Companies shouldn't give candidates homework assignments • Hacker News Board

Re: Companies shouldn't give candidates homework assignments

#91

Post by wilsonnb3 » Tue, Aug 21, 2018, 8:52 PM UTC

sytelus wrote: post #79

strict9 wrote: post #17

>Candidates spend many hours completing homework assignments for companies which are not sufficiently interested in them. This is abusing candidates. Knock it off. Given a choice of spending 2-3 hours on a take home assignment vs. 1 hour of writing code on a whiteboard in front of 3 or more developers, I'd choose the former any day. It's not even close. The author is taking one end of the spectrum and painting it as…

The problem is effort asymmetry. For in-person interviews, company must spend as much time as candidate is spending in evaluation. If homework thing becomes standard, I'm afraid that will become first line of filtering because it doesn't cost much to company. So you will still get in-person interview and may be even bit of whiteboarding (to make sure your friend didn't took test for you or somehow you cheated out by…

> you can bet sites pop all over that allows you to search problem and frameworks and download the common solutions with a click.

Sounds like a lucrative business, especially if you can introduce enough variety into the downloaded code to prevent detection by a system like the anti-plagiarizing systems colleges use.

Re: Companies shouldn't give candidates homework assignments

#92

Post by devhead » Tue, Aug 21, 2018, 8:52 PM UTC

maltalex wrote: post #29

ghaff wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something that takes an evening (whether code, writing, etc.) seems generally reasonable assuming that it serves as a reasonably effective screener. After all, some homework for an interview such as researching the company and their market space is typical. Something that takes 40 hours? Not so much.

If a homework assignment takes 40 hours then it’s likely that either you’re under-qualified or the company has some unrealistic expectations regrading the position. Either way, you should reconsider your application.

A third option could be that interview code takes longer to write than production code.

Re: Companies shouldn't give candidates homework assignments

#93

Post by rootusrootus » Tue, Aug 21, 2018, 8:54 PM UTC

I have had great success giving out a very simple homework assignment before in-person interviews. I ask you to write me a class which will score a bowling game. Just hard enough to show me that you know how to code, but not so difficult that you will spend hours working on it. Gives us something to talk about while I figure out if your personality will be a good fit with the rest of our team (because really, that's number one on my priority list).

I'm biased, I suppose, because I loathe algorithm questions in interviews or whiteboard coding. Neither does a good job of letting me show you I'm not an idiot.

Re: Companies shouldn't give candidates homework assignments

#94

Post by teh_infallible » Tue, Aug 21, 2018, 8:56 PM UTC

A lot of the commenters here are saying they like homework assignments because it’s a test that’s similar to the job, more so than solving a problem on a white board with no resources and a group of people watching you. I agree with all of that. Here’s where homework assignments are abusive- when they reject you with no critique of your work whatsoever. That’s been my experience, and it’s total, disrespectful bullshit.

If I spend time on your made up assignment, you owe me a detailed response that shows that you actually looked at my work and can critique it credibly.

Re: Companies shouldn't give candidates homework assignments

#95

Post by icedchai » Tue, Aug 21, 2018, 9:00 PM UTC

wirrbel wrote: post #61

sixstringtheory wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In terms of hours per day worked, what is the actual difference between doing an unpaid take-home test? Signing a contract is just being honest about the time it's going to take to learn about the candidate. What about onsite interviews, do you have to tell your supervisor that is the reason you are taking off work? Would they be OK with that?

One major problem is that the employer has the right to monetize work products that are close enough to your jobs work. So if my side project is writing a novel, there isn't much danger and the employer must basically grant the permission.if it is related to coding things get trickier. With a contract for coding I would basically transfer monetization rights to you. for that I would have to ask my employer. So I woul…

"Side-work permit"? Is that actually a thing?

Re: Companies shouldn't give candidates homework assignments

#96

Post by Shish2k » Tue, Aug 21, 2018, 9:04 PM UTC

rabidrat wrote: post #77

pmiller2 wrote: post #70

Let’s compare this to a recent experience I had with a recruiter from Square. Among other things, I was told that in a 1 hour phone screen, I was to write code as if it were production code, and not “just interview hacking.” She also suggested I read Cracking the Coding Interview ! For a phone screen! I think this is frankly ridiculous. What do you think the rest of the interview process is like? At best, it’s cargo…

The Facebook recruiter told me that "successful candidates spend an average of 10-15 hours preparing"...for a 45 minute phone screen. For the onsite you're expected to spend a few weeks reading CtCI and working through the practice problems.

I wonder where they're getting those numbers from, as I didn't spend anywhere near that long preparing o_O If it was rephrased as "successful candidates will have spent an average of 10-15 hours writing code over the past week" (ie, just working your regular day job counts as "preparation", since you're flexing your coding muscles), that sounds more believable...

Re: Companies shouldn't give candidates homework assignments

#97

Post by GoToRO » Tue, Aug 21, 2018, 9:08 PM UTC

One thing I don't like about homeworks is the useless things they ask sometimes. For example, I had to sort a table after all the columns in the table. Guess what? if I can sort it after one column, I know how to sort it after any other column. It just showed that they didn't care about my time.

Re: Companies shouldn't give candidates homework assignments

#98

Post by sxp62000 » Tue, Aug 21, 2018, 9:09 PM UTC

daenz wrote: post #11

The title is a little click-baitey, because it suggests full on assault on homework. The actual post is more measured in its criticisms, but basically the idea is: don't use homework as a cop-out for not having a good interview process, and thereby likely wasting everyones time. Personally I like homework, because it allows me to show my strengths (actually writing code that is solid) without being "under the gun" in…

Totally agree with you! I prefer "homework" too. It's a bit crazy trying to solve an Interaction design problem on the spot, while people sit there and watch. On the job, designers never do this unless they're working in a group .

P.S. I really suck at writing on whiteboards, it feels like my handwriting transforms into one of an 8 year old.

Re: Companies shouldn't give candidates homework assignments

#99

Post by PopeDotNinja » Tue, Aug 21, 2018, 9:13 PM UTC

netaustin wrote: post #12

My company, a fully remote consulting firm, uses test projects for some candidates whose skills we cannot fully evaluate using the code samples they have submitted. We only use test projects under conditions designed to skirt the clear pitfalls mentioned in this article. - We pay all candidates for the test project, whether they pass or fail. The original article did not mention paying for homework, which we conclude…

It'd be interesting to see paying candidates for there time during an interview process to be used as a form of money laundering...

"So please explain to me what you did to attract 121,498 applications for this job, the reasoning behind paying $500 to each & every applicant for the the time they spent interviewing, and why each applicant has a name like John Doe1, John Doe2, John DoeN, etc."

Re: Companies shouldn't give candidates homework assignments

#100

Post by phyzome » Tue, Aug 21, 2018, 9:16 PM UTC

tombert wrote: post #28

I had a friend that did an interview homework assignment, was declined for the job, then found out that they used his assignment's code in production through a friend that already worked at the company. While I'll admit that this is atypical, it seems like something a more nefarious company could abuse.

If they paid for the work like more reputable companies do, that wouldn't have been a problem.