4 ms·

not sure why there is so much resistance here about doing an 8 hour test, I might be in the minority but for a traditional whiteboard interview I would spend a

not sure why there is so much resistance here about doing an 8 hour test, I might be in the minority but for a traditional whiteboard interview I would spend a lot more than 8 hours revising algorithms and so on, and have a lot of stress due to whiteboard coding not being anything like real coding. Being able to take a Sunday to work on a challenging problem in my own editor / computer / dev environment sounds great! I wish that all companies added in their job ads something like 'if you want to skip the whiteboard send us your solution to this problem together with your resume' where the problem is a representative problem of the type of work they do, then you spend the interview discussing your solution as opposed to playing algorithm-roulette. It would also cut down the uncertainty when you see a job ad where they ask for all sorts of different languages / skills, if you have fun doing the coding test, it's likely you'll enjoy working there, and vice-versa (in which case you might decide not to even apply)

ryandrake 11y ago
> not sure why there is so much resistance here about doing an 8 hour test If you're applying to just 5 companies, that's a full (well 40-hour) work week of effort for a small chance of going forward with the next stage of the interview/hazing ritual. Might be good if you are already unemployed, but incompatible with candidates who already work.
- AnimalMuppet 11y ago
  Which means that, if you're hiring, and you want only candidates who are currently unemployed, it's a reasonable practice. But the best candidates probably already have jobs, and you're not going to get them. So maybe that's not really the way you want to do things...
  - tetraodonpuffer 11y ago
    not necessarily, if I am not unemployed I am not likely to apply to tons of jobs, but be a bit more selective, and I don't see finding more than 1 job a week that I would be interested in... of course I am not a typical developer (C, python, back-end, security, networking, ...) so there are a lot less jobs in my niche than say if I was a front-end person This means that taking every sunday to work on cool / interesting self-contained problems would be great, and much better than spending time revising red-black trees and avl tree rotations and sorts and so on for the n-th time to prepare for the whiteboarding
- iolothebard 11y ago
  I ask them to give me a full design document with their coding style guide. Since it's an 'easy test', this is my 'easy test' to check their procedures. They should already have a coding document in place and they can use their boilerplate document to quickly whip up a design doc. Right??!!?
st3v3r 11y ago
Because usually you're not applying to just one company, but several. And as you get older, you'll have other things to do outside of work, like family, which makes finding that 8 hours extremely challenging.

ryandrake 11y ago

> not sure why there is so much resistance here about doing an 8 hour test If you're applying to just 5 companies, that's a full (well 40-hour) work week of effort for a small chance of going forward with the next stage of the interview/hazing ritual. Might be good if you are already unemployed, but incompatible with candidates who already work.

AnimalMuppet 11y ago
Which means that, if you're hiring, and you want only candidates who are currently unemployed, it's a reasonable practice. But the best candidates probably already have jobs, and you're not going to get them. So maybe that's not really the way you want to do things...
- tetraodonpuffer 11y ago
  not necessarily, if I am not unemployed I am not likely to apply to tons of jobs, but be a bit more selective, and I don't see finding more than 1 job a week that I would be interested in... of course I am not a typical developer (C, python, back-end, security, networking, ...) so there are a lot less jobs in my niche than say if I was a front-end person This means that taking every sunday to work on cool / interesting self-contained problems would be great, and much better than spending time revising red-black trees and avl tree rotations and sorts and so on for the n-th time to prepare for the whiteboarding
iolothebard 11y ago
I ask them to give me a full design document with their coding style guide. Since it's an 'easy test', this is my 'easy test' to check their procedures. They should already have a coding document in place and they can use their boilerplate document to quickly whip up a design doc. Right??!!?

st3v3r 11y ago

Because usually you're not applying to just one company, but several. And as you get older, you'll have other things to do outside of work, like family, which makes finding that 8 hours extremely challenging.