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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

#81

Post by cableshaft »

pc86 wrote: post #51

Up front, ghosting is not okay in general. But, a few counterpoints: It seems very unlikely they expected or wanted it to take you 6 hours. Possible, but certainly an outlier (and obviously bad actor) if so. If they expected you to spent 1.5-2 hours on it - a reasonable amount of time IMO - but when got it back you clearly spent an entire day working on it, that's enough to fail because you didn't follow the directio…

> If they expected you to spent 1.5-2 hours on it - a reasonable amount of time IMO - but when got it back you clearly spent an entire day working on it, that's enough to fail because you didn't follow the directions.

Yeah, let's fail someone who cares about showing their best self for an interview and takes pride in the craftsmanship of their code because we asked them to spend no time on it and probably get something that doesn't even work.

Not to mention there are probably other candidates that are taking just as long but not mentioning how long it takes them when turning it in, so the employer might start having an unreasonable expectation of the quality of work that can be done in 1.5-2 hours based on other applicants, and if you actually do follow instructions and only put that time in, you're likely going to be compared unfavorably against those other applicants.

Only way to properly enforce that limited time is to bring someone in to take a test in person, which is what my last company did (I barely passed and watched hundreds of people get brought in and not pass in the years since...in fact I saw only a handful of people pass that stupid test, part of the reason we never hired anyone, even though we needed to).

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#82

Post by danpalmer »

Unpaid home assignments are fine, if:

- The work produced is not used in any way by the company other than to assess the candidate.

- The project has a time limit to prevent those with more time to dedicate to it being able to do better (reduces bias).

- The company puts time into reviewing the code that is commensurate with the time spent on it (a 3 hour test warrants at least 45 mins of thorough code review and feedback writing across a couple of engineers).

- The company provides options to take the test at a convenient time, or even on-site but unsupervised if desired by the candidate.

Asking for payment to take part in an interview isn't a great approach assuming the above are true (which they are often not). Companies don't pay for interviews as general rule, but conversely should be clear about the full time commitment so that candidates can make informed decisions about taking part.

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#83

Post by rajasimon »

androa wrote: post #34

I do a lot of interviews for my company. We do coding assignments OR let you bring some code. We just want to talk with you about code that you are very familiar with and confident to talk about. Almost everyone chooses to do the small coding assignment, because they don't have code to bring.

For personal project there will not be a TDD so coder not willing to share their existing codes. I rather showcase my skills in a new development than say already done one.

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#84

Post by have_faith »

lbriner wrote: post #42

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…

> It's only fair that a company asking you to do this should pay you

I don't think it's a question of fairness at all. It's certainly inconvenient and the longer the test the more likely I am to dismiss it off hand but a couple hours is ok, more than that needs good justification. If a company is offering me a salary thats 90th percentile or above then I don't see the problem with having to jump through some (reasonable) hoops.

The ghosting part is unquestionably rude though and any such company should be named and shamed so that people can avoid them if they want.

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#85

Post by lkschubert8 »

kadirmalak wrote: post #63

Home assignments are a great way to evaluate a candidate. A "one hour" project would not be sufficient for that, the problem would be too easy. I find it weird that you guys don't want to spend some time to show your skills to the employer, without getting paid. These are not real projects. You're not benefiting the employer when you finish them. They also spend some time evaluating your project submission. (I'm not…

Its hugely asymmetrical in terms of amount of time spent in a setting where there is already a large amount of asymmetry.

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#88

Post by johnny_canuck »

Ghosting really sucks.

I don't understand the practice. Maybe someone here can fill me in on why it is considered OK from the recruiter perspective. Too many folks asking for feedback post-rejection? If that is the case - automate the message with a generic rejection.

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#89

Post by throwaway6734 »

water8 wrote: post #28
brutusborn wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're both right: noone is 'owed' a response but ghosting is still discourteous.

People get frustrated by ghosting because they spend all this time wondering the cause when it’s very simple. They can’t come to the simple truth that they weren’t good enough compared to other options

do you feel the same way about employees not providing a two weeks notice?

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#90

Post by 101008 »

dcminter wrote: post #58
101008 wrote: post #29

I've been in both sides, and what they did to you was horrible. Just last week I had a call with someone who did the take home assigment very badly, but I wanted to give him some feedback and showed him a better solution. Nonetheless, I can't think of a better solution for this. Hiring someone is a big commitment (for both parts), so I want to be completely sure that I am hiring the right person. How do you that? How…

Do pair-programming exercises. When the hiring company is investing a proportionate amount of their time in the process then I'm much more willing to participate. It's much the same vein as that Canonical recruitment questionnaire that was doing the rounds a while ago - if you want to sit with me (virtually or IRL) and ask me questions, that's fine. If you want me to submit an essay that takes me hours to write then…

The problem is that the pair programming exercises are not proof of a real work enviroment. Some of the problems or challenges at work won't get an answer in 2 o 3 minutes, sometimes you need to think more of them (in work, maybe one or two days, in the excercise, maybe 30 minutes).

Secondly, some candidates get very nervous/anxious when they have to answer code in an interview and can't show they real knowledge, etc. Pair programming hasn't worked for me because you get a lot of false negatives that are hard to distinguish from the real false.

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