Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 470 posts

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#131

Post by bjarneh »

I've never been asked to hand in any home assignment for a job interview, but I have been asked to do some "live coding" while their employees sat and watched; that was somewhat unpleasant as well. But I guess it beats a huge (unpaid) home assignment.

Home assignments should be short and sweet, it does not take a huge complicated task to see who can and cannot write programs. There are differences in ability of course even among "good" programmers, but the main difference is between those who truly cannot do anything, and those who can.

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#132

Post by jasode »

CJefferson wrote: post #91
jerf wrote: 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 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.

>no-one complains about -- a take-home piece of work paid at a reasonable rate.

I've seen multiple comments in past HN threads of programmers complaining about any after-hours coding homework (even if paid) because "they have kids and don't have time or energy for that".

Probably the only suggested interview method that gets the fewest complaints from candidates is the "let's have a casual chat and just shoot the breeze about past programming projects". The problem is that you get complaints from the hiring managers that it's too easy to bullshit and is the weakest signal to determine competency.

I agree with gp (jerf). Ultimately, candidates just want to be hired without demonstrating skill. E.g. the college diploma should be enough. Or the resume should be enough. Or just low-stakes conversation should be enough. But the hiring managers don't want to do that.

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#133

Post by bluGill »

morelisp wrote: post #118
sarchertech wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't know any other trade that so thoroughly rejects apprenticeships, licensure, and formal certifications.

I have never seen a license or formal certificate that means anything useful. I'm open to the idea, but the burden is on those providing them to prove they are useful.

We do have apprenticeships in programming, we just don't call it that name. You start out at the bottom of the ladder and more senior people help you learn. Most medium and sized and bigger companies have some variation of that. Sure you can start as the only programmer in a small company and thus not get mentored, but you still learn on the job like an apprentice.

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#134

Post by sarchertech »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #120
sarchertech wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>I don’t know of any other industry who hires senior people the way we do outside of performing arts. Because nearly every other industry is credentialed, so proving your 3-8 years of university grind is enough to get hired. Outside of tech, any other white collar interview is basically a 15-60 minute coffee or lunch with the boss (the culture fit interview basically) and then, unless you showed some red flags, you g…

Except they aren’t. Most working engineers don’t even bother with a PE.

Think of all the marketing, sales, Human Resources jobs etc…

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#135

Post by lbreakjai »

We let the candidates decide: Take-home assignment, pair-programming, or we go through an existing project of theirs, discuss it, and extend it together.

The take-home assignment is short. It shouldn't take more than an hour if you really really want it to be polished, which we heavily insist we do not care about. The overall process is a bit longer, because we then discuss it together.

For the pair programming session, the exercise is picked by a developer that isn't involved in the process, to put candidates and interviewers on equal footing.

Our goal is to be able to give an offer within 48 hours starting at the first contact, and give a feedback, positive or negative, maximum one hour after each stage.

It's a candidates' market. A long and complicated process only ensures you weed out the candidates who have plenty of options. I'd almost be tempted to give a long assignment and consider everything but a firm "Not even in your dreams" as a failure.

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#136

Post by dvdhnt »

jerf wrote: 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…

Replies seem to miss your point. No matter how a company hires, some group of people will be upset and complain about it.

The real issue is that the company ghosted OP rather than provide feedback and closure.

Personally, the more experience I gain, the better the hiring process becomes.

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#137

Post by jeremymcanally »

jerf wrote: 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…

Finally, someone with a sensible position on this. Interviewing sucks, but the people on the other side of the table don't know you or your skillset. You have to give them some sort of objective information to work with. The position I really don't understand are those who think as a "senior" (whatever that means) engineer you should be able to walk in, answer a few questions, and then be hired just because you have a long resume. And I say this as someone who has a long resume with pretty good pedigree. It really doesn't work that way.

Your resume is basically the Instagram version of your work life (and let's not pretend otherwise). I've worked on a couple of teams that hired solely on the "strength of the résumé," and it was, honestly, a disaster. The two people I know we hired on that basis quickly cycled out (one fired, one quit) because they were pretty terrible. We realized they were just good interviewers who couldn't actually ship very good code. Maybe the issue was on us with a bad set of interview questions, but had we asked them to do even a simple take home, we'd have sussed out the issues really quickly.

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#138

Post by kuratkull »

social_quotient wrote: post #71

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…

Having the candidate actually write something and describe their thought process shows very quickly what their level is. Also most candidates fail the test. It's liken hiring an artist without looking at their work - anyone can claim to be one, but is their work the kind you need.

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#139

Post by dcminter »

101008 wrote: post #90
dcminter wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

To your first point - sure, but if you're not willing to invest the one-or-two-days in the exercise why should the candidate? If you're offering a top-tier salary, or something so technically exciting that it can't be resisted, then sure, you get to set the bar as high as they'll jump. Otherwise "Are we willing to invest this much" is a good rule of thumb for what you can reasonably expect of the candidate.

To your second point - any hiring exercise is going to be stressful for the candidate. False negatives are better than false positives (for the hiring party). If you're certain that this is going to cost you too many good candidates, then you're going to have to find some other way to demonstrate good faith up front - offer to pay them, offer to host them on your premises, something like that.

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#140

Post by cal85 »

The ghosting is what’s not OK. Ghosting a candidate after receiving unpaid take-home interview work from them is doubly bad, that makes them grifters in my book. Tell us who it was so we can avoid them.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with unpaid take-home interview work. Don’t do it if you don’t want to do it, but don’t declare that it’s “not OK” in a general sense, as if it’s somehow immoral. If both sides are clear on the arrangement, and it ends with either acceptance or rejection with feedback, there is nothing wrong with it. It’s my favourite format as an interviewee.

Post reply on HN