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Take-home interviews

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Re: Take-home interviews

#31

Post by twright0 »

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 given that it's such a small time investment and small amount of money, but it feels fundamentally dishonest, especially if you're a current or plausible future competitor to the company I currently work at.

The official policy where I currently work is that moonlighting is allowed but must be approved by our legal team, and while I could probably get away with not asking for permission, I'd be pretty uncomfortable in both cases (asking, or not asking).

Re: Take-home interviews

#32

Post by totalrobe »

bjones22 wrote: post #20
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…

Its good in theory, but it leaves a lot of ambiguity for the interviewee to parse through. For instance, if given a two week window would it look better for me to do it tonight? Would it show ambition? Or would it seem like I'm desperate, and lead to a lower amount of compensation being offered to me? Should I spend far longer then five hours on the assignment, and turn in superior work while making it seem like I on…

Good points. If you really care about being impartial, maybe have the 2 week period and a blind submission method in which the interviewer does not see when the assignment was completed.

Re: Take-home interviews

#33

Post by istorical »

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…

My guess is an applicant that stated the above would be allowed to work for free :)

Re: Take-home interviews

#34

Post by bbcbasic »

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…

Interesting and very ethical. Opposite of me. I don't see that a company should own your soul when you work for them. So doing a small amount of work for effectively beer money in your spare time is no problem. Even taking a second job is OK if it doesn't affect your first one.

Re: Take-home interviews

#35

Post by facetube »

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…

Blanket prohibitions on moonlighting are illegal in California AFAICT, unless it's framed as a conflict-of-interest avoidance issue. See http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/cacode/LAB/1/d1/4/s96, section (k).

Re: Take-home interviews

#36

Post by brobdingnagian »

Take home interviews are common in data science, and they are deeply exploitative. I have been asked to spend anywhere between an hour to a week on a project, and in most cases they simply decline to hire you without giving you any feedback. In the worst cases, companies like Knewton and Mattermark have given take home interviews that not only took a lot of time, but were related to the companies core business model. In other words, it's free consulting.

And finally, you aren't fooling anyone when you say that it should take 3 hours, or as long as they want to spend on it, while giving them 3 days. You are pressuring people to spend as much time on the problem as possible to "prove they are a good programmer." It's exploitative - you aren't paying us and the probability that we will get hired is extremely small. Think about how many companies we are interviewing with.

Re: Take-home interviews

#37

Post by heurist »

TranquilMarmot wrote: post #22
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…

I recently graduated from college and started looking for my first programming jobs. I ran into a ton of these "take home" interviews and they were some of the most stressful things I've ever done. The first one, they asked me to solve an incredibly complex math problem that I had no idea about so I struggled with it for 5 or so hours before giving up. Probably good that they didn't give me the job; if they were expe…

My two take-home experiences (one right out of college, one a couple years later) were fun, interesting, and much more laid-back than what you described. I would say if a company is placing such strict requirements on you and it is not a place you desperately want to work you should walk away. Hard for a recent college grad to do, but there are plenty of jobs out there.

Re: Take-home interviews

#38

Post by dmitrygr »

Gauging ability to operate under pressure is valuable too...ever tried to fix a bug on a device that was supposed to ship yesterday, under the pressure of the entirety of the hierarchy above you all the way up to the CxO?

It helps to know if the candidate you hire will handle that, or fall apart just when you need him/her to do the job he/she is paid for.

Re: Take-home interviews

#39

Post by bjones22 »

ammon wrote: post #23
mathattack wrote: post #16

I like these great in concept. When I've been between jobs, I've been very happy to participate in them. A couple open questions: 1 - Is it reasonable to expect a 10x programmer whom your are trying to poach to give up so much time? (Or should you give them a $250 Starbucks gift card or something similar for their time?) 2 - Can you really ferret out cheating? I had a grad school classmate who paid someone to do his…

1 - We don't expect anyone to give up this much time. I realize that it's a big ask. However, a lot of programmers we've spoken too really want this option. Anyone who does not want to is totally free to go with the (faster) regular interview. Either they let is watch them code for a short time, or they code for a longer time on their own. 2 - I can't say for sure (we're only just launching this), but I hope (and thi…

Out of curiosity, what are the demographics of the people who made these suggestions?

Were they employed? Were they very desirable to companies? Were they very undesirable to companies? Did they have financial hardships? College graduates? College dropouts?

I think it's important to remember how diverse the hiring pool is, and which voices tend to be the loudest. I would argue that the advice most companies get are from very successful companies. Similarly engineers likely seek advice from very successful engineers.

Both these groups are in the minority I think, and would thus not be in the best position to dictate for the majority (strictly in terms of fulfilling individual needs that they themselves have not encountered, personally or otherwise).

Example: 10x programmer wants a hiring process that caters to 10x programmers.

Problem: Vast majority of programmers do not fall into this category, and would not benefit from such a system. Yet companies want 10xers, so they go with it anyways. Then they complain about how hard it is to hire programmers.

Re: Take-home interviews

#40

Post by istorical »

brianwawok wrote: post #9
hanlec wrote: post #7

As many other parts of an interview, I've always found the blackboard coding session extremely strange. When was the last time you coded in TextEdit with no docs around, no time to think, standing up, and being watched over the shoulder?

I have pseudo-coded on blackboards many times, which is really what a blackboard coding interview should be. If you get a ding for writing .foreach instead of .forEach, that seems a bit picky ;) However I realize I may have a bias as I do ok on most blackboard coding interviews I have done.. maybe been stumped 1 time out of 15 or so in my life? Some of it is a skill, that the more you do the better you get at it, but…

It's exactly like being good at academic test taking.

I'm very good at memorization (of facts, ideas/concepts, and procedures/algorithms) and that allowed me to do well in my younger years and in standardised testing, so I always just scoffed when I heard other people complain about how it was a poor proxy for knowledge / abilities.

Of course, now I'm terrible at pretty much all the standard ways of interviewing developers (...here's where you say I'm probably just a bad developer) and now I have all this past-due empathy for those I disregarded before.

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