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Facebook has just invited me to interview and now I’m pissed off

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Re: Facebook has just invited me to interview and now I’m pissed off

#41

Post by deniswolf »

shawnreilly wrote: post #40
deniswolf wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for sharing your experience. I have heard a lot of good things about Facebook before - and my totally opposite experience was one of the reason for exaggerated reaction. I agree that there are jobs where I would love to spend days, weeks and months of free coding and other efforts - all just to get them. But I have very different expectations of pre-interview process - when I saw it was 'do all this and mb we…

Understood. Hiring is a two way street, it needs to work for both sides. It's unfortunate how this turned out. But hey, everything happens for a reason right? Maybe it was not meant to be because something else awesome is right around the corner. If you are actively looking, I hope you find something that makes you happy! Take it easy.

Thanks :)

Re: Facebook has just invited me to interview and now I’m pissed off

#42

Post by kelnos »

deniswolf wrote: post #30
jiggy2011 wrote: post #4

Slavery, Factory Sweatshops? You have a chance of a job at a household name company (who can afford to be selective) , probably with cushy salary and benefits. 8-10 hours worth of work isn't a great deal, especially if they give you a few weeks. Even a person working a full time job should be able to squeeze that in by temporarily reducing hours spent watching TV. It's not like facebook even get any benefit from you…

But they automatically send this without even talking to person. They already assume that it's fine and I should be happy to do so. That's why I call it sweatshop approach.

I think you cheapen the seriousness of what the term "sweatshop" means for people unfortunate enough to actually work in sweatshops.

Re: Facebook has just invited me to interview and now I’m pissed off

#43

Post by deniswolf »

kelnos wrote: post #42
deniswolf wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they automatically send this without even talking to person. They already assume that it's fine and I should be happy to do so. That's why I call it sweatshop approach.

I think you cheapen the seriousness of what the term "sweatshop" means for people unfortunate enough to actually work in sweatshops.

I was born in one of the poorest countries in Asia, so I can imagine rather low quality of life and working conditions. And I know pretty well that people who work in real old school sweatshops will never read this article. By other hand, inhumane treatment and faceless exploitation were ones of reasons that lead to existence of sweatshops in the first place. When people start to accept this way of treatment as a norm, when agree to humiliate themselves, even a bit, to get a position - with time it all will lead to the next generation of sweatshops - in Western way, with white collars. The reason behind my writing - to warn people and raise the question as soon as possible - before 10h of free work will be included as a demand for sending CV.

Re: Facebook has just invited me to interview and now I’m pissed off

#44

Post by lazyjones »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #4

Slavery, Factory Sweatshops? You have a chance of a job at a household name company (who can afford to be selective) , probably with cushy salary and benefits. 8-10 hours worth of work isn't a great deal, especially if they give you a few weeks. Even a person working a full time job should be able to squeeze that in by temporarily reducing hours spent watching TV. It's not like facebook even get any benefit from you…

> You have a chance of a job at a household name company (who can afford to be selective)

There are many such companies out there and the better ones will talk to you politely first, look at previous work you've done and then perhaps invite you over for a couple of interviews (including some code puzzles). I was once flown from Europe to Florida before any code puzzles, got to see the whole company, talk to founders (the company was a subsidiary of a household name in games) and technical directors before sitting down for some tests. It was a great experience and I felt very bad for turning down the job offer because they treated me so well ...

Google and Facebook I'd avoid from what I've heard (no firsthand experience though), they seem to hire talent just to keep it away from the competition.

Re: Facebook has just invited me to interview and now I’m pissed off

#45

Post by jiggy2011 »

lazyjones wrote: post #44
jiggy2011 wrote: post #4

Slavery, Factory Sweatshops? You have a chance of a job at a household name company (who can afford to be selective) , probably with cushy salary and benefits. 8-10 hours worth of work isn't a great deal, especially if they give you a few weeks. Even a person working a full time job should be able to squeeze that in by temporarily reducing hours spent watching TV. It's not like facebook even get any benefit from you…

> You have a chance of a job at a household name company (who can afford to be selective) There are many such companies out there and the better ones will talk to you politely first, look at previous work you've done and then perhaps invite you over for a couple of interviews (including some code puzzles). I was once flown from Europe to Florida before any code puzzles, got to see the whole company, talk to founders…

With the number of applications that they must get there's no way they can afford to talk to everyone, let alone fly them out.

Therefore they need some way to filter people quickly. Would it be better to do this purely on the basis of resume? Forcing people to invest time making sure they have the correct mixture of buzzwords or would you rather spend that time demonstrating that you can actually code?

Re: Facebook has just invited me to interview and now I’m pissed off

#46

Post by lazyjones »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #45
lazyjones wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You have a chance of a job at a household name company (who can afford to be selective) There are many such companies out there and the better ones will talk to you politely first, look at previous work you've done and then perhaps invite you over for a couple of interviews (including some code puzzles). I was once flown from Europe to Florida before any code puzzles, got to see the whole company, talk to founders…

With the number of applications that they must get there's no way they can afford to talk to everyone, let alone fly them out. Therefore they need some way to filter people quickly. Would it be better to do this purely on the basis of resume? Forcing people to invest time making sure they have the correct mixture of buzzwords or would you rather spend that time demonstrating that you can actually code?

> Therefore they need some way to filter people quickly.

This really depends on whether they chose particular people to contact directly or whether those applicants contacted the company.

Sure, the 1000s of applications these companies get every month must be filtered quickly, but if someone was selected for a "cold call" by the employer (presumably based on some research), then handing him menial tasks upfront is a terrible idea and unacceptable for the probably more skilled people typically contacted this way.

Re: Facebook has just invited me to interview and now I’m pissed off

#47

Post by kelnos »

deniswolf wrote: post #43
kelnos wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you cheapen the seriousness of what the term "sweatshop" means for people unfortunate enough to actually work in sweatshops.

I was born in one of the poorest countries in Asia, so I can imagine rather low quality of life and working conditions. And I know pretty well that people who work in real old school sweatshops will never read this article. By other hand, inhumane treatment and faceless exploitation were ones of reasons that lead to existence of sweatshops in the first place. When people start to accept this way of treatment as a nor…

I don't see how the procedure you described is at all humiliating. You were sent a programming challenge and asked to complete it. How is that humiliating?
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