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

201–210 of 470 posts

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#201

Post by LocalPCGuy »

jerf wrote: post #127
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…

"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…

> quite a few individuals who ... that they just shouldn't have to do anything to get hired

THAT is your strawman. I would question that this is a "common" assumption - most everyone, when pressed, understands there is some need for an interview and some form of evaluation of skills. They may push back on specific mentions as one person already mentioned, but almost everyone falls in a middle ground where it's something like "yes, interviewers have to vet people, and that is hard, but it can be done in a manner that is respectful of the interviewee's time and properly reflects the kinds of things a person may be asked to do for the job in question."

I would premise that the problem isn't with (most) interviewees not wanting to do anything to get hired, but that (many) interviewers do not have a lot of experience interviewing and have just googled what other companies do and copied that, many times for the detriment to the entire process. If the interview process were actually thoughtfully designed to both probe the interviewee's ability to work with the team in question and ability to do the specific work the position entails, I don't think you'd see nearly the same level of disdain for the process.

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#203

Post by naniwaduni »

bluGill wrote: post #119
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…

> 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…

> 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?

Once we admit "eliminate the ones that are obviously unqualified", there's no longer a principled distinction between dartboarding and what we actually have, it's just a matter of degree of filtering.

The optimal level of filtering is almost inherently going to look higher to employers and lower to applicants based on their incentives. Fixing this is a coordinated action problem.

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#204

Post by collyw »

oleg_antonyan wrote: post #27

They are much better than livecoding. I take 8 hour home assignment over 1 hour livecode torture.

I am 50/50 with this. Livecoding is very hit and miss. If the answer comes into your head under the pressure, all good. If it doesn't you look incompetent. Usually it's 50/50 for me. So 2 hours of effort would likely get me pass. 8 hours of assignment should as well, but I have been rejected for ridiculously trivial reasons on take homes as well.

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#205

Post by throwaway43345 »

oleg_antonyan wrote: post #27

They are much better than livecoding. I take 8 hour home assignment over 1 hour livecode torture.

Same here, The take home assignments are easy for me, but I can't seem to manage to break through the live-code / leet-code sections with the guaranteed panic attacks.

Lucky for me, landed a role that had checked my github profile and answered some questions, which was sufficient to convince them. No waterboarding required :)

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#206

Post by pierot »

sarchertech wrote: post #111
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’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…

Lots of companies perform rigorous assessment tests for high profile or high paying jobs. IT is not the exception.

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#207

Post by cal85 »

johnny_canuck wrote: post #88

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.

Ghosting is not a practice, it’s inaction. And no one really considers it OK. But passive, default behaviours don’t need to be considered OK to keep happening.

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#208

Post by jeroenhd »

datalopers wrote: post #50

It’s odd to me how people complain so much about being asked to write code (whiteboard, take-home, leetcode puzzles) in order to land a coding job. Is a prospective employer supposed to suss this out entirely through verbal questions?

Have you ever heard of a restaurant having applicants mix drinks behind the bar for an hour to see if they're really as good as they claim to be? How many administrative offices have their applicants perform regular tasks on dummy data sets? And, the other way around: how often do applicants have their prospective team lead perform an hour of work for them, to see if the company is a decent match?

I think these tests are a good way to have people without previous experience or formal education prove themselves. If you have skills, but no credentials, no public Git[la|hu]b, and no experience, you can still prove yourself with one of these programming tests. However, once someone has a year or so of experience or has finished formal education, the decision should be based on their credentials and the interview, not some kind of demonstration.

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#209

Post by collyw »

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…

Ask if they have any code that they would be willing to bring in and discuss.

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#210

Post by JustSomeNobody »

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…

Exactly. So, do homework and only apply to those companies that interview the way you want to be interviewed. Devs shouldn't be sending out 250 resumes to rando corps anyway. Figure out who you want to actually work for.
Post reply on HN