I’m fine with homework assignments as long as they’re paid. I was given a task to implement a new feature for an interview to the tune of $300. I didn’t get the job, but I got paid, and I have held the company in high esteem ever since.
Companies shouldn't give candidates homework assignments
101–110 of 179 posts
Re: Companies shouldn't give candidates homework assignments
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ya I agree, I was all ready to blast it but then realized it had a couple good pointers in the case that you are gonna offer homework. I do disagree with the premise though. As someone who's worked in the tech field for 15+ years and has been on plenty of interviews, I for one would much rather do a short homework assignment than have to stand in front of a few people and white board shit in real-time. Here are reaso…
> If you complain about having to spend a couple hours outside the interview on work, maybe you don't really want the job that bad enough Maybe I'm talking to more than one company and don't feel like subjecting myself to this absolute nonsense over & over. Maybe I'm just feeling out the opportunity without having to worry about solving a made up issue and hope it conforms to what the employee reviewing it considers…
An interview is a two-way street. I've walked away from two interviews because the whole ordeal was going to be very time consuming and I just wasn't sold enough on the company.
I did do two coding exercises, though. In one case, the exercise was very fun, and I was able to use it as an excuse to work in a language that I didn't work often in. In another case, I really believed in the company, but I would only do something that took about 1-2 hours.
Re: Companies shouldn't give candidates homework assignments
#103I like this idea. I HATE the homework, because one look at my resume tells you that even if half of it's true, I've been around the block and can pick up anything that doesn't actually require specializing in it since 2000 when I started working professionally out of college (as opposed to co-op jobs where I also did IT).
And very little in IT fits that bill.
IT hiring processes are part of the reason I took a sabbatical in 2016. I didn't have time for all this homework plus networking and interviews all for finding a new job on top of a new baby and a stressful day job.
Of my four eventual job offers, yes four, so I was clearly in demand, only one even had homework, and it was a short online logic quiz, not even coding. Everything else was phone/in person interviews.
Screw your homework. If you really need it, this article has a good mitigation plan.
Re: Companies shouldn't give candidates homework assignments
#104this whole homework / whiteboard discussion is disturbing, how about do a good interview, prepare, and target the individual your speaking with, ask specific questions, not blanket questions pulled out of a "how to interview" book, and then send em home with an assignment or two....
if you cannot work through asking someone detailed questions, to find out how they operate and solve problems, if you cannot formulate words to ask me the right questions... do i want to work for you???
Re: Companies shouldn't give candidates homework assignments
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd prefer to see it as an investment in yourself, so not really for "free". Also it's (probably) not like the company will make any money of the home assignment they give you.
The company makes money off of using this as a candidate screening tool in lieu of in-person engineer hours.
They're likely not. Not only would they need to have a different question for each candidate, which kind of nullifies that being able to be used as a neutral judgement, but the code produced likely won't pass whatever internal code and style guides are used in the team and would need to be refactored to actually be used.
Re: Companies shouldn't give candidates homework assignments
#106I like this idea. I HATE the homework, because one look at my resume tells you that even if half of it's true, I've been around the block and can pick up anything that doesn't actually require specializing in it since 2000 when I started working professionally out of college (as opposed to co-op jobs where I also did IT). And very little in IT fits that bill. IT hiring processes are part of the reason I took a sabbat…
Did you have to whiteboard code/algorithm during the phone/person interview?
Re: Companies shouldn't give candidates homework assignments
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd prefer to see it as an investment in yourself, so not really for "free". Also it's (probably) not like the company will make any money of the home assignment they give you.
The company makes money off of using this as a candidate screening tool in lieu of in-person engineer hours.
The fact that a company is cutting costs doesn't mean it is "making money". Nothing is being offloaded, it is just a process that doesn't require one of their employees to be present.
I think it is better for everyone this way. It is more accurate, it is less pressure and less demanding on the candidate, and it doesn't require an engineer sitting there asking intro-CS questions to a stranger instead of working.
Re: Companies shouldn't give candidates homework assignments
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
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...
If what they meant, then they’re not saying anything meaningful. Anyone working full time as a software engineer who isn’t slacking off to an unimaginable extent is spending 10-15 hours writing code in the course of a week.
Re: Companies shouldn't give candidates homework assignments
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If you complain about having to spend a couple hours outside the interview on work, maybe you don't really want the job that bad enough Maybe I'm talking to more than one company and don't feel like subjecting myself to this absolute nonsense over & over. Maybe I'm just feeling out the opportunity without having to worry about solving a made up issue and hope it conforms to what the employee reviewing it considers…
To add to this; if a company does want me to put effort into proving I can code a solution to whatever problem, then they better have gone to the trouble of: a) setting up a git repo with working code in it (including tests, dependencies and whatever else) so I don't have to worry about inane(but taxing) decisions in terms of project structure/code style. Also, verify it works before sending it out to candidates. b)…
(c) and (d) are sensible suggestions, but I've got to question your (a) and (b).
It sounds like you don't think much of testing, if you're expecting tests to be handed to you. Testing is hard! Writing good test cases can be as hard as writing the code itself. If your tests are inane, then you're going to catch the easy bugs and miss all the hard ones.
And when on Earth do you get clear and detailed instructions on what is expected? At least in my current job, I feel like half of what I do is turn vague expectations into crisp technical requirements. If part of the assignment is for you to write a function, I can't include test cases for you because I don't know what type signature you're going to pick for the function. This isn't an inane detail. In some ways the signature of the function is more important than the implementation: the implementation is local to the function, but the signature is going to effect the structure of all of the code that uses it.
Re: Companies shouldn't give candidates homework assignments
#110The only rule I think I have is I won't do any test or assignment off an email invite.
Qualify me a little, then a personal invitation for a test/homework can be considered.
But sometimes it seems like you send in a resumes and the response to a resume submission (even if a human looks at it) is to send you to a test.
To that, "no".