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I've had similar experiences. Updating the job posting can help to weed out some candidates. I've moved more toward giving short take home problems that basical
by ellisv 10y ago
I've had similar experiences. Updating the job posting can help to weed out some candidates. I've moved more toward giving short take home problems that basically test whether the candidate can perform basic skills. The goal might be to perform a simple classification task on toy data, but along the way you'll need to use git, access a database, use an API, etc. The candidates usually find out for themselves whether they'd be a good fit.
- claytonjy 10y agoWhile the take-home approach has it's drawbacks (biased towards candidates with more time, like those without families), I think it's great you test the basic tools needed to work in this era. Classification aside, the rest would be good checks for most non-DS software development roles.
- cookiecaper 10y agoThis is fine, but make sure the take-home test is truly respectful of candidate time. It shouldn't take more than 2 hours max for the minimally-acceptable candidate. The best candidates have a lot of options and therefore see little reason to commit a large quantity of their personal time to any particular candidate-employer. Some people are doing the take home test but they make it into a multi-week ordeal, or say it should take "about a full work day", which always stretches out into 4-5 evenings after the real-world is accounted for. I've never had enough interest in working somewhere to finish those long take-home tests; always get like half to three-quarters of the way done before I decide I don't really want to work there that much anyway.