. If it takes more than that, you should make some obfuscated dummy-code endpoints that do everything you're not directly evaluating on.

2. You should let the interviewee know that it should only take 2 hours as well. If it takes more, then there was either a misunderstanding in the task, or the interviewee doesn't have the right knowledge/experience/qualifications etc.

3. You should do your homework as well, meaning you've thoroughly reviewed the code submitted and have detailed questions ready to go for the interviewee. This should also be the 'control' to make sure the interviewee really did write the code (you'll know really quickly if they didn't)

4. No other coding tasks in the interview process. You can have them review code or suggest approaches to solve problems (things that people do on the job with others)

5. The interview should be shorter than if they were asked to do whiteboarding or live coding or anything like that.

Most employers have (on paper) "trial periods" of around 3 months. A 1-2 hour coding assignment followed by 1 hour of well-crafted questions about the assignment (plus the usual interview stuff) should be enough to know whether or not you want to give the employee a chance for 3 months.

(I realize most employers don't use the evaluation period for evaluative tasks, they just have the person start and hope for the best, but if done right, it's actually a pretty good system)

Re: The latest trend for tech interviews: Days of unpaid homework

#56

Post by majewsky » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 10:56 AM UTC

ccozan wrote: post #40

Grollicus wrote: post #22

I don't understand this development. In Germany, we've basically got full employment in the IT sector. Why would anyone waste their time with this? Just apply for the Job next door. As an employer, hiring someone new is always a leap of faith. Might work out, might not. If it doesn't, dont feel bad to fire people again.

"In Germany, we've basically got full employment in the IT sector." I can only confirm this. I used to be a freelancer and I got almost daily offers per email and phone. In order to stop I ask them a very hi price per hour ( 90-100 euros ) and to my very surprise yesterday the guy said, "that's fine, when do we start?". I backed up a bit and after some discussion he told me that they really could not find anyone. The…

> very hi price per hour ( 90-100 euros )

Contrary to what you seem to expect, that price is a steal. A more realistic rate for contractors doing basic IT work (like configuring DB backups) is 400-800 euros per hour.

Re: The latest trend for tech interviews: Days of unpaid homework

#57

Post by bgdam » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 11:02 AM UTC

i_dont_know_ wrote: post #55

Despite some of the comments here, I'm actually a fan of the 'homework' format. I'm not always great at hiring, but I know how to gauge the 'homework' interviews, and I've usually been right about the interviewee's abilities afterwards, WAY moreso than whiteboarding or riddles or any of the other alternatives. That being said, I would add some constraints: 1. The 'task' shouldn't take more than 30 min to understand,…

Well when done this way with all the constraints you specified, then yes the homework interview works very well. Unfortunately, the vast majority of hiring managers do not come anywhere close to any of the points you mentioned.

Just last week, I was interviewing for an opportunity as a VP of Engineering for a post-early-stage startup. The CTO gave me a take home assignment involving building not one but three complete applications (to be delivered in a docker container so it could be easily run). When I told him that I didn't have the kind of time it would take to perform this, he told me all the other candidates for the same role had no issues with it.

I ended up withdrawing from the process.

If senior roles itself are being hired like this, then I can only imagine how much worse it would be for individual contributor engineering roles.

Re: The latest trend for tech interviews: Days of unpaid homework

#58

Post by xab9 » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 11:06 AM UTC

gaius wrote: post #53

xab9 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weekends, plus you may want to take a day off. Otherwise chip it off from your evenings. 7pm to 11pm through a week does the job.

These are unreasonable asks for just an interview. A read of their CV and a 30-minute phone screen, maybe two with different people, is all that is needed to determine if a candidate is worth bringing onsite, unless the interviewer and their company is utterly incompetent.

I share your opinion Gaius, but the recruiters seem to think otherwise. In the last year I've been to seven interviews (by all standards I am considered a senior dev with an appealing pedigree) and this is not something unexpected at all.

The worst is that when they ask you to take three or five days off and work with the future team to see how you fit in (not for free though). I'm not too enthusiastic about it, but I already did it twice.

Re: The latest trend for tech interviews: Days of unpaid homework

#59

Post by pleasecalllater » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 11:06 AM UTC

dagw wrote: post #13

pleasecalllater wrote: post #11

I'm waiting for recruiting doctors like that. Oh, you are a surgeon with 17 years of experience? Cool. How about you make a surgery at home, record it, and send us a video? More pathetic are only companies which have only one question at the beginning (without any further contact) "how much do you want to earn" and after that there is no negotiation. Sometimes I feel like I'm drowning in an endless sea of candidates.…

I'm waiting for recruiting doctors like that. Would you want to work in a world where all programmers have to be trained, licensed and regulated with the same rigor as surgeons? Surely the fact that programming is one of the few 'white collar' jobs where someone with no education and no relevant work experience can get hired based purely on the fact that they've taught themselves the necessary skills and can do the j…

I want to live in a world when we have normal recruitment process for programmers. I have about 17 years of experience. And really my university grades are not important (yes, some companies want to see that). In all places where I worked I knew databases much more than all other people together, I organized training for them etc. Despite my database-oriented CV, I'm always asked basic database questions usually asked by someone who doesn't understand them, and then doesn't understand my answers. I also got some stupid IQ tests with multiple good answers (however exactly one was in the key).

I can talk about bad recruitment processes for hours. I just want to meet competent recruiters, and managers - just like they want to find a competent candidate.

Re: The latest trend for tech interviews: Days of unpaid homework

#60

Post by gaius » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 11:17 AM UTC

xab9 wrote: post #58

gaius wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are unreasonable asks for just an interview. A read of their CV and a 30-minute phone screen, maybe two with different people, is all that is needed to determine if a candidate is worth bringing onsite, unless the interviewer and their company is utterly incompetent.

I share your opinion Gaius, but the recruiters seem to think otherwise. In the last year I've been to seven interviews (by all standards I am considered a senior dev with an appealing pedigree) and this is not something unexpected at all. The worst is that when they ask you to take three or five days off and work with the future team to see how you fit in (not for free though). I'm not too enthusiastic about it, but…

Can I ask which geography you are in? I am in England and that would be excessive here. I think the most I have experienced is 3 phone screens and two full but non-contiguous day’s of on-sites.