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I don't think that this is a proper justification for sending coding projects to everyone who submitted a CV. This is a big imbalance in time investment from bo

by gedrap 10y ago

I don't think that this is a proper justification for sending coding projects to everyone who submitted a CV. This is a big imbalance in time investment from both sides and quite disrespectful from the applications point of view.

lj3 10y ago
It's not disrespectful for a company to ask you to write a little code for them. They're just as invested on the time front as you are since they have to read and analyze what you send them. Now, if you were to tell me that nobody ever looked at the test after you sent it in, then it becomes disrespectful. I had several companies do that to me a few months ago. Not that it matters much. I don't think code tests will stick around. It's too time consuming for the hiring managers.
- jon-wood 10y ago
  A little time is fine but last time I was applying for developer jobs almost all of these tasks would take at least an hour to complete, probably more like two or three to do it in a way I'm willing to show to someone screening me on that basis. By requiring these tasks you're implicitly screening not only people who can't code but also people who don't have three hours to spend on applying to your company. If all you want is 20-somethings with no other responsibilities then continue as you are, but if you'd like to see a bit of diversity then you're going to have to compromise.
  - tragic 10y ago
    But this is an endless cycle. At some point, the company has to apply some test to see if the candidate is appropriate, IE, can code to the required standard. That will require a time investment from the candidate. You could simply get rid of the take home test; that will shift the burden to the resume and cover letter, to the advantage of humanities graduates like me. You could mandate a full day on-site, which will bias against people from out of town who want to relocate and people in delicate situations at their current employer. For the time poor candidate, there is always the whiteboard exercise... Whose biases we are gathered here to moan about in the first place. I always feel in these threads that people think hiring is 'broken' and it can be 'fixed' with the proper application of 'one weird trick'. But then all the comments actually have contradictory complaints. So obviously it can't.
    - jon-wood 10y ago
      I'm not really advocating for getting rid of take home tests entirely. There's a lot of value in seeing how someone approaches a known problem and being able to compare that to other solutions. What I am asking is that companies don't ask me to invest hours of time before they decide if they're even interested in talking to me. At the very least I want to have had a phone interview and the chance to assess whether I'm even interested in working for you. That's particularly relevant when looking for remote friendly employers, I've had several calls in recent days from recruiters responding to me saying I'm looking for remote work which I stopped on finding out what they meant was "at least three months fulltime on site, and then maybe we'll talk about some remote work".
      - gedrap 10y ago
        This is exactly what I meant. Home tests are totally fine, given there is some reasonable interest from the company already. Home test is totally fine after a phone call or a two. However, they are not fine at all just after submitting an application and no real contact.
      - bogomipz 10y ago
        >"What I am asking is that companies don't ask me to invest hours of time before they decide if they're even interested in talking to me." I feel like this is the crux of it as well. I am not against projects or tests to show I am technically qualified. But this should be after talking to some potential team mates to see if there is even a fit, personally, work culture-wise, technical interest or any number of factors that you could glean by speaking to potential colleagues for 20 or 30 minutes.
  - mikulas_florek 10y ago
    An hour of time for a homework is completely fine. A whiteboard interview would consume much more of both party's time. Just travelling there and back can easily take an hour of applicant's time. I used to invite people for an interview without any prior testing, but it was generally such a big waste of time for both me and applicant. What's more, quite often I can see from CV that someone is underqualified, but I do not want to reject them immediately without giving them a chance, so I send them a homework. Finally, you would be surprise how often even people with good CVs turn out to be quite bad.
  - mdpopescu 10y ago
    Hmm. One of the best exercises I ever had to solve took me almost a day. [1] I have actually rewritten it twice, once in the manner they said they would have wanted it (same repo) and once in Python. (I didn't get the job, they didn't like the style I was using.) I don't mind long coding exercises, it's what I do all day anyway. Better than watching yet another episode of NCIS or what have you :) [1] https://github.com/mdpopescu/public/tree/master/SocialNetwork https://github.com/mdpopescu/public/tree/master/SocialNetwor...
- lrem 10y ago
  If you're hiring backend engineers, code tests can be easily automated away on the correctness and efficiency aspects. Add lint on top and and an engineer eyeballing the style for a few minutes. Voilà, 4 reports per employee hour.
- ciaranm 10y ago
  If it's automated, or direct from a recruiter - chances are the company hasn't even read my CV. Or looked at any of the previous work I've included. Of course it's disrespectful.
  - mikulas_florek 10y ago
    Would you prefer them looking at your CV and immediately reject you without giving you a chance == test?
  - lj3 10y ago
    deleted
    - bogomipz 10y ago
      >"Why would a company look at your CV? At best, it's full of exaggeration. At worst, outright lies." So by your reasoning CVs are not meaningful at all. Should we get rid of them? Why stop there though, should we not even discuss past projects we have worked on in interviews since those are also likely exaggerations and possibly outright lies?
- bogomipz 10y ago
  >"It's not disrespectful for a company to ask you to write a little code for them. " Except in practice it seems that its not a "little code" its a 4 hour project that is usually closer to a 6 or 8 hour project in reality.
- canistr 10y ago
  To the people who say spending "4 hours is more like 6-8 hours and it is unreasonable": - How is this any different than spending an unreasonable amount of time studying balancing binary trees and similar trivial whiteboarding problems? I'm of the opinion that studying all these variations of the algorithm problems is a bigger time-sink and waste of time than getting into the habit of problem solving a take-home project.

by gedrap 10y ago

lj3 10y ago

It's not disrespectful for a company to ask you to write a little code for them. They're just as invested on the time front as you are since they have to read and analyze what you send them. Now, if you were to tell me that nobody ever looked at the test after you sent it in, then it becomes disrespectful. I had several companies do that to me a few months ago. Not that it matters much. I don't think code tests will stick around. It's too time consuming for the hiring managers.

jon-wood 10y ago
A little time is fine but last time I was applying for developer jobs almost all of these tasks would take at least an hour to complete, probably more like two or three to do it in a way I'm willing to show to someone screening me on that basis. By requiring these tasks you're implicitly screening not only people who can't code but also people who don't have three hours to spend on applying to your company. If all you want is 20-somethings with no other responsibilities then continue as you are, but if you'd like to see a bit of diversity then you're going to have to compromise.
- tragic 10y ago
  But this is an endless cycle. At some point, the company has to apply some test to see if the candidate is appropriate, IE, can code to the required standard. That will require a time investment from the candidate. You could simply get rid of the take home test; that will shift the burden to the resume and cover letter, to the advantage of humanities graduates like me. You could mandate a full day on-site, which will bias against people from out of town who want to relocate and people in delicate situations at their current employer. For the time poor candidate, there is always the whiteboard exercise... Whose biases we are gathered here to moan about in the first place. I always feel in these threads that people think hiring is 'broken' and it can be 'fixed' with the proper application of 'one weird trick'. But then all the comments actually have contradictory complaints. So obviously it can't.
  - jon-wood 10y ago
    I'm not really advocating for getting rid of take home tests entirely. There's a lot of value in seeing how someone approaches a known problem and being able to compare that to other solutions. What I am asking is that companies don't ask me to invest hours of time before they decide if they're even interested in talking to me. At the very least I want to have had a phone interview and the chance to assess whether I'm even interested in working for you. That's particularly relevant when looking for remote friendly employers, I've had several calls in recent days from recruiters responding to me saying I'm looking for remote work which I stopped on finding out what they meant was "at least three months fulltime on site, and then maybe we'll talk about some remote work".
    - gedrap 10y ago
      This is exactly what I meant. Home tests are totally fine, given there is some reasonable interest from the company already. Home test is totally fine after a phone call or a two. However, they are not fine at all just after submitting an application and no real contact.
    - bogomipz 10y ago
      >"What I am asking is that companies don't ask me to invest hours of time before they decide if they're even interested in talking to me." I feel like this is the crux of it as well. I am not against projects or tests to show I am technically qualified. But this should be after talking to some potential team mates to see if there is even a fit, personally, work culture-wise, technical interest or any number of factors that you could glean by speaking to potential colleagues for 20 or 30 minutes.
- mikulas_florek 10y ago
  An hour of time for a homework is completely fine. A whiteboard interview would consume much more of both party's time. Just travelling there and back can easily take an hour of applicant's time. I used to invite people for an interview without any prior testing, but it was generally such a big waste of time for both me and applicant. What's more, quite often I can see from CV that someone is underqualified, but I do not want to reject them immediately without giving them a chance, so I send them a homework. Finally, you would be surprise how often even people with good CVs turn out to be quite bad.
- mdpopescu 10y ago
  Hmm. One of the best exercises I ever had to solve took me almost a day. [1] I have actually rewritten it twice, once in the manner they said they would have wanted it (same repo) and once in Python. (I didn't get the job, they didn't like the style I was using.) I don't mind long coding exercises, it's what I do all day anyway. Better than watching yet another episode of NCIS or what have you :) [1] https://github.com/mdpopescu/public/tree/master/SocialNetwork https://github.com/mdpopescu/public/tree/master/SocialNetwor...
lrem 10y ago
If you're hiring backend engineers, code tests can be easily automated away on the correctness and efficiency aspects. Add lint on top and and an engineer eyeballing the style for a few minutes. Voilà, 4 reports per employee hour.
ciaranm 10y ago
If it's automated, or direct from a recruiter - chances are the company hasn't even read my CV. Or looked at any of the previous work I've included. Of course it's disrespectful.
- mikulas_florek 10y ago
  Would you prefer them looking at your CV and immediately reject you without giving you a chance == test?
- lj3 10y ago
  deleted
  - bogomipz 10y ago
    >"Why would a company look at your CV? At best, it's full of exaggeration. At worst, outright lies." So by your reasoning CVs are not meaningful at all. Should we get rid of them? Why stop there though, should we not even discuss past projects we have worked on in interviews since those are also likely exaggerations and possibly outright lies?
bogomipz 10y ago
>"It's not disrespectful for a company to ask you to write a little code for them. " Except in practice it seems that its not a "little code" its a 4 hour project that is usually closer to a 6 or 8 hour project in reality.
canistr 10y ago
To the people who say spending "4 hours is more like 6-8 hours and it is unreasonable": - How is this any different than spending an unreasonable amount of time studying balancing binary trees and similar trivial whiteboarding problems? I'm of the opinion that studying all these variations of the algorithm problems is a bigger time-sink and waste of time than getting into the habit of problem solving a take-home project.