The take-home challenges at my last jobs have been close enough to the work to be useful, and much more relevant than anything else I've seen in any interview.
Please stop the coding challenges
11–20 of 493 posts
Re: Please stop the coding challenges
#12So we should stop the coding challenges, stop LeetCode, stop whiteboarding, stop profiling candidates, stop asking for their GitHub page. How is hiring supposed to work then? Just post the contract online and the first one to mail it back gets the job?
I like live coding challenges, something like a ~2 hour pair programming session, ideally modifying an existing project. I invest as much time as each candidate, while we are both exploring whether we want to work together.
Re: Please stop the coding challenges
#13> This is like asking a Ruby developer to debug PHP as a test of flexibility. Sounds like an OK test to me. Great (senior) developers should be able to do that kind of thing. Categorizing yourself exclusively as "a Ruby developer" is a career trap.
being able to do that without significant time constraints isn't that bad imho, but inside of an interview?! That's borderline laughable, for me, as you're only going to be filtering out people based on whether they have any previous PHP exposure or not.
Re: Please stop the coding challenges
#14> This is like asking a Ruby developer to debug PHP as a test of flexibility. Sounds like an OK test to me. Great (senior) developers should be able to do that kind of thing. Categorizing yourself exclusively as "a Ruby developer" is a career trap.
Career over sanity is a life trap, though.
Re: Please stop the coding challenges
#15> What companies often ignore is the extra time candidates invest beyond the “suggested time” for these tests.
This is a feature not a bug. Companies are testing if you can focus and complete a hard uncomfortable challenging task, because at your job you’re expected to do things you don’t want to do, but will be rewarded for doing.
Re: Please stop the coding challenges
#16> This is like asking a Ruby developer to debug PHP as a test of flexibility. Sounds like an OK test to me. Great (senior) developers should be able to do that kind of thing. Categorizing yourself exclusively as "a Ruby developer" is a career trap.
> Categorizing yourself exclusively as "a Ruby developer" is a career trap.
And a lucrative one at that.
Re: Please stop the coding challenges
#17Remember that in other fields like medicine, finance, academia, and law, getting in involves 5+ years of hoop jumping and commitment signaling that have nothing to do with the final job. We are blessed.
True, but someone with 10+ years in those fields doesn't face an interview asking them to prescribe treatment for a cold or explain the difference between civil and criminal law.
Re: Please stop the coding challenges
#18So we should stop the coding challenges, stop LeetCode, stop whiteboarding, stop profiling candidates, stop asking for their GitHub page. How is hiring supposed to work then? Just post the contract online and the first one to mail it back gets the job? I like live coding challenges, something like a ~2 hour pair programming session, ideally modifying an existing project. I invest as much time as each candidate, while…
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Re: Please stop the coding challenges
#19So we should stop the coding challenges, stop LeetCode, stop whiteboarding, stop profiling candidates, stop asking for their GitHub page. How is hiring supposed to work then? Just post the contract online and the first one to mail it back gets the job? I like live coding challenges, something like a ~2 hour pair programming session, ideally modifying an existing project. I invest as much time as each candidate, while…
What is left is networking and referrals, which I suspect people also object to.
Re: Please stop the coding challenges
#20Remember that in other fields like medicine, finance, academia, and law, getting in involves 5+ years of hoop jumping and commitment signaling that have nothing to do with the final job. We are blessed.
Genuinely curious, knowing nothing about this field: does, for example a neurosurgeon with 15 year of experience, when looking for a new place to work, have to pass surgery "challenges", like doing a lumbar puncture in 15 min on a fake body to prove his experience?