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Take-home interviews

blog.triplebyte.com

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Re: Take-home interviews

#71

Post by eastbayjake »

geebee wrote: post #46

I thought Gayle Laakman McDowell, who wrote "Cracking the Coding Interview", wrote a good article about the problems of take-home interviews. http://www.gayle.com/blog/2013/09/18/companies-who-give-cand... At the core of the problem is that this approach can be used to burn a lot of a candidate's time without an equivalent investment from the company. I've mentioned this before - I applied (maybe 5 years ago) to a co…

I like that they're making the project an optional track, but as a fairly extroverted interviewee I would much prefer talking through code with an interviewer. I feel like the 8 hours of programming I'd do on a take-home project could be assessed with a one-hour conversation walking through code I've already written. (It's especially frustrating when the projects are low-level, like creating a basic CRUD app that uses a lot of libraries, and I've implemented the solution so many times that most of the work on the project is just typing it out. I could just walk the interviewer through one of my many CRUD app side projects.)

Furthermore, collaborating in-person with another engineer tells me more about their engineering culture, and tells them more about whether I'm someone who can collaborate well with others. An hour of pair programming on one engineer's current real-job task would tell us both a lot about each other in a fraction of the time.

Re: Take-home interviews

#72

Post by Nacraile »

bbcbasic wrote: post #43

Software developers huh! What other role requires you to complete an exam to be considered for a job (or even just an interview). Moreover a 4-8 hour exam with no syllabus. No 'past papers' etc. I think this should stop. In it's place, developers can have a pet open-source project, which they submit with their application. The point is that the same project can be submitted for a hundred applications if needed, savin…

> What other role requires you to complete an exam to be considered for a job (or even just an interview). Moreover a 4-8 hour exam with no syllabus. No 'past papers' etc

As far as I can tell, essentially all of them. Of course, many of them have no practical way to even attempt to assess competence, so they fall back on "situational" and "culture fit" bullshit.

> I think this should stop. In it's place, developers can have a pet open-source project, which they submit with their application.

Problem the 1st: how do you verify the example project is actually the candidate's own work?

Problem the 2nd: building and maintaining a non-trivial open source project is a huge investment of time. There are many competent programmers who have a long list of things they must / would rather do when they get home from sitting at a computer programming all day. It's only more efficient if you send out 100s of applications, but as far as I can tell, competent programmers rarely spam 100s of applications. If you're just putting your toe in the water from time to time, taking a day off to do a traditional tech interview grill fest is a much more effective use of your time.

Problem the 3rd: evaluating a large, unfamiliar codebase is actually really hard. All unfamiliar code looks shitty, because you don't have the full context to explain the choices made. Very few people have GitHub pages that actually look good.

> I seriously wonder if we should all boycott dev tests.

Good luck with that co-ordination problem.

Tech interviews suck, for everyone involved. I still haven't heard a proposal for an alternative that isn't fatally flawed. (I consider "take home interviews" to be an incremental improvement on the basic whiteboard problem-solving test)

Re: Take-home interviews

#73

Post by jeff18 »

geebee wrote: post #46

I thought Gayle Laakman McDowell, who wrote "Cracking the Coding Interview", wrote a good article about the problems of take-home interviews. http://www.gayle.com/blog/2013/09/18/companies-who-give-cand... At the core of the problem is that this approach can be used to burn a lot of a candidate's time without an equivalent investment from the company. I've mentioned this before - I applied (maybe 5 years ago) to a co…

That turns into an advantage for Triplebyte, because you are actually applying to potentially several hundred companies at the same time.

Re: Take-home interviews

#74

Post by miscfuck »

> The project-based track will require a larger time commitment

This is the only part I take issue with. I tried a take home interview once that took the better part of a weekend and decided I'd never do it again. There just isn't enough time. Basically, if it takes that long, there needs to be a very high chance that I'm getting hired at the end, or it's not worth it.

Re: Take-home interviews

#75

Post by sandworm101 »

But do you want someone who cannot handle an interview?

Perhaps take-home testing works if you want a "code monkey" who can sit in a box churning out code according to specifications, but I cannot think of a company that doesn't want more. The ability to interact with others in sometimes stressful environments is, imho, an essential skill for all.

There is also the danger that companies will turn these "tests" into work product. I did an interview last year (legal) that requested "writing samples" on very particular and timely subjects. Once I realized the game I asked them to sign a copyright agreement. They got screaming mad and tried to get me to sign all sorts of NDA junk.

Re: Take-home interviews

#76

Post by akshat_h »

lordnacho wrote: post #65
bjones22 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not OP, but as someone who took a 6 hour test at full concentration, with no feedback other then a polite 'no', there are a few reasons I don't out them. 1) I didn't score well on the test. It's within reason they read this post and release my scores with a 'it was because he scored low'. Future employers then come across my scores and deny me. 2) Don't bite the hand that's like the hand that MIGHT feed you. You don'…

Make a new account and Glassdoor them.

Depends on how large the company is. For small startups, a glassdoor review might be specific enough to identify the candidate. Bigger companies, I suspect won't care and/or don't have take-home tests.

Re: Take-home interviews

#77

Post by somedudethere »

geebee wrote: post #46

I thought Gayle Laakman McDowell, who wrote "Cracking the Coding Interview", wrote a good article about the problems of take-home interviews. http://www.gayle.com/blog/2013/09/18/companies-who-give-cand... At the core of the problem is that this approach can be used to burn a lot of a candidate's time without an equivalent investment from the company. I've mentioned this before - I applied (maybe 5 years ago) to a co…

This x100. I hate these interviews as one of the first exercises. More than once over the years I have spent 5+ hours doing a coding exercise for a company only to get a one sentence response, telling me that my "code fell short". If I pressed them further they might say my code was "hard to read" or "not what they were looking for". Vague, unhelpful, and pitiful responses. 0 interaction. No chance for a rebuttal.

Its a very lopsided assessment. Normally an in interview you can judge the company while the company judges you. That way in an hour interview you both can probably tell its not a good fit. If I'm applying and coding in python and within 15 minutes of a live coding exercise they tell me I shouldn't use list comprehensions because they are hard to read, I'd be out of there faster than I could measure. If I just spent 5 hours coding to get the same response? I'd get a little upset.

When I give critical feedback I will typically go through line by line and tell the candidate what is wrong and what is good. This is done with the candidate, since nobody is 100% correct so my judgement might be wrong and they can correct me. Many, many companies skip this crucial part and as a candidate you don't know if they are going to do it or not, so why waste your time?

Re: Take-home interviews

#78

Post by roneesh »

I view these as a good litmus test for the company too. If they won't answer a question about the problem, or think it's very self explanatory, it might mean they're not the best at communicating.

I recently did a clojure problem where in the gist itself I asked for feedback and showed my thought process, but crickets until a month later when I followed up and they said they had moved on. I think it was for the best.

A good preventative measure might be agreeing beforehand on a time to discuss the solution. I know I certainly will next time.

Also hiring managers need to ACTUALLY read code. There have even been times I've asked if they've read my code before doing a lengthy drive, they've said yes, only to realize upon getting there they haven't. If you won't take some time to assess the code I've written and put my name on, I don't think I should be expected to drive 3 hours to meet you.

Re: Take-home interviews

#79

Post by nissimk »

This is presented as a weeding out technique but it is actually a negotiation step. This allows the employer to establish precedent that you work off hours from home. This allows the employer to identify candidates that are willing to do whatever it takes for the job. These are the same people that won't do hardball negotiations for salary, employment terms or working conditions. Rather than weeding out the people who will fail the test, it weeds out the people who understand that asking for homework is unreasonable.

My last two phone interviews ended with the recruiter / hiring manager explaining that the next step was a take home assignement or test. I said OK, but haven't done either one. Next time I will politely tell them that they can look at code samples in my gthub but I am not spending my time jumping through their hoops just for the chance to have an in person interview.

It's bad enough that we have to burn an entire day to do an in person interview...there shouldn't also be homework.

Re: Take-home interviews

#80

Post by jameshart »

Incredible to read so many cases here where people have done a take-home exercise and heard nothing back. I had assumed that the normal practice would be to give a take-home exercise as part of prep for an in person interview, so if you do the work you're at least guaranteed the opportunity to talk about it.
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