Take-home interviews • Hacker News Board

Re: Take-home interviews

#221

Post by mtviewdave » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 3:37 AM UTC

pixeloution wrote: post #150

bjones22 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just want to say, in conjecture to my sibling post on this thread, I had a identical experience. In fact, if you're in the Bay Area we likely applied to the same companies. My take-homes made me fundamentally question my ability as a programmer. And I'm a damn good programmer. That is wrong on so many levels. I can only pledge that if I'm ever in a position to hire developers (at any level) that I'll never force that…

I can only say that if you're ever hiring, you probably will ask people to code for you. You won't at first, but after you've hired a few who could "talk the talk" but then can't actually write readable, maintainable, and in some cases working code, you'll reevaluate. There's a gap between knowing concepts and knowing how to apply those concepts. There's actually a certain (limited) amount of artistry to writing code…

>I can only say that if you're ever hiring, you probably will ask people to code for you. You won't at first, but after you've hired a few who could "talk the talk" but then can't actually write readable, maintainable, and in some cases working code, you'll reevaluate.

You don't need an 8-hour take-home coding exercise to determine whether or not someone is capable of writing working code.

Re: Take-home interviews

#222

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 3:48 AM UTC

twright0 wrote: post #31

brianwawok wrote: post #4

Seems good, I like the choice. In discussions on this topic I see a lot of: "Programming on the spot is hard, let people program at home"! But then other people say "Why should I program for free at home, my resume clearly shows I am already a skilled programmer. All this will do is cater to young people without families, or those fresh out of school". I am not looking to hire devs right now, but I am thinking about…

> Offer $500 as a 1099 contractor to complete the assignment within the next 2 weeks or so. Just as an aside, I would actually be more willing to undertake this type of interview if you weren't paying me. I don't have any ethical qualms about interviewing while working a full-time engineering job, but I'm not entirely comfortable taking a contracting job under the table. It may be something of a symbolic gesture give…

[deleted]

Re: Take-home interviews

#223

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 3:57 AM UTC

bjones22 wrote: post #219

nilkn wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not really sure what you mean. We don't know what the task was that he had to solve. I was providing an example of a situation in which 66 commits could be seen as a bad thing. For a typical whiteboard coding problem, I also wouldn't want to see 60+ commits.

I remember when I first got started with git I committed at an absurd frequency. I don't think it's that unreasonable for someone straight out of college to be relatively new to git, and thus do the same thing. I remember later on I wrote a script that listened to git hooks and rebuilt my project on a remote server. I was still testing manually at that time, as we all do in the beginning, which resulted in a large nu…

[deleted]

Re: Take-home interviews

#224

Post by autotune » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 4:00 AM UTC

robspychala wrote: post #106

From the employees' perspective: Take home tests are the worst. Company says take home test will take 3 hours to complete. They never do. Schedule 2x or 3x the estimate. Especially if you want to impress the reviewer. You send it over, then the company says no or yes, only to move to new stage. In the worst case you ruined your weekend and received a no. But the company just took 10 minutes to arbitrarily reject your…

Honestly I kind of enjoy take home tests as long as they align with what I'm learning and looking to learn. I've had to do a couple take home interviews as well at this point as part of the initial phone screen, although they revolve more around config management tools/Ruby DSL and buildout work so far. So far the tests I've taken have been relevant to what I'm hoping to move into ("DevOps"/automation) so they've been a pleasure to complete. Not only that, but also a base to build on for playing with additional tools in the chain.

The biggest problem with these though is definitely the time crunch. The first one I hadn't realized how long it would take so rushed through it at the end and made mistakes. Second one gave myself a full week rather than 4 days and that's proceeding to an in-person interview, so you need to be taking as much time as they'll allow in order for it to go smoothly.

Also, another project means more documentation added to the repo so that's pretty nice too. If the project didn't align to my interests, which thankfully happen to be stupidly in-demand right now if you have "senior" experience with them, and the position, I'd nope out of the project right away.

Re: Take-home interviews

#225

Post by hharnisch » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 4:05 AM UTC

Here's the best approach I've seen yet to the take home interview (and interviewing software engineering candidates in general).

Here's a git repo, a problem statement and a slack channel to ask questions. You can use any tools you like and spend as much time as you like on the project for the next week.

----

Employer's perspective: You get to see some code, see how they approach a problem, see how they use their tools, and get a sense for what it's like to work with them.

Candidates's Perspective: You get to use the tools you're already comfortable with, you can set your own pace, and you get a sense of what it's like to work with the team.

Re: Take-home interviews

#226

Post by hharnisch » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 4:05 AM UTC

Here's the best approach I've seen yet to the take home interview (and interviewing software engineering candidates in general).

Here's a git repo, a problem statement and a slack channel to ask questions. You can use any tools you like and spend as much time as you like on the project for the next week.

----

Employer's perspective: You get to see some code, see how they approach a problem, see how they use their tools, and get a sense for what it's like to work with them.

Candidates's Perspective: You get to use the tools you're already comfortable with, you can set your own pace, and you get a sense of what it's like to work with the team.

Re: Take-home interviews

#227

Post by eru » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 4:14 AM UTC

robspychala wrote: post #106

From the employees' perspective: Take home tests are the worst. Company says take home test will take 3 hours to complete. They never do. Schedule 2x or 3x the estimate. Especially if you want to impress the reviewer. You send it over, then the company says no or yes, only to move to new stage. In the worst case you ruined your weekend and received a no. But the company just took 10 minutes to arbitrarily reject your…

> Take home tests are the worst. Company says take home test will take 3 hours to complete. They never do. Schedule 2x or 3x the estimate. Especially if you want to impress the reviewer.

So only do timed tests?

Re: Take-home interviews

#228

Post by eru » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 4:22 AM UTC

49531 wrote: post #194

robspychala wrote: post #106

From the employees' perspective: Take home tests are the worst. Company says take home test will take 3 hours to complete. They never do. Schedule 2x or 3x the estimate. Especially if you want to impress the reviewer. You send it over, then the company says no or yes, only to move to new stage. In the worst case you ruined your weekend and received a no. But the company just took 10 minutes to arbitrarily reject your…

My co-worker once found that someone had posted the take home problem on one of those freelance job sites. Needless to say we didn't move forward with the candidate.

If they can get the take home problem solved for a reasonable cost and in short time on the freelance job site, hire them as a manager.

Re: Take-home interviews

#229

Post by eru » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 4:22 AM UTC

ytdht wrote: post #197

robspychala wrote: post #106

From the employees' perspective: Take home tests are the worst. Company says take home test will take 3 hours to complete. They never do. Schedule 2x or 3x the estimate. Especially if you want to impress the reviewer. You send it over, then the company says no or yes, only to move to new stage. In the worst case you ruined your weekend and received a no. But the company just took 10 minutes to arbitrarily reject your…

as long as they don't assign you actual work that is useful to them....

Why not? That would even be preferable. Less waste in the world.

Just ask for compensation.

Re: Take-home interviews

#230

Post by dandanisaur » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 4:27 AM UTC

The take-home/programming tests in general are just as bad as interview questions. You're asking senior level engineers to take 3-5 hours (at what? 100-150$ hr bill-rate) to see if they can code?

Do you like them? Check. Do you feel like they are telling the truth? Check. If you use the 'try before you buy' method: You can easily see if they can handle the job/handle the pressure.

Also, you probably aren't the only company/avenue they are applying towards. All of the calls/tests add up.

The question is though, since companies are already using take-home tests/interview questions... can anyone confirm that these methods are more effective than a 'try before you by/contract to hire' position?