4 ms·

> As imperfect as ALL technical recruiting styles may be, at least a short coding assignment (i.e. < 4 hrs) is halfway-related to the real world. Yes, but what

by lj3 10y ago

> As imperfect as ALL technical recruiting styles may be, at least a short coding assignment (i.e. < 4 hrs) is halfway-related to the real world. Yes, but what it is not is economical. There's a huge dropoff in the interview funnel at this step because it's largely not worth the effort for the interviewee. The choice is between spending 5-10 hours per take home test per company or spending 5-10 hours a week studying silly whiteboard exercises that apply to dozens of companies. It's also just as uneconomical for the interviewer. I've completed about a dozen of these tests over the last year and only one company bothered to look at the test after I sent it in. Which makes sense; it takes time to look at a lot of code, figure out which of it is boilerplate and which of it was written fresh for the test. And even then, there's no guarantee somebody else didn't write it. And while you may not be interviewing with hundreds of companies, most companies easily get hundreds of applicants per position these days. For whatever reason, it doesn't seem to be worth anybody's time to do these tests. This bums me out because I'm terrible at live coding tests. But, this is the reality of the situation, so I have to adapt.

donovanm 10y ago
The way I see it a lot of the best people would probably never bother going through a take home test. A company with a simpler, quicker interview process would have already snatched them up.
- bit_logic 10y ago
  There is no simpler quicker process, the current popular process is spending weeks studying CS and leetcode.com. That's a lot worse in many ways.
  - lj3 10y ago
    Sure, there is. Have you seen this approach? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfyWvJdsDRI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfyWvJdsDRI
  - ThrustVectoring 10y ago
    Marginal cost to get some sort of commitment/investment out of a company is lower, though. With 4-8 hour coding assignments, that's ~10 companies per two-week period to consider you for the on-site portion. With all the other process stuff, you'd wind up maybe being able to get 1 or 2 concurrent job offers.
ufmace 10y ago
All of the take-home interview questions I've done have been given after a phone screen has already been done. I would think that's the only way to do it - it's going to take some time for a company to look over what you submitted as well. I don't think I'd bother doing one without that. FWIW, I've done a total of 1 for each of the last 2 job searches I've been on, and ended up getting an offer out of each one, so it seems perfectly worthwhile to me to do them.
- user5994461 10y ago
  Weird. All the take home tests have been given before I had any phone screen with any engineer. The point is to save both your time. It's worthless if you have the test after already wasting an afternoon on the phone.
aisofteng 10y ago
If a candidate isn't willing to spend 4-5 hours to try to get the job, I don't want to give it to them.
- ThrustVectoring 10y ago
  So you don't want the folks who can walk out of Apple's machine learning department on Friday and into Google's on Monday?
  - StevePerkins 10y ago
    I think there are two main problems with software development recruiting: 1) Companies who are not Google or Apple like to read books about Google and Apple, pretend that they are Google or Apple, and imitate recruiting processes that come from Google or Apple. Which doesn't serve them very well, because they are NOT Google or Apple. 2) Candidates who are not "the folks who can walk out of Apple's machine learning department on Friday and into Google's on Monday" like to pretend that they are, congregate on Internet forums with other candidates who also pretend that they are, and exchange interview advice geared toward people who are. Which doesn't serve them very well, because they are NOT.
    - claudenm 10y ago
      > Companies who are not Google or Apple like to read books about Google and Apple, pretend that they are Google or Apple, and imitate recruiting processes that come from Google or Apple. Which doesn't serve them very well, because they are NOT Google or Apple. A million times this. I got rejected from a company because the interviewer decided he didn't like that I used array concatenation to find the correct solution to a problem he gave me. This was for a job at a 100 person company. Companies writing line of business software need to stop acting like they are google.

by lj3 10y ago

donovanm 10y ago

The way I see it a lot of the best people would probably never bother going through a take home test. A company with a simpler, quicker interview process would have already snatched them up.

bit_logic 10y ago
There is no simpler quicker process, the current popular process is spending weeks studying CS and leetcode.com. That's a lot worse in many ways.
- lj3 10y ago
  Sure, there is. Have you seen this approach? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfyWvJdsDRI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfyWvJdsDRI
- ThrustVectoring 10y ago
  Marginal cost to get some sort of commitment/investment out of a company is lower, though. With 4-8 hour coding assignments, that's ~10 companies per two-week period to consider you for the on-site portion. With all the other process stuff, you'd wind up maybe being able to get 1 or 2 concurrent job offers.

ufmace 10y ago

All of the take-home interview questions I've done have been given after a phone screen has already been done. I would think that's the only way to do it - it's going to take some time for a company to look over what you submitted as well. I don't think I'd bother doing one without that. FWIW, I've done a total of 1 for each of the last 2 job searches I've been on, and ended up getting an offer out of each one, so it seems perfectly worthwhile to me to do them.

user5994461 10y ago
Weird. All the take home tests have been given before I had any phone screen with any engineer. The point is to save both your time. It's worthless if you have the test after already wasting an afternoon on the phone.

aisofteng 10y ago

If a candidate isn't willing to spend 4-5 hours to try to get the job, I don't want to give it to them.

ThrustVectoring 10y ago
So you don't want the folks who can walk out of Apple's machine learning department on Friday and into Google's on Monday?
- StevePerkins 10y ago
  I think there are two main problems with software development recruiting: 1) Companies who are not Google or Apple like to read books about Google and Apple, pretend that they are Google or Apple, and imitate recruiting processes that come from Google or Apple. Which doesn't serve them very well, because they are NOT Google or Apple. 2) Candidates who are not "the folks who can walk out of Apple's machine learning department on Friday and into Google's on Monday" like to pretend that they are, congregate on Internet forums with other candidates who also pretend that they are, and exchange interview advice geared toward people who are. Which doesn't serve them very well, because they are NOT.
  - claudenm 10y ago
    > Companies who are not Google or Apple like to read books about Google and Apple, pretend that they are Google or Apple, and imitate recruiting processes that come from Google or Apple. Which doesn't serve them very well, because they are NOT Google or Apple. A million times this. I got rejected from a company because the interviewer decided he didn't like that I used array concatenation to find the correct solution to a problem he gave me. This was for a job at a 100 person company. Companies writing line of business software need to stop acting like they are google.