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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

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to have rapidly skipped over the exact thing no-one complains about -- a take-home piece of work paid at a reasonable rate. You just claimed people would complain. I've done exactly this, and everyone seemed happy.

Many states in the US don’t have the moonlighting protections that California does. A paid assignment outside of their main employer will very frequently will be basis for dismissal, or at least will demand prior notification.

Not if it's done out of hours and on !work equipment

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to have rapidly skipped over the exact thing no-one complains about -- a take-home piece of work paid at a reasonable rate. You just claimed people would complain. I've done exactly this, and everyone seemed happy.

Many states in the US don’t have the moonlighting protections that California does. A paid assignment outside of their main employer will very frequently will be basis for dismissal, or at least will demand prior notification.

I've been in a study which rewarded participants with the choice of which charity a small donation was sent to. Would that be sufficient motivation & work with US taxes?

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only real issue with this one is that many folks you might want to hire are prevented from doing outside piecework like this by their contract with their current employer. That's not a dealbreaker, it just means that you either don't hire those folks, or you have two systems available.

Also visas, almost anyone on an employee sponsored work visa is not permitted to undertake contract work.

Also people with no visas. At the point in time we're hiring, many of the people we're talking to don't have the legal right to work for us.

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#124
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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??

If a solution to a problem is available on github it would make sense to use it if it solves the problem.

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#125

Isn’t the root of this need to make developers code stuff to prove their skills because we don’t have an accredited body giving people meaningful certification? A dr would not do a quick surgery and a power plant engineer won’t build “just a quick test reactor” because they have credentials and the hiring bodies trust those creds. In software is the problem that we don’t trust what the resume implies? Where does the…

Historically, professional accreditation came from the need to protect the general public from harm. Random people can't use "doctor" or "engineer" in their job titles because the consequences of incompetence means loss of life. For most software development jobs, the worst outcome is probably user inconvenience.

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#126

First, Ghosting is a shit move. No reason HR can't send a standard lawyer approved boiler plate rejection mail. 2nd aspect is unpaid take homes. It's complicated. Companies do pay a lot to fly candidates, put them in hotels and feed them for onsite interview. So financially company can afford to pay something. But it adds a moral hazard as you are paying cash irrespective of any expected quality or commitment. Other…

> Companies do pay a lot to fly candidates, put them in hotels and feed them for onsite interview. I tend to see 1) quick phone call with recruiter 2) please make assignment in Europe at least

That's a red flag to me.I want to at least speak with someone on the tech team before I agree to do a few hours of work for free.

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#127
post #76

According to the HN gestalt, you shouldn't do a whiteboard interview because that's too unrealistic because nobody programs on a whiteboard, you shouldn't expect programmers to code with their laptop in an interview because that's too much pressure and also unrealistic, you shouldn't expect programmers to be willing to do a take home exam because that's too much work without money (and if people did pay, the complain…

You’re setting up a gigantic straw man. There are camps on HN who dislike all of those things individually—you can’t just take the union of everything someone here dislikes and call it the HN gestalt. >do something unfun to get hired I don’t know of any other industry who hires senior people the way we do outside of performing arts. I personally don’t mind putting together a portfolio the way most other creative indu…

"You’re setting up a gigantic straw man."

And called it the HN gestalt. Pretty sure I labelled it with what it is right up front.

Nevertheless, I do think there are quite a few individuals who have an unexamined (in the philosophical sense) assumption that they just shouldn't have to do anything to get hired. I bet most of them, if they examined it, would realize that it's not a sensible assumption. I think it sneaks in through these conversations. But I think it's a modestly popular view.

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#129
post #76

According to the HN gestalt, you shouldn't do a whiteboard interview because that's too unrealistic because nobody programs on a whiteboard, you shouldn't expect programmers to code with their laptop in an interview because that's too much pressure and also unrealistic, you shouldn't expect programmers to be willing to do a take home exam because that's too much work without money (and if people did pay, the complain…

> Apparently the approved HN method is to arrange the resumes on a dartboard, throw darts at it, and commit up front to hiring whoever you hit unconditionally for at least two years without no possibility of having to fire them. Name me one interview method that actually has better results than that? Okay, lets eliminate the ones that are obviously unqualified from the ones we paste up, is your method still better? M…

Links to such scientific research would be welcome!

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#130
post #8

I've had this before from a big company in the Go space. They constantly still sent me job ads and requested for me to interview and repeatably ghosted me. Wasn't until I direct messaged the CTO on a public Slack community to find out that I had not passed and that was why they wouldn't consider me and why I had been repeatably ghosted. No feedback as to why I failed the test or anything

>No feedback as to why I failed the test or anything As a company, you can't really provide feedback on why people failed the test. Hell of a lot of people will get defensive and get into arguments with you that you don't have time for. I agree however that one should at least tell you you are being rejected instead of ghosting you. That's just bad manners.

You don't have to let them pull you into arguments
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