6 ms·

We really need to stop pushing this HW assignment nonsense. It's offloading the cost of hiring on to prospective candidates. The asymmetry of cost makes it plai

We really need to stop pushing this HW assignment nonsense. It's offloading the cost of hiring on to prospective candidates. The asymmetry of cost makes it plainly exploitative. So you block off 4-8 hours of your life for this job you're really excited about. What is the employer putting up? Generally nothing. They get a sea of responses and they get to pick a few of the best ones. The 100 responses they got cost these candidates 400+ hours of time for no cost to the employer whatsoever. Take home assignments are fine, but the employer needs to put up something as well. Either pay for the time I spend on it, or have the assignment late in the interviewing process and have employment contingent on passing some known bar ahead of time. That is, I should be the only one doing the assignment and there should be no wishy-washy rejections.

throw_away_777 10y ago
To add on to this, a take-home assignment should be more than just another filter. The companies I interviewed for with take-home assignments didn't actually discuss the assignments at all in the in-person interview - I spent the time to prepare for and do the assignment, at least pretend it matters.
- robinson-wall 10y ago
  That just seems odd. How were they checking that you were the one who completed them? All of the interview processes I've had recently have checked I did the exercise by either asking me to describe what I built with no aid, asking me to walk through the code with it in front of me, or asking me to conceptually expand on what I built on a whiteboard.
  - throw_away_777 10y ago
    They gave me the standard whiteboard interviews on-site after that. This was for a data scientist position. I did not get offered the job (but I accepted a good job offer a couple of weeks later, so whatever).
akulbe 10y ago
What if a company offered to pay you a day's wages, or something reasonable still (if it's less than that)? Whittle down the pool even further and the ones you think look good on paper, and after an interview (or a series of them), have them come in, on a paid basis. It'd be a sign of good faith that they're both serious about finding a good candidate, and respectful of your time? I know some companies do paid stuff like that. If only it were more commonplace.
- dottedmag 10y ago
  That's the only sensible way to do HW, if it takes more than 5 minutes. Note that 5-minute-long task is a good pre-filter on its own.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- hackinthebochs 10y ago
  That sounds like a fair process. Employers are in a position of power and can easily abuse it. When the employer also invests in me as a candidate it shows they're serious about me and also ethical. Sounds like a win-win.
- jventura 10y ago
  > What if a company offered to pay you a day's wages, or something reasonable still (if it's less than that)? I did an assignment like that for a company once, I'm still waiting for the money for more than one year...
- flukus 10y ago
  I still wouldn't if I currently had a job. By the time I get home my brain is usually pretty fried and that 4 hours probably means giving up a couple of nights.
aisofteng 10y ago
This reeks of entitlement. If you want the job, you'll find four hours. They don't owe you a job and they don't owe you anything for going through their hiring process that they have designed to find people to pay a salary. I echo the grandparent's sentiments, myself, from my own personal experience as well.
- hackinthebochs 10y ago
  So its entitlement to expect an employer to not exploit their position of power? Sure, I'll take that label. >If you want the job, you'll find four hours. But what happens when everyone starts having these 4 hour screens? Now its a 40 hour process to apply for 10 jobs in a week (and this is before any commitment on the part of the employer). It's not sustainable or fair. And yet, there's no incentive for employers not to do it. So we as job seekers just need to suck it up and be thankful for the opportunity, right?
  - aisofteng 10y ago
    And what's wrong with having a position of power? You say it like it's a dirty phrase. Can you, personally, pay me a salary? If you can and I want to work with you, I absolutely think it's fair to ask four hours of my own time to demonstrate I'm worth consideration for it. If not, then why does your opinion matter?
    - hackinthebochs 10y ago
      You sound like a Libertarian. I'm assuming all the advances in worker's rights we've had over the last hundred years are also "entitlement"? If not, then I don't see what's different about expecting an employer to not exploit prospective applicants by offloading most of the cost to them.
  - LoSboccacc 10y ago
    I work at a small company in a remote part of an openly backward state when it comes to startups, and yet got two hundreds applicants to file a javascrip developer position. After interviewing 10 (say two three hours spent on each between contacting, scheduling up etc) it was clear every unemployed with 'can use word' as skill boosted their resume and applied. I'm sorry for the real developers looking for a job but a company can't dump 20 days work on chasing and weeding liers. I'm not a fan of homeworks myself but this is what it has come to. I'd be payng but that puts the company and the prospect in a very difficult position them towards tax laws and towards their current employer non competes, the company toward again tax laws and then there's the absurd of paying for contract work delivered that's 99% of times not up to spec. Beside, the unwillingness to compromise smells itself and given the choice I'd never get a potential troublemaker in that only thinks time=money and screw everything else. That little empathy for both sided of the problems sure is a red flag. Edit: well unless it's a contracting job then it's fine.
mikekchar 10y ago
It's a bit frustrating because different people react so strongly in both directions. I don't like live coding, but I'll be ecstatic with a pair programming session -- because I can evaluate them at the same time. Homework, I'm generally OK with, but I honestly hate it when you get a response like "We didn't like your code. Goodbye." On the other hand, I know some people who can't deal with the stress of writing code in an unfamiliar situation. I wonder if the best thing to do is to simply offer the candidate a choice.
prefect42 10y ago
> It's offloading the cost of hiring on to prospective candidates. Why is that a bad thing? The prospective candidates aren't entitled to anything, the burden should be on them to prove they have any capabilities for the job. > What is the employer putting up? Generally nothing. Totally incorrect, have you ever had to hire somebody? The initial phone screens alone to weed out the 99% of complete incompetents takes many hours/days. Even getting to the list of phone screens, involves many hours of sifting through resumes, where each resume is cleverly designed to hide the fact that the prospective candidate is incompetent.
- JoeAltmaier 10y ago
  Its a bad thing, because good employees are hard to find. They'll go elsewhere instead of jumping through your hoops.

throw_away_777 10y ago

To add on to this, a take-home assignment should be more than just another filter. The companies I interviewed for with take-home assignments didn't actually discuss the assignments at all in the in-person interview - I spent the time to prepare for and do the assignment, at least pretend it matters.

robinson-wall 10y ago
That just seems odd. How were they checking that you were the one who completed them? All of the interview processes I've had recently have checked I did the exercise by either asking me to describe what I built with no aid, asking me to walk through the code with it in front of me, or asking me to conceptually expand on what I built on a whiteboard.
- throw_away_777 10y ago
  They gave me the standard whiteboard interviews on-site after that. This was for a data scientist position. I did not get offered the job (but I accepted a good job offer a couple of weeks later, so whatever).

akulbe 10y ago

What if a company offered to pay you a day's wages, or something reasonable still (if it's less than that)? Whittle down the pool even further and the ones you think look good on paper, and after an interview (or a series of them), have them come in, on a paid basis. It'd be a sign of good faith that they're both serious about finding a good candidate, and respectful of your time? I know some companies do paid stuff like that. If only it were more commonplace.

dottedmag 10y ago
That's the only sensible way to do HW, if it takes more than 5 minutes. Note that 5-minute-long task is a good pre-filter on its own.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
hackinthebochs 10y ago
That sounds like a fair process. Employers are in a position of power and can easily abuse it. When the employer also invests in me as a candidate it shows they're serious about me and also ethical. Sounds like a win-win.
jventura 10y ago
> What if a company offered to pay you a day's wages, or something reasonable still (if it's less than that)? I did an assignment like that for a company once, I'm still waiting for the money for more than one year...
flukus 10y ago
I still wouldn't if I currently had a job. By the time I get home my brain is usually pretty fried and that 4 hours probably means giving up a couple of nights.

aisofteng 10y ago

This reeks of entitlement. If you want the job, you'll find four hours. They don't owe you a job and they don't owe you anything for going through their hiring process that they have designed to find people to pay a salary. I echo the grandparent's sentiments, myself, from my own personal experience as well.

hackinthebochs 10y ago
So its entitlement to expect an employer to not exploit their position of power? Sure, I'll take that label. >If you want the job, you'll find four hours. But what happens when everyone starts having these 4 hour screens? Now its a 40 hour process to apply for 10 jobs in a week (and this is before any commitment on the part of the employer). It's not sustainable or fair. And yet, there's no incentive for employers not to do it. So we as job seekers just need to suck it up and be thankful for the opportunity, right?
- aisofteng 10y ago
  And what's wrong with having a position of power? You say it like it's a dirty phrase. Can you, personally, pay me a salary? If you can and I want to work with you, I absolutely think it's fair to ask four hours of my own time to demonstrate I'm worth consideration for it. If not, then why does your opinion matter?
  - hackinthebochs 10y ago
    You sound like a Libertarian. I'm assuming all the advances in worker's rights we've had over the last hundred years are also "entitlement"? If not, then I don't see what's different about expecting an employer to not exploit prospective applicants by offloading most of the cost to them.
- LoSboccacc 10y ago
  I work at a small company in a remote part of an openly backward state when it comes to startups, and yet got two hundreds applicants to file a javascrip developer position. After interviewing 10 (say two three hours spent on each between contacting, scheduling up etc) it was clear every unemployed with 'can use word' as skill boosted their resume and applied. I'm sorry for the real developers looking for a job but a company can't dump 20 days work on chasing and weeding liers. I'm not a fan of homeworks myself but this is what it has come to. I'd be payng but that puts the company and the prospect in a very difficult position them towards tax laws and towards their current employer non competes, the company toward again tax laws and then there's the absurd of paying for contract work delivered that's 99% of times not up to spec. Beside, the unwillingness to compromise smells itself and given the choice I'd never get a potential troublemaker in that only thinks time=money and screw everything else. That little empathy for both sided of the problems sure is a red flag. Edit: well unless it's a contracting job then it's fine.

mikekchar 10y ago

It's a bit frustrating because different people react so strongly in both directions. I don't like live coding, but I'll be ecstatic with a pair programming session -- because I can evaluate them at the same time. Homework, I'm generally OK with, but I honestly hate it when you get a response like "We didn't like your code. Goodbye." On the other hand, I know some people who can't deal with the stress of writing code in an unfamiliar situation. I wonder if the best thing to do is to simply offer the candidate a choice.

prefect42 10y ago

> It's offloading the cost of hiring on to prospective candidates. Why is that a bad thing? The prospective candidates aren't entitled to anything, the burden should be on them to prove they have any capabilities for the job. > What is the employer putting up? Generally nothing. Totally incorrect, have you ever had to hire somebody? The initial phone screens alone to weed out the 99% of complete incompetents takes many hours/days. Even getting to the list of phone screens, involves many hours of sifting through resumes, where each resume is cleverly designed to hide the fact that the prospective candidate is incompetent.

JoeAltmaier 10y ago
Its a bad thing, because good employees are hard to find. They'll go elsewhere instead of jumping through your hoops.