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

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

#301

Post by newobj » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 5:01 PM UTC

It's unreal that will people will bitch and moan about having to invest a couple days, maybe even a whole week in cramming/prepping/interviewing, to perform on-demand, one time, for a job that realistically will earn them $100k, $200k, $300k, $400k+ a year. Meanwhile people that work harder than us 5 days a week for the entire duration of their career will make 1/2, 1/4, 1/6th, or less of income, with none of the perks, flexibility, mobility, etc.

I mean good lord. People are asking for an objective/verifiable measure of a skill that's entirely in the domain of your supposed education and/or work experience. How much more straightforward can things get? Would you prefer that it be based on ... who you know in the company? How much you can bullshit your way through a soft skills quiz? How much buddy-buddy rapport you can establish with your interviewer?

These are objective measures on a set of borderline "well known" problems, ... I can't imagine a simpler thing to prepare for. There is no guessing. The amount of hoping someone just "likes" you is at a bare minimum. The impact of resume fluffing is minimized.

I literally can't think of anything more fair or objective.

I can't even fathom people that aren't willing to make these miniscule one-time efforts where there are literally buckets of money waiting on the other side of the gate. Money that most non-tech people will never ever dream of obtaining.

I'll take all my downvotes now, but I'm willing to karmically die on this cross. :P

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

#302

Post by travisjungroth » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 5:01 PM UTC

ksk wrote: post #275

speby wrote: post #218

Our industry's hiring practices are absolutely obnoxious. In an ideal world, you could trust someone's resume. e.g. "I've written large production programs in C." Ok, great, so then clearly this person knows C so there should be no need to dissect code or run them thru some linked list algorithm and see if they know how to use pointers correctly. Yet, we do. Ok, then what about open source contributions (if they have…

Are programmers more dishonest than say artists? I imagine an artist could easily fake their portfolio too (especially if they were a digital artist). Maybe the artist would be found out much easier than a programmer. I think the fact that programmers have to re-prove themselves is more a symptom of non-technical people having no earthly idea of what it is that programmers actually do. For a programmer, its the same…

I personally know a designer that had an applicant try to pass off _his_ work as her own.

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

#303

Post by deviationblue » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 5:02 PM UTC

speby wrote: post #218

Our industry's hiring practices are absolutely obnoxious. In an ideal world, you could trust someone's resume. e.g. "I've written large production programs in C." Ok, great, so then clearly this person knows C so there should be no need to dissect code or run them thru some linked list algorithm and see if they know how to use pointers correctly. Yet, we do. Ok, then what about open source contributions (if they have…

> Apart from getting a candidate to actually pump out some code, even trivially, we don't really have a way to de-facto verify that the person says they can do what they say they can do, short of a personal reference from someone, say, in the company already that knows and has worked with the person in the past.

And it's enough for someone with good social skills to get a great recommendation without skills.

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

#304

Post by walshemj » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 5:03 PM UTC

gowld wrote: post #198

apetresc wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm very comfortable with never hiring a backend programmer for whom this is an insurmountable obstacle.

There are plenty of surmountable obstacles that are a waste of interview time. Why give a jr admin task that any teenager can do as a test for a professional programmer?

It does test for having a wider skill set that just memorising a text book.

Ill give you an example of a task that I got in my 2nd/3rd year of employment.

Came into work and was presented with an exotic (for the time) piece of hardware (A0 digitizer) that cost 3x my salary to be asked to.

1 Connect it up and get it talking to a PDP

2 Research and Write the code to allow the kit to interrupt the os and transfer the data to a second program (this is on RT11 which only allowed 1 process normally).

3 Work how to initialize and calibrate the kit

4 Was asked to go and chat with one of the senior engineers and work out how to use the kit to digitize the results from his experiment to produce a 3d representation of the droplet cloud - z axis was done by using a camera with a very tight focal plane

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

#305

Post by pwthornton » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 5:04 PM UTC

walshemj wrote: post #219

pwthornton wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't do this, but we do have people work for us on a contract basis for a period of time while they still have another job. We have a lot of people who are looking for extra cash or maybe they like to just do a bunch of contract projects. But one thing can lead to another and then you decide you both want to work full time with each other.

Which is flat out gross misconduct for 99.9 % of all full time employees in the engineering field.

No one here has a contract that forbids working for other companies in your own time. I haven't seen that in the DC area.

Maybe that's a Silicon Valley thing?

People might have clauses to prevent people from working on similar work for competitors, sure, but I haven't seen anything that bars working on other kinds of projects outside of work.

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

#306

Post by walshemj » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 5:05 PM UTC

collyw wrote: post #29

dosycorp wrote: post #21

I don't want to name names but one YC company I interviewed at left me with the distinct impression that they talked a big game, just to get me to work on one of their (apparently) "strictly-hiring-related toy projects" as homework. Homework, "sure", except it: 1) integrated with a real system, 2) mirrored something they actually did, and 3) they would only agree to proceed if I signed an IP/work contract and accepte…

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.

yes I think we need a database of bad actors here

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

#307

Post by rhapsodic » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 5:05 PM UTC

minimaxir wrote: post #282

rhapsodic wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I typically got rejected at #3 which means the homework meant nothing. It got you to step #3, but if I were applying to that company, I would not have done the homework. When they told me of the homework assignment, I would have asked, "assuming I do it, what comes next?" And when they replied "an algorithm exam, followed by an onsite interview", my reply would have been, "homework is the last step, or no thank you.…

In disclosure, all the companies were upfront about the full interview process. That said, in this job market, there isn't much leverage to say no to a prospective job or to make demands of the interview process unless you're already a rockstar.

>That said, in this job market, there isn't much leverage to say no to a prospective job or to make demands of the interview process unless you're already a rockstar.

I don't consider myself a rockstar, or even a prima donna type who would make "demands" of the interview process. But I'm confident I could find a job fairly quickly without jumping through ridiculous hoops just to get an initial response from a company. From my perspective, the software developer market is still a seller's market.

YMMV, of course. Maybe you're in an area where there are more qualified developers than available jobs, and employers have the upper hand to the extent they can pull off bullshit like this.

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

#308

Post by ghostbrainalpha » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 5:07 PM UTC

newobj wrote: post #301

It's unreal that will people will bitch and moan about having to invest a couple days, maybe even a whole week in cramming/prepping/interviewing, to perform on-demand, one time, for a job that realistically will earn them $100k, $200k, $300k, $400k+ a year. Meanwhile people that work harder than us 5 days a week for the entire duration of their career will make 1/2, 1/4, 1/6th, or less of income, with none of the per…

I think you make some really good points. But I would add 1 caveat.

I'm absolutely willing to lose a couple days for a job interview, if I have a decent chance of getting that job.

If a company is asking me to complete an 8 hour test and they have already received 100 qualified applications that have also completed that test, I should know how many people have successfully completed that test.

Giving a free 1/2 week of work for a job you have a > 10% chance of getting is very different than being asked for that kind of work for a 1% chance.

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

#309

Post by walshemj » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 5:08 PM UTC

eksemplar wrote: post #127

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 Denmark we put a job offer out on the various job banks, receive the applicants, go through them in the hiring team, starring them 1-5 and we call the best 5 candidates in for a 30-60 minute interview. Mainly it’s just a talk to see what personality is the best fit. Sometimes we do a personality test, but only for people who will do any form of project management. We’ve never done a technical test or had anyone pr…

That's just a bit elitist :-)

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

#310

Post by 131012 » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 5:09 PM UTC

newobj wrote: post #301

It's unreal that will people will bitch and moan about having to invest a couple days, maybe even a whole week in cramming/prepping/interviewing, to perform on-demand, one time, for a job that realistically will earn them $100k, $200k, $300k, $400k+ a year. Meanwhile people that work harder than us 5 days a week for the entire duration of their career will make 1/2, 1/4, 1/6th, or less of income, with none of the per…

You can't know for sure that dad/friend/partner didn't write or review the assignment either.

How about a 4-5 hours coding rush in the office, where you have to add a few functions or features to an existing codebase?