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Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

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Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#41

Post by jjgreen »

yitchelle wrote: post #32
jjgreen wrote: post #19

For a 2015 ML job I applied for: | We are wondering if you would like to attempt our code challenge (C/C++ or | Python). It is a Computer Vision problem which we think can be solved in | about 8 hours. I'm afraid I wouldn't, 8 hours is far too much for a interview problem. However, thanks for considering my application.

Alternatively, you could say..."for my time spent after the 1st hour, I will charge you $200/hour. Are we good to proceed"

My take on this what they were testing whether I could be pushed around, and I won't be. I'd not want to work at a place that plays those kind of mind-games.

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#42

Post by lbriner »

It's only fair that a company asking you to do this should pay you because they should only be doing it once they are far down the funnel and perhaps deciding whether you are go/no-go in which case, paying somebody a few hundred dollars is neither here or there.

If you are doing it because you don't believe someone's ability, you should either pay them or be honest and say you don't believe their experience, in which case it is up to you whether you want to do it for free or not.

I find the ghosting unforgiveable though, I can't understand somebody being in contact and you simply not replying even if to say "sorry, we aren't taking you". Are people so insecure, they don't know how to reply without sounding aggressive/opening themselves up to lawsuits or something?

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#43

Post by WhompingWindows »

water8 wrote: post #5
willcipriano wrote: post #2

I've had the same experience. Submitted a working code test and crickets. I left it up on my GitHub named "{company name} coding test" and a couple of months later they asked me to take it down beacuse other people were plagiarizing it. Like them, I was concerned with the legal ramifications of providing any sort of contact, so I took no action and didn't respond.

Yeah, they were clearly plagiarizing. You should’ve told them to go pound sand

Plagiarizing aka Parent Comment just made an Open Source "library". What's wrong with using those??

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#44

Post by sidewndr46 »

willcipriano wrote: post #2

I've had the same experience. Submitted a working code test and crickets. I left it up on my GitHub named "{company name} coding test" and a couple of months later they asked me to take it down beacuse other people were plagiarizing it. Like them, I was concerned with the legal ramifications of providing any sort of contact, so I took no action and didn't respond.

If you ask a candidate to complete such a thing and then they turn in obviously copied work, isn't the author who published it doing the hiring manager a favor?

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#46

Post by jstx1 »

> I will not do take home assignments for free if they take more than 1h of my time.

Even then, if something can be done in 1 hour, it can probably be done better in 2-3 hours or more. It takes time to show your best work. That's why many companies that do take-homes claim that their process takes only a couple of hours (but in reality it doesn't).

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#47

Post by hprotagonist »

In the event that I’m responsible for assigning these sorts of things, my rough metric is to come up with a task that I, fully spun up on the task and already thinking about it, would be able to do in about 30 minutes.

I then time myself doing it.

I figure that means the applicant time commitment is under 2 hours, which seems not too bad.

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#48

Post by adastra22 »

water8 wrote: post #5
willcipriano wrote: post #2

I've had the same experience. Submitted a working code test and crickets. I left it up on my GitHub named "{company name} coding test" and a couple of months later they asked me to take it down beacuse other people were plagiarizing it. Like them, I was concerned with the legal ramifications of providing any sort of contact, so I took no action and didn't respond.

Yeah, they were clearly plagiarizing. You should’ve told them to go pound sand

I would have sent them a contract to buy the code for $15k.
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