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tldr: "The most significant shift we’ve made is requiring every final candidate to work with us for three to eight weeks on a contract basis. Candidates do rea

tldr: "The most significant shift we’ve made is requiring every final candidate to work with us for three to eight weeks on a contract basis. Candidates do real tasks alongside the people they would actually be working with if they had the job. They can work at night or on weekends, so they don’t have to leave their current jobs; most spend 10 to 20 hours a week working with Automattic, although that’s flexible. (Some people take a week’s vacation in order to focus on the tryout, which is another viable option.) The goal is not to have them finish a product or do a set amount of work; it’s to allow us to quickly and efficiently assess whether this would be a mutually beneficial relationship."

de_Selby 11y ago
That sounds like it would scale well for the applicant.
- elcapitan 11y ago
  It works well in my experience, but we have only used it at smaller scale. 2-3 days working together with somebody is already way more telling than stupid interviews, buzzword compliant skillsets and unrealistic tests.
  - OpenDrapery 11y ago
    How would it work in "your experience" if you were the job seeker and not the interviewer? Taking a week of PTO to interview and then not get the job is a pretty big sunk cost. I guess you can only do one of these a year.
    - elcapitan 11y ago
      We paid them the equivalent of well-paid consulting work for the time they worked with us, so I would be fine with that.
    - falcolas 11y ago
      If you make weekends and evenings available, it lessens the cost of the job seeker. If you allow for remote work using one of the many online collaboration tools, it lessens the cost for both the job seeker and the employer.
ryandrake 11y ago
That would violate many people's current employment contracts that either forbid them from working for someone else simultaneously, or that assert ownership of all code written outside of work.
mratzloff 11y ago
Or they can just walk down the street and get a job anywhere else with similar compensation with less contortion. The people who will go through this either a) really want to work at your particular company (in which case, great, but unlikely), or b) are desperate for a job because they've been turned down several times.

de_Selby 11y ago

That sounds like it would scale well for the applicant.

elcapitan 11y ago
It works well in my experience, but we have only used it at smaller scale. 2-3 days working together with somebody is already way more telling than stupid interviews, buzzword compliant skillsets and unrealistic tests.
- OpenDrapery 11y ago
  How would it work in "your experience" if you were the job seeker and not the interviewer? Taking a week of PTO to interview and then not get the job is a pretty big sunk cost. I guess you can only do one of these a year.
  - elcapitan 11y ago
    We paid them the equivalent of well-paid consulting work for the time they worked with us, so I would be fine with that.
  - falcolas 11y ago
    If you make weekends and evenings available, it lessens the cost of the job seeker. If you allow for remote work using one of the many online collaboration tools, it lessens the cost for both the job seeker and the employer.

ryandrake 11y ago

That would violate many people's current employment contracts that either forbid them from working for someone else simultaneously, or that assert ownership of all code written outside of work.

mratzloff 11y ago

Or they can just walk down the street and get a job anywhere else with similar compensation with less contortion. The people who will go through this either a) really want to work at your particular company (in which case, great, but unlikely), or b) are desperate for a job because they've been turned down several times.