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

On asking job candidates to code

philcalcado.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

461–470 of 524 posts

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#461

Post by dpeck »

tomjen3 wrote: post #335
dpeck wrote: post #90

I just instituted a coding assignment with our hiring (exceptions made for those with extensive github/similar open source contributions), and so far only have had three candidates do it, but I'm a fan. Mine is crafted so a really competent developer could get it done in 30 minutes, and intermediate 2 hours and a junior probably not finish. I tell them to send what they have in after two hours that I'm as interested…

Are your company especially desirable? Because if not, why should I invest 10-20 hours across ten companies to get one job? Sure I may get lucky and get hired the first place, but thats not very likely, no matter how good I am. To me requiring me to waste that much time indicate the company being a diva, something I wouldn't want in my employer.

I'd like to think the company is pretty desirable and building something legitimately special :)

10-20 hours invested to find and and sell yourself to the job you'll be spending the next year at (optimistically 1% of the working hours during the next year and realistically a lot less) seems like a good use of time to me, but to each his own.

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#462

Post by steven777400 »

odonnellryan wrote: post #458
steven777400 wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great devs never apply for any job using the traditional job application (except maybe as an after-the-fact HR formality); they are always recommended and hand picked by their network. As a intermediate (after so many years, should I just replace that with 'mediocre') dev I think a test like this would be a fantastic way both for a company to judge me and for me to judge what a company would expect from me. There's a…

That isn't true for all devs.

I shouldn't have said always and never. .. how about "most of the time"?

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#463

Post by whatthefox »

overgard wrote: post #137

I definitely wouldn't call myself an expert, but in my career I've probably interviewed a few hundred people. I think people way over-complicate this stuff by trying to be too clever. To me, the most useful question is this: "here is an example project that we'd be likely to do, how would you build it?" Then you just let them walk through the steps they'd take. From there you can launch into why they made the choices…

+1000 This is how a proper professional does it.

I always have turned down homework assignments. It just feels insulting and disrespectful. Even whiteboard crap is useless but I'm OK with it considering they've paid for my travel expenses etc.

If you think about it ... homework assignments are a classic case of B's looking for C's. A's wouldn't need to resort to such silliness. They can identify (as an interviewer) and exhibit (as an A interviewee) with just an intelligent conversation.

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#464

Post by whatthefox »

dannyr wrote: post #424
ClayFerguson wrote: post #412

I think the reason so many companies resort to asking candidates to do a programming project for the interview is because they are lazy and don't want to take time to interview someone, or they suck at interviewing, or both. Bottom line, if you can't judge someone's ability by talking to them it's YOUR fault. You suck at interviewing. Last time I was looking for a job a company I was interested in gave me this massiv…

I'd take take-home over whiteboard interviews. Even with whiteboard interviews, you still need to prepare for them. I would say I probably spend at least 8 hours preparing for them mainly because of its arbitrary nature. I have no idea what they will be asking. With a take-home programming challenge, there is less uncertainty. By looking at the exercise, you can make a good estimate on how many hours it would take an…

I would prefer it that way too but whiteboards aren't getting replaced with take-home assignments. Instead they're a step towards the whiteboard stage. The whole process is just getting sillier compared to other professions.

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#466

Post by jayjohnson »

MangezBien wrote: post #421

Interesting. I applied to DO about ten weeks ago. I had an initial phone screen, and they sent me a code challenge. I completed and turned in the challenge. Then I heard nothing for two weeks. I reached out to my contact there, and she got back to me a week later saying, "I've been waiting on feedback - sorry it's taking so long! I just pinged the manager again this morning." That was the last I heard from DO. I feel…

Nice. I had the same experience with DO last September...The same month Braintree asked me to write a ruby project that took about 3 days and then on the call only asked about python sqlalchemy database queries. I don't know what the disconnect is with these larger companies and their HR staff? By the time that third one asked me to write a node.js rest api from scratch. I just chuckled and said thanks for your time...I doubt I will commit more than a few hours in the future to any throwaway project for just a call back. Why can't we get paid for the time spent writing sample code like a freelancer...If it isn't good enough pay for my time (up to a max) and both parties can move on. Time is more valuable than the risk of getting passed that initial callback/more screens.

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#467

Post by andrewflnr »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #305
danielvinson wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe this is a bit rant-y, but "Paid Fairly" is incredibly relative. Every time I've been asked about doing some sort of paid coding assignment in my free time, I've asked to be paid at my hourly consulting rate, which many people do regularly, which is $60/hr. This is really not that much for a consulting developer. Every time this has come up, the company would not pay that rate, and offered something more like $2…

I have the same issue. It costs me hundreds of dollars to even agree to an interview, at my hourly rate. To further ask me to do homework is to bilk me for thousands. I cannot afford to apply for most jobs, as long as I have a consulting backlog. Which I almost always do.

Do you interleave full-time and consulting gigs? If so, how does that work in practice? Wouldn't doing a fulltime job for a while tend to dry up your client pipeline, as they find someone else for urgent work? With that in mind, when is it worth it to even try to find a fulltime job? I'm about to start my career, and wondering how hard it is to walk the line between consulting and "regular" jobs.

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#468

Post by Retra »

rhizome wrote: post #449
ClayFerguson wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What these companies have successfully done is weed out all the great devs who value their time very much. Those who are desperate for a job will spend the 8hrs it takes on these silly tests and make it thru the process. Good developers who can take their choice of jobs will just ignore these companies who think they are being clever to require a test, and just move to some other company what is not showing signs tha…

What these companies have successfully done is weed out all the great devs who value their time very much I'm not sure I understand this. A dev who valued their time very much would already be working at a job they liked enough not to be looking. As job satisfaction declines, time opens up to work on whatever you want to call this, a technical feeler, perhaps. A dev who values their time wouldn't get snowed under by…

And how did such a person learn which places they want to work if not by spending their valuable time looking at all the places they don't?

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#469

Post by lawnchair_larry »

ClayFerguson wrote: post #415
hnrodey wrote: post #41

I'm going through the interview process this week at two different companies. One of the companies I found through an ad on Stack Overflow whereby they publish two programming "exercises/puzzles" with the opportunity to earn $100 for a correct answer to each puzzle ($200 total for two correct answers). While I spent more than eight hours on both puzzles, I found them to be thought provoking and I learned stuff in the…

What these companies have successfully done is weed out all the great devs who value their time very much. Those who are desperate for a job will spend the 8hrs it takes on these silly tests and make it thru the process. Good developers who can take their choice of jobs will just ignore these companies who think they are being clever to require a test, and just move to some other company what is not showing signs tha…

"What these companies have successfully done is weed out all the great devs who value their time very much."

That's a feature. They get the good, undervalued talent early.

"If an interviewer is not capable of determining my knowledge level by a normal interview that tells me right away something up, and I probably don't want to work with them because they aren't too smart themselves."

News flash, all companies are horrible at determining knowledge level by a "normal" interview. The only ones that have a hope are those that use some sort of test or have existing work to review.

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#470

Post by bobbles »

ClayFerguson wrote: post #415
hnrodey wrote: post #41

I'm going through the interview process this week at two different companies. One of the companies I found through an ad on Stack Overflow whereby they publish two programming "exercises/puzzles" with the opportunity to earn $100 for a correct answer to each puzzle ($200 total for two correct answers). While I spent more than eight hours on both puzzles, I found them to be thought provoking and I learned stuff in the…

What these companies have successfully done is weed out all the great devs who value their time very much. Those who are desperate for a job will spend the 8hrs it takes on these silly tests and make it thru the process. Good developers who can take their choice of jobs will just ignore these companies who think they are being clever to require a test, and just move to some other company what is not showing signs tha…

Good developers who can take their choice of jobs

*who are just as likely to leave for another company as soon as something better comes along?

Post reply on HN