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Ask HN: A coding test or working for free?

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Re: Ask HN: A coding test or working for free?

#41

Post by estefan »

cldellow wrote: post #27

That 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…

Obviously anyone really good won't actually do the tests because they'll be offered a job by somewhere that doesn't do them before they get around to yours though, sooo...

Personally I find the single best question is "what's your github username?". People who are on it and active are... well, actually I've only ever had one candidate who's actually been on github and she seemed OK. The majority of people I've seen haven't been much good (and have barely heard of github).

I agree about dodging a bullet. I think the OP did exactly the right thing.

Re: Ask HN: A coding test or working for free?

#42

Post by jschwartzi »

bjourne wrote: post #21

Why don't you post your sample code on github? Maybe the CTO just wanted free work from you, but maybe he just wanted a candidate that was able to complete the assignment. He could have thought that you cherry-picked the easy cases and were unable to solve the tougher ones. Coding tests unfortunately aren't just about demonstrating skill. Then people like me could just link to their github QED. It's also about comple…

Maybe the CTO should post his database on Github. If he wants the test code to function under certain conditions, he needs to publish those exact conditions. Not specifications, but the actual data that the test will be run against.

If he's not comfortable doing that because it's restricted intellectual property, I might wonder what the real purpose of the test was.

Re: Ask HN: A coding test or working for free?

#43

Post by lexi-mono »

You working on a commercial project means that they can implement your solution and get money from it, so it'd be fair that you'd be compensated for your work.

I'd ask to be paid for the amount of work that I'd be doing on this project or the option to get my skills assessed on some other, non-commercial test project that they wouldn't benefit from.

Re: Ask HN: A coding test or working for free?

#44

Post by kaybe »

davimack wrote: post #29

After having been asked this several times, I've begun to make it clear that I will only engage in these tests if I'm compensated for the time. It's a delicate thing to do, really, telling someone that, no, you're not going to work for free, just on the hope that you might get a job. But it doesn't only happen in this industry: my niece is a graphic designer & has been asked to provide samples of her work on projects…

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-world environments.

Re: Ask HN: A coding test or working for free?

#45

Post by cryoshon »

cldellow wrote: post #27

That 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…

Eh, the job market is already grossly skewed in favor of the employers. Asking for 4-8 hours of unpaid work is probably fine though, given that an interview would take about that long... assuming the interview itself will be very short, that is.

Re: Ask HN: A coding test or working for free?

#46

Post by fsk »

I remember the guy who asked me, as a coding test, to write a program that connected to Interactive Brokers and executed VWAP trades.

He got very angry when I offered to do it as a paid consulting project. If I did it for free, he wouldn't need to hire me at all!

Re: Ask HN: A coding test or working for free?

#47

Post by cryoshon »

davimack wrote: post #29

After having been asked this several times, I've begun to make it clear that I will only engage in these tests if I'm compensated for the time. It's a delicate thing to do, really, telling someone that, no, you're not going to work for free, just on the hope that you might get a job. But it doesn't only happen in this industry: my niece is a graphic designer & has been asked to provide samples of her work on projects…

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.

Re: Ask HN: A coding test or working for free?

#48

Post by cldellow »

cryoshon wrote: post #45
cldellow wrote: post #27

That 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…

Eh, the job market is already grossly skewed in favor of the employers. Asking for 4-8 hours of unpaid work is probably fine though, given that an interview would take about that long... assuming the interview itself will be very short, that is.

We have 9 interview loops spaced out over 2 months.

Just kidding, the interview itself is very short.

Re: Ask HN: A coding test or working for free?

#49

Post by cldellow »

estefan wrote: post #41
cldellow wrote: post #27

That 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…

Obviously anyone really good won't actually do the tests because they'll be offered a job by somewhere that doesn't do them before they get around to yours though, sooo... Personally I find the single best question is "what's your github username?". People who are on it and active are... well, actually I've only ever had one candidate who's actually been on github and she seemed OK. The majority of people I've seen h…

We'll definitely consider a GitHub account as well, but we don't want to exclude the universe of programmers who are Just Busy Doing Their Dayjob And Having a Life and don't have time to maintain a ton of open source forks.

Re: Ask HN: A coding test or working for free?

#50

Post by gtk40 »

I was recently applying for work after graduation. One entry level position and a small company (with a vague job posting) wanted me to complete a pretty extensive problem which would involve access to their code base and take "5 to 10 hours." I also would need to use a Mac and Objective C, even though these were not on my resume or the job posting. (I work in a .NET shop and had mentioned using Xamarin for Android development, and they were mainly doing iOS and OS X work, but extending into being cross platform).

I asked if they had a problem I could do that would be on more familiar tooling, noting that even if I could borrow an OS X machine, it would take me a while to get familiar enough to complete the task they sent me. I also expressed concern at the length. I ended up declining to participate and they moved on.

(Note: I have never used OS X besides briefly using someone else's computer. Everything I have used has been Windows and Linux, with a couple of weekends of trying some BSD-based distros thrown in.

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