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The latest trend for tech interviews: Days of unpaid homework

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

#91

Post by wpietri »

dilap wrote: post #82

I worked for a company that did a 3-day, challenging take-home problem. It was a big ask, but it was amazing for getting a sense of people's problem solving and coding abilities. (The final result would only be 1000 lines of code or so, but 3 days provided time to think and experiment with different approaches.) Maybe paying people for the time if you end up saying "no" is a nice compromise? If you are potentially se…

If it's going to take more than a few hours, companies should definitely pay.

I know that games developer ThreeRings did that. Once you got far enough along, they'd give you their games toolkit and ask you to build a simple, original game in, I think, 20 hours, for which they'd pay you a decent rate.

I'm not sure I'd do that today, as it can exacerbate existing systemic bias issues, and cause you to miss out on good candidates who have lives where it's hard to free up 20 hours on short notice.

Plus, I think there are cheaper ways to get that data. I now structure my interviews as joint work sessions. One round is a couple hours of pair programming; the other is a couple of hours of joint design and discussion with the team. The goal of both is to see people doing something pretty close to everyday work. I think I can get a much better feel for somebody's skills in a few hours of collaboration than 3 days of remote work with a big-bang delivery at the end.

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

#92

Post by bg4 »

mieseratte wrote: post #87
dilap wrote: post #82

I worked for a company that did a 3-day, challenging take-home problem. It was a big ask, but it was amazing for getting a sense of people's problem solving and coding abilities. (The final result would only be 1000 lines of code or so, but 3 days provided time to think and experiment with different approaches.) Maybe paying people for the time if you end up saying "no" is a nice compromise? If you are potentially se…

I've met folks, recruiters and (tech) leadership, at companies that do these type of long, arduous interview processes. They make it a point of ego / pride that they have such a long, arduous process. They've even mentioned the occasional candidate who asks about billable hours for an 8+ hour code problem, saying "Who the hell does that guy think he is?" Of course, they were shocked and appalled when I asked who they…

What a great way for me to filter them out of consideration.

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

#93

Post by tburmeister »

dilap wrote: post #82

I worked for a company that did a 3-day, challenging take-home problem. It was a big ask, but it was amazing for getting a sense of people's problem solving and coding abilities. (The final result would only be 1000 lines of code or so, but 3 days provided time to think and experiment with different approaches.) Maybe paying people for the time if you end up saying "no" is a nice compromise? If you are potentially se…

If you currently have a job then you likely can't accept payment without violating your employment contract, so you wind up having to do all this extra work for free anyway.

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

#94

Post by commandlinefan »

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…

Especially irritating considering I've dedicated tens of thousands of dollars and six years of my life completing a bachelor's and a master's degree in computer science where people whose entire job was to give me tests and evaluate me on them - maybe you'd like to take their word for it?

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

#95

Post by frgtpsswrdlame »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #84
collyw wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have noticed a trend of not naming companies here. Is it against the rules? I fell that we should name and shame companies that are disrespectful of peoples time.

I don't believe I agree. Every story has two sides and I'm just not sure this is the forum to lay that all out in.

If not here, where? There's no other forum where it will be easier to hear both sides of the story, naming a name on HN is probably the best place to name names because it's pretty likely to actually get hashed out in the comments.

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

#97

Post by azinman2 »

0x445442 wrote: post #85

If the software development industry was the home building industry... I'm a general contractor (Unicorn Homes Inc.) and I'm currently building a number of spec homes. We're going to need electrical work done in all the homes and I'm in the process of sub-contracting out that work. What I need from you, Joe Electrician, is for you to go wire the kitchen of one of these homes. Once you're done I will inspect your work…

I wish that’d be a possibility.. there’s no good other way to really evaluate what happens with GCs.

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

#98

Post by pwthornton »

If you're going to expect people to do real work, you need to pay them.

This is common in a field like journalism. Want to do a one or two day trial of a reporter? Pay them to write for you! Have them work in a real environment and do real work for publication.

If you're not willing to pay people for their time, and it's not an executive position, asking for days of a person's time is asinine. Also, if the homework isn't really real world, I still don't think it's of value. Making interview processes longer doesn't make them more rigorous. Only rigor makes a process more rigorous.

What I tend to do is have people do contract work for me, and if they do good work and people like working with them, I'll offer them a full-time position. Another way that companies get at this is with internships. They are a low-cost way to scout talent.

I find that a lot of companies are mistaking theater for rigor. If you ask someone to do a coding assignment, and it's not the kind of work that your company would actually do, how much value do you get out of it? Can someone work with your APIs? Are they comfortable with your languages and systems?

I have also found that longer interview processes that have more people involved introduce noise, not rigor. This is why I generally try to be involved in the entire interview process for people I am hiring.

Want to work on my team? I'll screen the resumes, I'll do the phone interviews and then I'll bring you in in person. I'll be in on all of the interviews you have with various people. It's my job to hire great people to work for me -- not recruiters, HR or random people at the company. I involve HR at the end to get a sense for a person's personality, not at the beginning.

As a manager, hiring is arguably my most important skill. A manager that can't hire is going to have trouble building a good team that works well together. So, getting the hiring process right is critical.

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

#99

Post by azinman2 »

commandlinefan wrote: post #94
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…

Especially irritating considering I've dedicated tens of thousands of dollars and six years of my life completing a bachelor's and a master's degree in computer science where people whose entire job was to give me tests and evaluate me on them - maybe you'd like to take their word for it?

If only that was actually reliable to find out who can code well...

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

#100

Post by Epenthesis »

0x445442 wrote: post #85

If the software development industry was the home building industry... I'm a general contractor (Unicorn Homes Inc.) and I'm currently building a number of spec homes. We're going to need electrical work done in all the homes and I'm in the process of sub-contracting out that work. What I need from you, Joe Electrician, is for you to go wire the kitchen of one of these homes. Once you're done I will inspect your work…

I've never seen a take home coding challenge that had even the possibility of being used as production code. For me it's always been a standardized, self-contained example problem. Maybe there're scummy companies that try to push job applicants' work to production, but I'd be shocked if that was anywhere close to the modal case.

So it's more like "What I need from you, Joe Electrician, is for you to go wire up this demo kitchen frame that I've set up. Once you're done I will inspect your work and let you know if I'm interested in hiring you to wire up the actual houses I'm building.".

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