Don't bother continuing the interview. An employer should be more considerate of the interviewee's time. Imagine you worked for this person?
Ask HN: A coding test or working for free?
71–80 of 92 posts
Re: Ask HN: A coding test or working for free?
#72That smells a bit fishy. I think you've dodged a bullet. I have to be a bit cautious here, because our company does something similar. We have a little programming challenge that we ask candidates to submit. We don't use those submissions in production. We find it gives people with non-traditional backgrounds a chance to show their chops, and gives us some meat to discuss during an interview. The challenge probably t…
"The challenge probably takes 4-8 hours, though." The problem with that is you aren't the only one doing this and when I am job searching I am applying to many companies. So now I have 10 different companies asking for an 8 hour code test to be completed within a couple business days. Meanwhile I still have a job to hold down. It's a massive time commitment to make to just one company without knowing if the work put…
We don't have a time limit on our challenge - it's public, you can work on it whenever and submit it whenever.
But I do see how having a challenge means our funnel gets narrower at the top because we're competing for people's time. We think we're worth it. :)
At the same time, we're always wondering if our process is excluding too many people. If someone came to us and articulated: "I think your challenge is trying to assess me for X, Y and Z; here's a GitHub profile that shows I have those traits" we'd likely be open to being convinced.
Re: Ask HN: A coding test or working for free?
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tell numbers 1-3 to Google and you'll find the door. Principles and self respect have real costs. The milieu right now is a race to the bottom, and refusing to be a part of it might get you left behind. This is further evidence of the need for unions to make a comeback.
But wait...you're saying...if I don't race to the bottom, I might not end up there along with everyone else? :)
Pretty much, but you get to maintain your self-respect.
Self respect can't feed you, but it's not so bad.
Re: Ask HN: A coding test or working for free?
#74It's the future. Crowdsourcing through job candidates. I had a similar experience with a company in Berlin, Germany. They didn't care about the code or my skills. Only if the submitted solution worked against their existing tests. I think it's just a sleazy way of getting things built for free. Basically, write only a test for the functionality you want. And give the actual task to job candidates. If someone succeeds…
Is it possible the German company was trying to see how you react to failing tests? I just ask because it seems like trying to get work done for free through code exercises is much more trouble than it's worth.
You would stand a good chance of waiting a lot longer to get that work done, but as mrcold said, testing a solution doesn't cost much. If you're willing to wait for the solution to a problem, getting work done through code exercises can be worth it.
Re: Ask HN: A coding test or working for free?
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hm.. how about some kind of three-way cooperation, where you get non-profits and charities to give specifications for work they need done, which can then be used for interview samples for actual industry jobs. The candidate can demonstrate their work and be assured that neither does the company extort free labour from them nor is the work they do for the bin, whereas the companies can see how they behave in real-worl…
That sounds amazing. I would love to contribute to such a project (or be interviewed using one). (Actually, would you mind if I stole this idea?)
Feel free! (let me know if you ever build something, maybe) :)
Re: Ask HN: A coding test or working for free?
#76It's the future. Crowdsourcing through job candidates. I had a similar experience with a company in Berlin, Germany. They didn't care about the code or my skills. Only if the submitted solution worked against their existing tests. I think it's just a sleazy way of getting things built for free. Basically, write only a test for the functionality you want. And give the actual task to job candidates. If someone succeeds…
Wait, you refuse technical interviews and you say the rest are top shelf? I'm curious to know what your ideal interview looks like. Or do you mean you just get hired through networking?
I've had a very similar experience to this commenter. I wouldn't say that I reject all technical interviews and take home tests, but I certainly reject a lot of them and find that I have little trouble finding really high quality companies that will speak with me. As you say, a lot of it comes through broad and deep networking. I know people, I have a proven track record in business and technology, and people are comfortable working with me.
An ideal interview is one where I get to learn as much about who I will be working with and what I will be doing as they will be learning about me. Generally these turn into more discussion based interviews where we talk about the issues the company is having and how I might be able to best solve them. They still get a good idea about how I think and work by discussing the problem back and forth. I also get to see how they think and work.
Frankly, I white board problems very well. But when companies ask me to do so in an interview I want to see them do it as well. I want to see their ability to code as much as they want to see mine. Same goes for a take home test. If we are going to work together and you have to see code of mine, I very much want to see yours to make sure it is up to my standards.
Re: Ask HN: A coding test or working for free?
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're not considering the situation where the candidate has a job already but is looking for a new one. Quitting your current job is a large commitment, and doing so for only a week trial period (where the odds are higher you'll be unemployed afterwords) is a pretty large risk. That being said, for someone who is currently unemployed, putting job interviews on hold for a week is less of a risk
Ah, indeed, I did not think of that. There'd be vacation days to avoid having to quit your current job for that week. Still, there's other problems, like maybe the contract forbidding you to have other jobs unless cleared by your employer, and taxes because you suddenly have two jobs – not worth the hassle for a single week, I guess.
Spending half your annual vacation allotment on one job interview. Who would do that?
Re: Ask HN: A coding test or working for free?
#78When I interview candidate I make them fix a problem in our real system. First by just talking it out (interview, unpaid) then I have them build it. Or what they can build in the time allotted. I pay for this time. Its basically hiring through short interview then real work on 1099style. Interviews you should do for free but fixing my real problems I pay for. I can decide who to hire with less time invested and know more about my new hire. #winning. Built a web-service/ATS to help me manage the while things
Re: Ask HN: A coding test or working for free?
#79Shady code test or not, I don't agree with the manner in which you handled the situation. You agreed to do the test, submitted it partially completed, and then replied that it should be sufficient (knowing full well you didn't meet the requirements). I doubt the CTO didn't understand that the other cases would be trivial to implement; he simply sees a half-finished submission and a candidate who didn't correct the mistake when given the chance. Had this been a college exam and not a code test, would you expect a professor to award you a passing grade based on the entirety of the test, or the questions you chose to answer?
One thing to keep in mind is that while you may view the code test as bad, it might not having malicious intent; some managers simply lack experience in putting together tests and fall back on old specs. There's two things I do during interviews prior to writing a single line of code:
1. Every code test I have taken has been brought up during a discussion. I use this opportunity to ask questions about the test. If you're interviewing with a recruiter who's not familiar with the test, they'll forward your questions to the manager who's evaluating the test for clarification. The manager's response will come either prior to accepting the assignment, or with the assignment attached to it.
2. Immediately upon receiving the code test, I review the spec in its entirety. If I have concerns with the spec, I raise those right away, as to not give the impression that I'm incapable of completing the spec if I bring up these concerns at a later time.
Re: Ask HN: A coding test or working for free?
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ah, indeed, I did not think of that. There'd be vacation days to avoid having to quit your current job for that week. Still, there's other problems, like maybe the contract forbidding you to have other jobs unless cleared by your employer, and taxes because you suddenly have two jobs – not worth the hassle for a single week, I guess.
Spending half your annual vacation allotment on one job interview. Who would do that?
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