Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

411–420 of 470 posts

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#411

Post by ghaff »

lr4444lr wrote: post #331
Matticus_Rex wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is wrong, actually. STEM fields are the exception. Most white-collar jobs require an undergrad degree, but the industry itself doesn't require a particular job-related credential, and the degree itself isn't enough to get a job.

Uh... Law? Medicine? Accounting? Eng.? Teaching? What other job where you actually need hard technical skills equivalent to software dev is there no widely used non-commercial credentialing system?

Outside of a relatively small percentage of professional engineer certifications, there is generally no credentialing system in engineering or the sciences outside of academic degrees--the requirements for which may be more or less rigid in a given case. While some business roles may require an MBA, this is probably less true than in the past. A given position might also give preference to some industry cert.

But outside of medical, legal, and certain financial roles, you're more likely to see formal non-academic licensing for truck drivers and hairdressers than for white collar professionals.

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#413

Post by scatters »

lapcat wrote: post #356
Victerius wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. The popularity of coding bootcamps is another factor. Software engineers don't like the concept of formal credentials. Fine. But you'll have to demonstrate your skills at one of the interview stages. Or we could create something like the American Academy of Software Engineers, or the Society of Software Engineers, or the Software Engineering Institute, which would be tasked with accrediting schools and programs…

> Other professions gatekeep before you can take the interview. Local governments impose licensing requirements on some professions. This is not something the professions just voluntarily impose on themselves. (If they did impose it on themselves, there might even be antitrust problems as a result.) This is mainly (or at least purportedly) for the protection of public health and safety, not to make it easier on poten…

Huh? Of course they impose it voluntarily on themselves, and always have (look at the medieval guilds). They might use government as a figleaf, but the instigation always comes from within the profession. After all, they're the ones who benefit from the reduction in competition.

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#414

Post by ghaff »

ThePadawan wrote: post #339
bambax wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with tech recruiting is that each company does its own, and so job seekers repeat the process many times with different employers. There should be some kind of test that would be recognized by the industry, that you could attempt once every six months for example, and that would positively assess your ability to code. You would get a score that you could show to recruiters (if you wished to). Some recruit…

This could never work without on-site invigilated exams. Otherwise you will never be able to prove that when Jack applies for a job, Jack took the test. You'll just get an industry of Johns taking the tests for people. This is how language certification works (think TOEFL, IELTS), and that industry still suffers from a massive amount of fraud. If you make a certificate like this too expensive, it serves as a barrier…

I assume any certification exams where the results can be the difference between getting a good job and not face a huge amount of people who would cheat on them if they could. I know the ones I'm somewhat familiar with have a lot of safeguards in place to the degree that I gather some people found them pretty onerous with remote test taking in the pandemic.

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#415

Post by ipaddr »

jerf wrote: post #76

According to the HN gestalt, you shouldn't do a whiteboard interview because that's too unrealistic because nobody programs on a whiteboard, you shouldn't expect programmers to code with their laptop in an interview because that's too much pressure and also unrealistic, you shouldn't expect programmers to be willing to do a take home exam because that's too much work without money (and if people did pay, the complain…

Or hire in the same way other positions in the company are: through an interview..

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#416

Post by morelisp »

Semaphor wrote: post #245
morelisp wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know any other trade that so thoroughly rejects apprenticeships, licensure, and formal certifications.

Apprenticeships (called Fachinformatiker) and formal certifications (university, university of applied science, or the Fachinformatikerausbildung) are all important in Germany.

In my (not huge but neither insignificant) sample size, German university completion signals even less than in the US. (Though, I also assume this is at least partially because we lose a large fraction of the top graduates to US jobs.)

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#417

Post by ipaddr »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #120
sarchertech wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re setting up a gigantic straw man. There are camps on HN who dislike all of those things individually—you can’t just take the union of everything someone here dislikes and call it the HN gestalt. >do something unfun to get hired I don’t know of any other industry who hires senior people the way we do outside of performing arts. I personally don’t mind putting together a portfolio the way most other creative indu…

>I don’t know of any other industry who hires senior people the way we do outside of performing arts. Because nearly every other industry is credentialed, so proving your 3-8 years of university grind is enough to get hired. Outside of tech, any other white collar interview is basically a 15-60 minute coffee or lunch with the boss (the culture fit interview basically) and then, unless you showed some red flags, you g…

It use to be like this in tech 10 years ago, even 5 years ago..

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#418

Post by lapcat »

scatters wrote: post #413
lapcat wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Other professions gatekeep before you can take the interview. Local governments impose licensing requirements on some professions. This is not something the professions just voluntarily impose on themselves. (If they did impose it on themselves, there might even be antitrust problems as a result.) This is mainly (or at least purportedly) for the protection of public health and safety, not to make it easier on poten…

Huh? Of course they impose it voluntarily on themselves, and always have (look at the medieval guilds). They might use government as a figleaf, but the instigation always comes from within the profession. After all, they're the ones who benefit from the reduction in competition.

This is hand-waving that doesn't explain why some professions are licensed and others are not. After all, wouldn't all professions benefit from the reduction in competition?

Anyway, government isn't a fig leaf, it's a cudgel. It has to be, otherwise the system would be undermined by mass defection.

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#419

Post by ipaddr »

lapser wrote: post #272
sarchertech wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re setting up a gigantic straw man. There are camps on HN who dislike all of those things individually—you can’t just take the union of everything someone here dislikes and call it the HN gestalt. >do something unfun to get hired I don’t know of any other industry who hires senior people the way we do outside of performing arts. I personally don’t mind putting together a portfolio the way most other creative indu…

I'm in my 30s with a little short of 15 years of experience (all individual contributor), and have interviewed people who claim 20 years of experience or whatever, and they just haven't come close to some people who have been out of uni for a few years. Just cos you have 20 years of experience, it doesn't mean you're fit for the role. Equally, just cos you're just out of university, doesn't mean you're not fit for th…

Something tells me you are lost in some metric that is providing false feedbaxk. On average people with 20 years will bring a depth of experience that will outweigh someone with no experience. If you are testing syntax knowledge of a new framework and find the fresh grad is performing better at recall I would not be surprised. But what you miss is over the course of the year the 20 year person will provide knowledge in areas you didn't measure and will quickly catch up in syntax / pattern recall.

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#420

Post by ipaddr »

CodeyWhizzBang wrote: post #384
criddell wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you get to the point where you are going to give an assignment, you have somebody that you believe could do a job that probably pays very well. Go ahead and give the assignment, but also be respectful and pay them for their time.

The assignment is an assessment though, it isn't actual business work. I've seen before this suggestion that companies are trying to get free work out of candidates, but I find that really hard to believe. I don't know if you're suggesting that interviews should assign actual tickets in an interview, but that seems nearly impossible to do in practice. I've never got back work from an interview or assessment that was…

You pay them for the time to complete your testing materials. It ensures that your test is not overly lengthy and it's more likely to be reviewed by someone and not used as an intake filter because you are investing in the candidate.
Post reply on HN