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Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

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Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#751

Post by PragmaticPulp »

unnamed38388 wrote: post #482
joshmanders wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s easy really. Walk. As a senior it’s insulting to expect to do a four hour take home test. When you hire a Michelin star chef do you make them make you a four course meal to prove they can cook? Do you make a surgeon do four hour surgery? It’s absolutely asinine that we accept this behavior in our industry. You’d be laughed at by every possible candidate in other industries.

I immediately decline if a company asks for unpaid work as part of the interview process. If it’s paid I don’t have an issue with it. I assume if a company starts the relationship with asking for unpaid work that expectation will continue throughout your employment. There are simply too many companies hiring that don’t require this that it’s easy to just pass.

> I immediately decline if a company asks for unpaid work as part of the interview process.

Take-home challenges aren't unpaid work. They're just a take-home replacement for the on-site interview.

If anyone tries to get you to do unpaid work (as in, actual work that the company needs to be done rather than an arbitrary challenge given to candidates for review) then you should absolutely walk.

Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#752

Post by anon291 »

tiborsaas wrote: post #660
anon291 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing with 4hr technical assignments is that you're saying no to anyone with kids, which I'm going to venture applies to more senior people than juniors. I used to do these assignment. Now I simply don't sorry. My schedule is 6:30 AM wake up with youngest daughter, to let wife sleep in (she takes care of her all night) 9:00 AM hand off youngest daughter to wife, who takes both girls the rest of the day. I go to m…

Can't you just quit and enjoy some time not working? Then suddenly have 8 hours a day which fits the 4 hours of coding assignment.

Quitting a job before you have another one is stupid.

Sorry, but if I had started my job search even a few weeks later, I would not have gotten my current thing. The economy has been in a free fall lately and I caught the last hiring wave before both my previous company and my new one announced hiring freezes.

So if I had quit and delayed a bit, I could have ended up unemployed, instead of with a raise. Quitting puts you in the position of disadvantage, so never do that.

Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#754

Post by arinlen »

ghaff wrote: post #178
Simon_O_Rourke wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The thing with 4hr technical assignments is that you're saying no to anyone with kids, which I'm going to venture applies to more senior people than juniors. Completely agree here - like a fool I recently went through an entire day's worth interviews for a role (hello Stripe recruiters!!) that required both me and my wife taking PTO, with her looking after the kids while I talked to one junior dev after another abo…

As something of a counterpoint, a literal 4-hour assignment isn't that bad--especially as an alternative to a day of interviews. If they give you the assignment and it's immediately obvious that it's actually a 20+ hour assignment, you can always just walk. When I worked for a technology analyst company, we would ask for writing samples--which most potential hires would already have. But, if someone didn't, they'd ha…

> As something of a counterpoint, a literal 4-hour assignment isn't that bad--especially as an alternative to a day of interviews.

No, it's really bad. It's half-day of useless, unpaid work which takes time other things you need/have to do.

Never in my career I had to endure a day of interviews. Even FANGS don't do days of interviews, even the ones notorious for their awful working conditions. At most, there is the final 4-hour interview/test round, and even that is too much.

I'd say that these hoop-jumping obstacle courses are major red flags. If a company is really interested in getting you to join their team, why do they show so little consideration for you with all these arbitrary, capricious demands?

Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#755

Post by arinlen »

fourthark wrote: post #411
lelanthran wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As something of a counterpoint, a literal 4-hour assignment isn't that bad--especially as an alternative to a day of interviews. As a counter counterpoint, that only makes sense if the candidate is applying to a single place. If the candidate has lined up 4 interviews, they're not going to get 16 hours in the week to complete them. The fifth place that has no 4 hour interviews will get the candidate.

To put it another way, it may be selecting for the candidate who wants exactly this job and none other. Loyalty becomes the main criterion. I have mixed feelings about this, but I can see why employers might want this.

I agree, but "loyalty" doesn't sound like the right word.

If a company demands you run an arbitrarily long and unpleasant obstacle course without any goal or criteria just because they asked you, what they are looking for is subservience.

Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#756

Post by username428 »

corrral wrote: post #21

> Take-home technical assignment (~4h) or similar at candidate's choosing If I can get a similarly-paying job at a place that doesn't do this, I'll skip you. Many seniors ( actual seniors, not 3-years-of-experience seniors) have a network and can say "hey I'm looking" and instantly have multiple options that won't have them do more than talk to the team and manager for an hour or two. If that.

I might be okay with a supplementary assignment (depending) but I definitely need an interview. With an assignment I don't learn much about the team and thus whether I really want to work there.

Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#757

Post by arinlen »

anon291 wrote: post #280
dataflow wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As something of a counterpoint, a literal 4-hour assignment isn't that bad--especially as an alternative to a day of interviews. Don't forget to multiply that by however many companies they're interviewing at.

IME, the 4 hour assignment comes at the 'coding interview' stage, and most companies have a full day of interviews right after. Compared to companies with a one hour coding screen... by the time I even would get to the 4 hour assignment I likely already have three or four ful day interviews lined up

> IME, the 4 hour assignment comes at the 'coding interview' stage, and most companies have a full day of interviews right after.

This is not true at all. I know for a fact that some FANGs do hour-long phone screens followed by hour-long coding assignments followed by a 4-hour multi-interview round. I know for a fact that a couple of major Fintech companies do hour-long phone screens followed by a hour-long live coding sessions.

Personally, the max I endured was a 7-round hiring process comprised of a mix of one-hour interviews that culminated in a 4-hour interview round, and that was only because midway through I was bumped from a developer position track to a research engineer position.

Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#758

Post by yourapostasy »

s0rce wrote: post #326
jiggawatts wrote: post #314

POST THE SALARY. Senior people are senior because of their work experience, which they gain from steady employment. Almost by definition you are looking to entice busy, employed people away from their current jobs. They don’t have the time or inclination to trawl through job ad after job ad. Where your competition will ask for 15 years of experience and then only after hours of calls and meetings reluctantly make an…

I've tried to advocate for this at my organization and been told that we don't want people primarily motivated by money...

> ...we don't want people primarily motivated by money...

...as if that's the kind of investors the C-suite courts?

Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#759

Post by HowTheStoryEnds »

mdavis6890 wrote: post #437
corrral wrote: post #21

> Take-home technical assignment (~4h) or similar at candidate's choosing If I can get a similarly-paying job at a place that doesn't do this, I'll skip you. Many seniors ( actual seniors, not 3-years-of-experience seniors) have a network and can say "hey I'm looking" and instantly have multiple options that won't have them do more than talk to the team and manager for an hour or two. If that.

This seems weird to me. I hear it all the time, but I don't understand. It's a few hours, even as much as a day of effort - to make a huge jump that might be worth hundreds of thousands of Dollars, or perhaps have other major lifestyle improvements. And "if I can get a similarly..." - sure, but is it not worth a few hours up front to find the best job for you? I would happily to 4 hours of work to get a 1% better job…

Because a) it's not 'to make' but 'to possibly make' times APPLICATIONS_RUNNING b) most people on that level will already earn that compensation package.

So it tends to narrow down the pool to those for which it is an interesting position, ie. 'Not yet established senior yet'. Which explicitly doesn't seem to be what they want.

Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#760

Post by rswail »

corrral wrote: post #21

> Take-home technical assignment (~4h) or similar at candidate's choosing If I can get a similarly-paying job at a place that doesn't do this, I'll skip you. Many seniors ( actual seniors, not 3-years-of-experience seniors) have a network and can say "hey I'm looking" and instantly have multiple options that won't have them do more than talk to the team and manager for an hour or two. If that.

Agreed. They're nonsense. They either test irrelevant capabilities that anyone with Google and Stack Overflow can solve, or they are hoop-jumping for the sake of it.

If you can't tell whether someone is just talking the talk or actually has done something during a 30m+ interview process, then you're not asking the right questions.

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