15 ms·

Show HN: Interviews can be stressful – give take-home projects instead

96 points by asadlionpk 11y ago

kelashbatra 11y ago
I'm not a fan of take-home projects. But comparing that to mumbling at a white-board, give me take home interviews any day of my life.
- asadlionpk 11y ago
  Agreed, ideally there should be a choice between the two because some actually prefer whiteboard type interviews. This is a good post discussing both: http://blog.triplebyte.com/take-home-interviews http://blog.triplebyte.com/take-home-interviews
oglo 11y ago
Take-home projects are not the best way to judge skills (atleast in their current form). In the future, there would be some centralized solution so we don't waste time again and again.
- munirusman 11y ago
  We are trying to do same i.e. streamline the process. I do both take-home projects as well as pair-programming during screening. Take-home projects give me a big picture about candidates' ability to solve problems with software whereas pair-programming interviews tells me about his ability to think in terms of code at deeper level.
- zhang3r 11y ago
  create a commonapp style application process? one project, multiple companies, and companies can add their supplementary challenges or something
  - asabjorn 11y ago
    That assumes that you know how to test and judge engineers. I think the larger issue in engineering interviews these days is that we simply don't know how to effectively separate good engineers from the bad, and given the nature of our job there is a sometimes significant lasting negative impact of a bad/messy programmer.
    - collyw 11y ago
      In addition people are better at different things. I joined a startup recently. The code is well organised at the top level, and the logging was superb. However the architecture was terrible, horriby overengineered. And it looked like a Java programmer doing python - camel case instead of underscores (well a mix just to be inconsitent). Joins done at the application level rather than the database. And just doing way more work that was needed to calculate something.
  - munirusman 11y ago
    It's an interesting idea.. something like fizzbuzz style take-home.
- RogerL 11y ago
  My "centralized solution" is my career. I've successfully done a lot of hard work, I can speak intelligently about it, what more do you want? (generic you, not OP you)
  - asadlionpk 11y ago
    The problem with "I can speak intelligently about it" is that many unskilled applicants can also do it. So this shouldn't be the deciding factor.
    - collyw 11y ago
      I never met anyone that can talk well about code, that can't actually code. I met plenty who like to throw hip new technology buzzwords around without actually having good reason to use new technology.
- angelbob 11y ago
  I fear a centralized solution, if only because Credit Bureaus are the same idea for your money. The equivalent for jobs wouldn't be better.
robgibbons 11y ago
Take-home projects can be time consuming, give them Interviews instead
dominotw 11y ago
Ain't nobody got time for that.
jbob2000 11y ago
This is taking interviewing and hiring in the wrong direction. At my company, we have a relatively short interview process, followed by a 3 month full salary probation period. The interview is used to weed out "red flaggers" and identify high-level strengths and weaknesses. It is completely non-technical. We assume that the person applying for the job has the technical requirements. (We also make judicious use of references, something people seem to have forgotten about. Quick phone call to previous employers can save you tons of money!) The 3 month probation period is the real "test" and the applicant will be put on a small project with another employee mentoring. If someone lacks technical ability, it will be evident in the first few days and we can move on to the next applicant. If the person doesn't like the work environment, they can walk away no questions asked (maybe the commute is too long or they don't like the office space, etc. etc.). This is cheaper than having directors and executives try to plan around all sorts of interview stages. It is much less stressful, as the applicant, once into the probation period, is treated like a regular employee and has much more opportunity to "prove their worth". Stop adding more shit to the interview! Don't make it longer, do the opposite!
- lmorris84 11y ago
  I like the sound of this. As well as giving the candidate ample opportunity to show what they can do, it'll also be representative of the actual work they'll be doing in that role so everyone will be going into the post-probation period with eyes wide open.
- lazyant 11y ago
  3 month probation will work great with unemployed or fresh out of college people etc, not with employed people, certainly not with senior candidates.
  - jbob2000 11y ago
    Why not? Because they have to leave their jobs? Are they committed to my company and the job or not? Sounds like it's a good litmus test.
    - 11y ago
Mikeb85 11y ago
This is silly. First of all, are interviews stressful, yes. That's not a bad thing. The real world is stressful. Soft skills matter. Interviews are useful to see how candidates react. Second, most people aren't born with the perfect skill set for a job. Most don't even acquire it in university, or at a previous job. Most important is the ability to learn and grow. Third, in this day and age, you may send hundreds of resumes, and have multiple interviews. Are you going to do 2 weeks of take-home projects? What if you have multiple interviews in one day, and both places expect you to finish take-home projects. What then? This just seems like another hoop to make candidates jump through, with no good outcomes.
- a_c_s 11y ago
  Interviews, for many people, are stressful in a way that jobs are not. Personally, the most stressful things I've had to do as a developer (including speaking in meetings large and small) are an order of magnitude less stressful than even the best interviews. edit: typo
  - seansmccullough 11y ago
    During my last job search I did a take-home project, spent far more time on it then was specified, and then was rejected without an explanation. What a wonderfully productive use of 40 hours. I'd much rather study for interviews.
    - bm1362 11y ago
      I always end up enjoying the projects and learning a lot about a new domain in the process. I think for me, I see them as an opportunity to write code outside of my current role or comfort zone. I have been rejected once, the team really liked the project and I spent a considerable amount of time on it, but they found a more experienced engineer.
collyw 11y ago
Sure but expect to half your candidate pool. Can't I talk you some code that I have already written instead of wasting half a day doing some trival project in a rush?
- asadlionpk 11y ago
  I think companies should optimize on giving options between all of the proven methods. Some may like the classic interviews but some may have a good github profile which is also a good signal on how the applicant is.
  - collyw 11y ago
    Proven methods? Are there any?
    - asadlionpk 11y ago
      As in the classic interview, discussion based on previous project, discussion on take-home interview. I think there can be good results when candidate is given the choice.
    - sharpray 11y ago
      Yes, IQ tests.
ksk 11y ago
I'm all for trying out new ways to interview people, but IMHO people should err on the side of caution and be willing to let "good" candidates slip through the cracks than risk hiring someone who is a dud. Personally, I think it matters if someone can come up with a solution in 1 hour vs 15 hours.
- munirusman 11y ago
  I agree that it is much, much better to reject a good candidate than to accept a bad candidate!
- lewisl9029 11y ago
  There's a difference between being able to come up with a solution in 1 hour vs being able to come up with a solution in 1 hour on a whiteboard, with no internet access, and with someone breathing down your neck the whole time. If your company has a genuine need to screen candidates for their ability to perform under the special conditions of the latter, then by all means, set up your interviews with those special conditions. Otherwise, I feel you'd be better served by an interview that more closely emulates the actual working environment that your employees work under. My ideal technical interview would be one where the candidate is assigned a problem that is representative of the work that they're being hired for, and then left alone to work on it for an hour or two in their own preferred working environment, and then the interviewer and candidate can meet up and demo the solution and discuss implementation details.
  - ksk 11y ago
    >There's a difference between being able to come up with a solution in 1 hour vs being able to come up with a solution in 1 hour on a whiteboard, with no internet access, and with someone breathing down your neck the whole time. You can usually fit about 15 lines of code on a whiteboard which tends to bias questions to simple logic questions. Why do you need internet access? Also why does someone have to breath down your neck? They could leave you alone for 45 minutes and come back. >Otherwise, I feel you'd be better served by an interview that more closely emulates the actual working environment that your employees work under. Why do you feel this way? I think that programmers should have as many programming related patterns memorized as possible - For e.g. How to compose different kinds of programs when given different resource restrictions, or having basic algorithmic concepts in their head so they can quickly choose one over the other. A programming test should immediately indicate if the candidate has such things on the tip of their tongue or not. In much the same way as you don't open a high school physics textbook when you go about building an airplane, you don't want someone who has to google basic programming knowledge that they should just have in their head. IME, when you start with a very high level of intrinsic knowledge it's much easier to make connections and come up with unique solutions, because your not constantly 'searching' for things. Instead you're just 'picking' the right building blocks. Or maybe trying to quickly eliminate obviously bad choices. Ofcource there is much more nuance, but you can't state everything in a single comment ! :")
jsatk 11y ago
Personality, communication skills, etc., all matter. A lot. There's more to being a good software engineer than knowing how to code well. You have to be able to back up your ideas, convince others of your ideas, hear others view points and objections to your ideas, etc. Take home projects are great, but they're not a substitute for a face-to-face interview.
- duderific 11y ago
  We do both: - A take-home project that takes a few hours - We assess their code; if it looks good, we bring them in for a few more interviews, both tech and non-tech - If it doesn't look good, we move on to the next candidate
  - asadlionpk 11y ago
    I think doing both is the way to go for now and this tool helps you do both.
  - orless 11y ago
    OMG. A few more interviews? Can't you handle everything in one or two interviews? Seriously, from my (quite senior) point of view - if you've seen my CV, done research on me (StackOverflow, GitHub etc.), seen my code from the take-home project, did a technical and non-technical interview and still unsure if I'm a match or not, I'd really doubt your competence. I must be really so exceptionally interested in the position to do a "few more interviews".
  - bm1362 11y ago
    I think this is ideal - as long as the technical interviews are about the project itself. Reading these responses, I get that a lot of people here are in the role of interviewer and seem to forget what it's like to be trying to get in the door. You cram as much algorithm knowledge, language trivia so you can be prepared for 4-5 pet interview questions that could be anything. It truly sucks, is a huge time investment for the prospective employee and most of the time it's not clear what the Nth interviewer is looking for when he asks you your favorite network protocol.
- 11y ago
sirtastic 11y ago
As someone who has had "8 hour" take home projects with requirements like "build a responsive site for this fictitious product and include creative UX features as well as a full summary of thought process during the project" I think this idea is horrible. I refuse to do take home tests, they are a waste of my time. I've been to 50+ interviews on both sides of the table and can tell you there is always a few questions you can ask to determine someones development competency. Not to mention I have literally thousands of hours of work I can send you from PSDs to code if you want to dive into my work.
pamelafox 11y ago
I've always liked take-home projects for 2 reasons: 1) I get extremely anxious during interviews, so I don't perform well in them (to the point of crying sometimes - http://blog.pamelafox.org/2013/09/technical-interviews-make-me-cry.html http://blog.pamelafox.org/2013/09/technical-interviews-make-...) 2) I like getting to see what it'd be like to do the sort of work that the company would be asking me to do for my job - it's a good taste to see if the company would be a good fit for me. The best take-homes are the ones that very closely approximate the actual job. However, not everyone likes take-home projects or has the time to do them. So it seems that companies should ideally offer each candidate multiple paths, and develop consistent rubrics to evaluate how each candidate does across paths. I also do like the idea of probation, as it once again seems like it could be both good for the company and good for the employer, to give them both a sense of fit. Jobs are such big decisions, it's stressful for both the employer and employee to figure out if it's the right path for them.
- Domenic_S 11y ago
  I like them too, but if and only if they come with a review after turn-in. If I botched it in your eyes I want to know why!
retube 11y ago
Nope. I've had several of these, all were at least a full days work, which I had to cram into late evenings etc on top of day job. And to top it all, they weren't even discussed in the interview! Never again.
edw519 11y ago
Disagree completely. There are simply too many things that you learn in the interview that are too difficult to learn any other way. Having someone code is NOT about seeing what kind of code they produce (well maybe a little); it's about getting to know as much as you can about them in as little time as possible. I want to put the candidate under some amount of stress to see how they respond. After all, responding to stress (deadlines, technical issues, people issues, etc.) is a very important part of a programmers job. Just a few of the things I usually learn with a short coding test in an interview right away: - Did he understand the problem? - How did he approach the problem? - Does he appear as if he has any idea what he’s doing? - Can he explain what he has done? - Can he defend what he has done? - Does he understand the concepts of order, cleanness, iteration, branching, recursion, etc., etc., etc... - Based on this small sample, do I think he can do the work we need done? - Do I like him? Will he fit in and be a good team member? Of course, I share all of this with the candidate. There's no secret agenda. We just want to make a fair assessment of fit. This is good for everyone. All a take-home project does is separate those who can build superior code from those who can build good code under ideal conditions. This is nice to know, but not a very important metric in the real world. Ideal conditions rarely happen on real projects. Why simulate them in the screening process?
- tptacek 11y ago
  The problem is that most interviewers think they can assess these things, but (a) really can't, and (b) are having their readings confounded by the nervousness and discomfort of candidates. Also: we banned "Do I like him? Will be fit in" at Matasano several years ago, and were far better off for doing so. Answer honestly: for every bullet in this list, did your team have a standardized rubric by which you could mechanically evaluate candidates? Matasano had a much smaller list of considerations for candidates, but developing working rubrics for assessing them took years. If you really have a working rubric for this ambitious list, you could be making a lot of money with it. Note also the pronoun you've chosen to use through your comment. I know it isn't deliberate, but that choice also has an impact.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 11y ago
dmarlow 11y ago
I like it. Let the company decide what's best. This is just another tool they can choose to use. The term "take home project" is wrong. It's a take home "interview"! I keep my interview challenges at a 1-2 hour time frame if you know what you're doing. If you take longer, you may not be qualified.
jaruche 11y ago
Really interesting concept!
lukasm 11y ago
Interesting I'll add it to https://github.com/lukasz-madon/awesome-remote-job https://github.com/lukasz-madon/awesome-remote-job could be especially useful for companies that hire remote workers. (shameless plug intensifies)
chad_strategic 11y ago
Best interview I have had was an interview, then it was followed up by a paid "side-project". I got paid to do some work for them and everybody was happy. Eventually, I figured out there where some politics/business practices that I didn't care for and I politely declined the position. It just wasn't a fit, not the end of the world, nobodies feelings where hurt. (it also helps having a job, when looking for one.) The thought of 3 month probation period is just silly, the author clear doesn't understand the concept of risk. I know when I walk into an interview and someone asks me the difference between php 5.6 and 5.7, that's when I walk out. (true story)
- mahyarm 11y ago
  You cannot legally do paid side jobs with visa holders.
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    > You cannot legally do paid side jobs with visa holders. An alien admitted under a visa can do paid side jobs if the visa they have permits work in the United States (unless the visa only allows restricted work not compatible with the particular paid side job.)
    - mahyarm 11y ago
      H1-B & TN visa holders can only do work for their specified employer(s) in their visas. I would be pleasantly surprised if this was actually not the case. If you have a green card or general work permit then it doesn't matter of course. To get a general work permit although, you're usually pretty close to getting a green card.
      - dragonwriter 11y ago
        > H1-B & TN visa holders can only do work for their specified employer(s) in their visas Right, and I'm not saying that that is inaccurate for those particular visas. Just that the generalization to "visa holders" is overbroad.
rpedela 11y ago
bug report: The browser's back button goes into infinite loop. 1. Click "CodePad". 2. Click "Create New Pad". 3. Press browser's back button. 4. Repeat #3 to infinity. Ubuntu 14.04, latest Chrome
leepowers 11y ago
Is there a mechanism for paying the test taker? A developer shouldn't be expected to work for free. The outside chance he'd be the 1/100 applicant to land the job isn't enough.
- angelbob 11y ago
  Absolutely. Since a good dev can get somebody a job, he can just set up a business gaming this system :-P
hyperchase 11y ago
The best company I ever worked for did a two hour pair programming session on a simple rails app (since they were a rails shop) with every candidate that got passed the "chat over coffee" stage. You'd get to see the kind of code the candidates write and how they work through problems, how they work with another developer, and get a really good overall sense of how they would work as part of the team.
- dubroff 11y ago
  I like pair programming sessions a lot because both the candidate and the employer are investing an equal amount of time. While the intention behind take-home projects is good, the result is often that the candidate invests several hours into a project just to be quickly passed over by the employer.
masukomi 11y ago
this is equivalent to asking math students to provide their answer but not show their work. I interview people to figure out how they think and learn how they solve problems. I don't actually care about the answer they give to the technical question nearly as much as how they got there. No way in hell I'd do this, nevermind pay for it.
- asadlionpk 11y ago
  The idea is to then discuss the project in the interview. This closely relates to what applicant will be actually doing at the job.

96 points by asadlionpk 11y ago

I'm not a fan of take-home projects. But comparing that to mumbling at a white-board, give me take home interviews any day of my life.

asadlionpk 11y ago
Agreed, ideally there should be a choice between the two because some actually prefer whiteboard type interviews. This is a good post discussing both: http://blog.triplebyte.com/take-home-interviews http://blog.triplebyte.com/take-home-interviews

oglo 11y ago

Take-home projects are not the best way to judge skills (atleast in their current form). In the future, there would be some centralized solution so we don't waste time again and again.

munirusman 11y ago
We are trying to do same i.e. streamline the process. I do both take-home projects as well as pair-programming during screening. Take-home projects give me a big picture about candidates' ability to solve problems with software whereas pair-programming interviews tells me about his ability to think in terms of code at deeper level.
zhang3r 11y ago
create a commonapp style application process? one project, multiple companies, and companies can add their supplementary challenges or something
- asabjorn 11y ago
  That assumes that you know how to test and judge engineers. I think the larger issue in engineering interviews these days is that we simply don't know how to effectively separate good engineers from the bad, and given the nature of our job there is a sometimes significant lasting negative impact of a bad/messy programmer.
  - collyw 11y ago
    In addition people are better at different things. I joined a startup recently. The code is well organised at the top level, and the logging was superb. However the architecture was terrible, horriby overengineered. And it looked like a Java programmer doing python - camel case instead of underscores (well a mix just to be inconsitent). Joins done at the application level rather than the database. And just doing way more work that was needed to calculate something.
- munirusman 11y ago
  It's an interesting idea.. something like fizzbuzz style take-home.
RogerL 11y ago
My "centralized solution" is my career. I've successfully done a lot of hard work, I can speak intelligently about it, what more do you want? (generic you, not OP you)
- asadlionpk 11y ago
  The problem with "I can speak intelligently about it" is that many unskilled applicants can also do it. So this shouldn't be the deciding factor.
  - collyw 11y ago
    I never met anyone that can talk well about code, that can't actually code. I met plenty who like to throw hip new technology buzzwords around without actually having good reason to use new technology.
angelbob 11y ago
I fear a centralized solution, if only because Credit Bureaus are the same idea for your money. The equivalent for jobs wouldn't be better.

robgibbons 11y ago

Take-home projects can be time consuming, give them Interviews instead

dominotw 11y ago

Ain't nobody got time for that.

jbob2000 11y ago

This is taking interviewing and hiring in the wrong direction. At my company, we have a relatively short interview process, followed by a 3 month full salary probation period. The interview is used to weed out "red flaggers" and identify high-level strengths and weaknesses. It is completely non-technical. We assume that the person applying for the job has the technical requirements. (We also make judicious use of references, something people seem to have forgotten about. Quick phone call to previous employers can save you tons of money!) The 3 month probation period is the real "test" and the applicant will be put on a small project with another employee mentoring. If someone lacks technical ability, it will be evident in the first few days and we can move on to the next applicant. If the person doesn't like the work environment, they can walk away no questions asked (maybe the commute is too long or they don't like the office space, etc. etc.). This is cheaper than having directors and executives try to plan around all sorts of interview stages. It is much less stressful, as the applicant, once into the probation period, is treated like a regular employee and has much more opportunity to "prove their worth". Stop adding more shit to the interview! Don't make it longer, do the opposite!

lmorris84 11y ago
I like the sound of this. As well as giving the candidate ample opportunity to show what they can do, it'll also be representative of the actual work they'll be doing in that role so everyone will be going into the post-probation period with eyes wide open.
lazyant 11y ago
3 month probation will work great with unemployed or fresh out of college people etc, not with employed people, certainly not with senior candidates.
- jbob2000 11y ago
  Why not? Because they have to leave their jobs? Are they committed to my company and the job or not? Sounds like it's a good litmus test.
  - 11y ago

Mikeb85 11y ago

This is silly. First of all, are interviews stressful, yes. That's not a bad thing. The real world is stressful. Soft skills matter. Interviews are useful to see how candidates react. Second, most people aren't born with the perfect skill set for a job. Most don't even acquire it in university, or at a previous job. Most important is the ability to learn and grow. Third, in this day and age, you may send hundreds of resumes, and have multiple interviews. Are you going to do 2 weeks of take-home projects? What if you have multiple interviews in one day, and both places expect you to finish take-home projects. What then? This just seems like another hoop to make candidates jump through, with no good outcomes.

a_c_s 11y ago
Interviews, for many people, are stressful in a way that jobs are not. Personally, the most stressful things I've had to do as a developer (including speaking in meetings large and small) are an order of magnitude less stressful than even the best interviews. edit: typo
- seansmccullough 11y ago
  During my last job search I did a take-home project, spent far more time on it then was specified, and then was rejected without an explanation. What a wonderfully productive use of 40 hours. I'd much rather study for interviews.
  - bm1362 11y ago
    I always end up enjoying the projects and learning a lot about a new domain in the process. I think for me, I see them as an opportunity to write code outside of my current role or comfort zone. I have been rejected once, the team really liked the project and I spent a considerable amount of time on it, but they found a more experienced engineer.

collyw 11y ago

Sure but expect to half your candidate pool. Can't I talk you some code that I have already written instead of wasting half a day doing some trival project in a rush?

asadlionpk 11y ago
I think companies should optimize on giving options between all of the proven methods. Some may like the classic interviews but some may have a good github profile which is also a good signal on how the applicant is.
- collyw 11y ago
  Proven methods? Are there any?
  - asadlionpk 11y ago
    As in the classic interview, discussion based on previous project, discussion on take-home interview. I think there can be good results when candidate is given the choice.
  - sharpray 11y ago
    Yes, IQ tests.

ksk 11y ago

I'm all for trying out new ways to interview people, but IMHO people should err on the side of caution and be willing to let "good" candidates slip through the cracks than risk hiring someone who is a dud. Personally, I think it matters if someone can come up with a solution in 1 hour vs 15 hours.

munirusman 11y ago
I agree that it is much, much better to reject a good candidate than to accept a bad candidate!
lewisl9029 11y ago
There's a difference between being able to come up with a solution in 1 hour vs being able to come up with a solution in 1 hour on a whiteboard, with no internet access, and with someone breathing down your neck the whole time. If your company has a genuine need to screen candidates for their ability to perform under the special conditions of the latter, then by all means, set up your interviews with those special conditions. Otherwise, I feel you'd be better served by an interview that more closely emulates the actual working environment that your employees work under. My ideal technical interview would be one where the candidate is assigned a problem that is representative of the work that they're being hired for, and then left alone to work on it for an hour or two in their own preferred working environment, and then the interviewer and candidate can meet up and demo the solution and discuss implementation details.
- ksk 11y ago
  >There's a difference between being able to come up with a solution in 1 hour vs being able to come up with a solution in 1 hour on a whiteboard, with no internet access, and with someone breathing down your neck the whole time. You can usually fit about 15 lines of code on a whiteboard which tends to bias questions to simple logic questions. Why do you need internet access? Also why does someone have to breath down your neck? They could leave you alone for 45 minutes and come back. >Otherwise, I feel you'd be better served by an interview that more closely emulates the actual working environment that your employees work under. Why do you feel this way? I think that programmers should have as many programming related patterns memorized as possible - For e.g. How to compose different kinds of programs when given different resource restrictions, or having basic algorithmic concepts in their head so they can quickly choose one over the other. A programming test should immediately indicate if the candidate has such things on the tip of their tongue or not. In much the same way as you don't open a high school physics textbook when you go about building an airplane, you don't want someone who has to google basic programming knowledge that they should just have in their head. IME, when you start with a very high level of intrinsic knowledge it's much easier to make connections and come up with unique solutions, because your not constantly 'searching' for things. Instead you're just 'picking' the right building blocks. Or maybe trying to quickly eliminate obviously bad choices. Ofcource there is much more nuance, but you can't state everything in a single comment ! :")

jsatk 11y ago

Personality, communication skills, etc., all matter. A lot. There's more to being a good software engineer than knowing how to code well. You have to be able to back up your ideas, convince others of your ideas, hear others view points and objections to your ideas, etc. Take home projects are great, but they're not a substitute for a face-to-face interview.

duderific 11y ago
We do both: - A take-home project that takes a few hours - We assess their code; if it looks good, we bring them in for a few more interviews, both tech and non-tech - If it doesn't look good, we move on to the next candidate
- asadlionpk 11y ago
  I think doing both is the way to go for now and this tool helps you do both.
- orless 11y ago
  OMG. A few more interviews? Can't you handle everything in one or two interviews? Seriously, from my (quite senior) point of view - if you've seen my CV, done research on me (StackOverflow, GitHub etc.), seen my code from the take-home project, did a technical and non-technical interview and still unsure if I'm a match or not, I'd really doubt your competence. I must be really so exceptionally interested in the position to do a "few more interviews".
- bm1362 11y ago
  I think this is ideal - as long as the technical interviews are about the project itself. Reading these responses, I get that a lot of people here are in the role of interviewer and seem to forget what it's like to be trying to get in the door. You cram as much algorithm knowledge, language trivia so you can be prepared for 4-5 pet interview questions that could be anything. It truly sucks, is a huge time investment for the prospective employee and most of the time it's not clear what the Nth interviewer is looking for when he asks you your favorite network protocol.
11y ago

sirtastic 11y ago

As someone who has had "8 hour" take home projects with requirements like "build a responsive site for this fictitious product and include creative UX features as well as a full summary of thought process during the project" I think this idea is horrible. I refuse to do take home tests, they are a waste of my time. I've been to 50+ interviews on both sides of the table and can tell you there is always a few questions you can ask to determine someones development competency. Not to mention I have literally thousands of hours of work I can send you from PSDs to code if you want to dive into my work.

pamelafox 11y ago

I've always liked take-home projects for 2 reasons: 1) I get extremely anxious during interviews, so I don't perform well in them (to the point of crying sometimes - http://blog.pamelafox.org/2013/09/technical-interviews-make-me-cry.html http://blog.pamelafox.org/2013/09/technical-interviews-make-...) 2) I like getting to see what it'd be like to do the sort of work that the company would be asking me to do for my job - it's a good taste to see if the company would be a good fit for me. The best take-homes are the ones that very closely approximate the actual job. However, not everyone likes take-home projects or has the time to do them. So it seems that companies should ideally offer each candidate multiple paths, and develop consistent rubrics to evaluate how each candidate does across paths. I also do like the idea of probation, as it once again seems like it could be both good for the company and good for the employer, to give them both a sense of fit. Jobs are such big decisions, it's stressful for both the employer and employee to figure out if it's the right path for them.

Domenic_S 11y ago
I like them too, but if and only if they come with a review after turn-in. If I botched it in your eyes I want to know why!

retube 11y ago

Nope. I've had several of these, all were at least a full days work, which I had to cram into late evenings etc on top of day job. And to top it all, they weren't even discussed in the interview! Never again.

edw519 11y ago

Disagree completely. There are simply too many things that you learn in the interview that are too difficult to learn any other way. Having someone code is NOT about seeing what kind of code they produce (well maybe a little); it's about getting to know as much as you can about them in as little time as possible. I want to put the candidate under some amount of stress to see how they respond. After all, responding to stress (deadlines, technical issues, people issues, etc.) is a very important part of a programmers job. Just a few of the things I usually learn with a short coding test in an interview right away: - Did he understand the problem? - How did he approach the problem? - Does he appear as if he has any idea what he’s doing? - Can he explain what he has done? - Can he defend what he has done? - Does he understand the concepts of order, cleanness, iteration, branching, recursion, etc., etc., etc... - Based on this small sample, do I think he can do the work we need done? - Do I like him? Will he fit in and be a good team member? Of course, I share all of this with the candidate. There's no secret agenda. We just want to make a fair assessment of fit. This is good for everyone. All a take-home project does is separate those who can build superior code from those who can build good code under ideal conditions. This is nice to know, but not a very important metric in the real world. Ideal conditions rarely happen on real projects. Why simulate them in the screening process?

tptacek 11y ago
The problem is that most interviewers think they can assess these things, but (a) really can't, and (b) are having their readings confounded by the nervousness and discomfort of candidates. Also: we banned "Do I like him? Will be fit in" at Matasano several years ago, and were far better off for doing so. Answer honestly: for every bullet in this list, did your team have a standardized rubric by which you could mechanically evaluate candidates? Matasano had a much smaller list of considerations for candidates, but developing working rubrics for assessing them took years. If you really have a working rubric for this ambitious list, you could be making a lot of money with it. Note also the pronoun you've chosen to use through your comment. I know it isn't deliberate, but that choice also has an impact.
- HeyLaughingBoy 11y ago

dmarlow 11y ago

I like it. Let the company decide what's best. This is just another tool they can choose to use. The term "take home project" is wrong. It's a take home "interview"! I keep my interview challenges at a 1-2 hour time frame if you know what you're doing. If you take longer, you may not be qualified.

jaruche 11y ago

Really interesting concept!

lukasm 11y ago

Interesting I'll add it to https://github.com/lukasz-madon/awesome-remote-job https://github.com/lukasz-madon/awesome-remote-job could be especially useful for companies that hire remote workers. (shameless plug intensifies)

chad_strategic 11y ago

Best interview I have had was an interview, then it was followed up by a paid "side-project". I got paid to do some work for them and everybody was happy. Eventually, I figured out there where some politics/business practices that I didn't care for and I politely declined the position. It just wasn't a fit, not the end of the world, nobodies feelings where hurt. (it also helps having a job, when looking for one.) The thought of 3 month probation period is just silly, the author clear doesn't understand the concept of risk. I know when I walk into an interview and someone asks me the difference between php 5.6 and 5.7, that's when I walk out. (true story)

mahyarm 11y ago
You cannot legally do paid side jobs with visa holders.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > You cannot legally do paid side jobs with visa holders. An alien admitted under a visa can do paid side jobs if the visa they have permits work in the United States (unless the visa only allows restricted work not compatible with the particular paid side job.)
  - mahyarm 11y ago
    H1-B & TN visa holders can only do work for their specified employer(s) in their visas. I would be pleasantly surprised if this was actually not the case. If you have a green card or general work permit then it doesn't matter of course. To get a general work permit although, you're usually pretty close to getting a green card.
    - dragonwriter 11y ago
      > H1-B & TN visa holders can only do work for their specified employer(s) in their visas Right, and I'm not saying that that is inaccurate for those particular visas. Just that the generalization to "visa holders" is overbroad.

rpedela 11y ago

bug report: The browser's back button goes into infinite loop. 1. Click "CodePad". 2. Click "Create New Pad". 3. Press browser's back button. 4. Repeat #3 to infinity. Ubuntu 14.04, latest Chrome

leepowers 11y ago

Is there a mechanism for paying the test taker? A developer shouldn't be expected to work for free. The outside chance he'd be the 1/100 applicant to land the job isn't enough.

angelbob 11y ago
Absolutely. Since a good dev can get somebody a job, he can just set up a business gaming this system :-P

hyperchase 11y ago

The best company I ever worked for did a two hour pair programming session on a simple rails app (since they were a rails shop) with every candidate that got passed the "chat over coffee" stage. You'd get to see the kind of code the candidates write and how they work through problems, how they work with another developer, and get a really good overall sense of how they would work as part of the team.

dubroff 11y ago
I like pair programming sessions a lot because both the candidate and the employer are investing an equal amount of time. While the intention behind take-home projects is good, the result is often that the candidate invests several hours into a project just to be quickly passed over by the employer.

masukomi 11y ago

this is equivalent to asking math students to provide their answer but not show their work. I interview people to figure out how they think and learn how they solve problems. I don't actually care about the answer they give to the technical question nearly as much as how they got there. No way in hell I'd do this, nevermind pay for it.

asadlionpk 11y ago
The idea is to then discuss the project in the interview. This closely relates to what applicant will be actually doing at the job.