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> The whiteboards seems far more respectful of people's time at least. Some companies will happily bring you on site for a full round even though they have no

> The whiteboards seems far more respectful of people's time at least. Some companies will happily bring you on site for a full round even though they have no idea whether there is an open position for you (infamous example, you can pass Google's hiring committee and then be told there's no headcount). And you've just wasted one day off. On the other hand, take-home projects can be used in a way that saves everyone a lot of time. I don't disagree with you, they shouldn't be used for screening though.

bogomipz 10y ago
>"Some companies will happily bring you on site for a full round even though they have no idea whether there is an open position for you (infamous example, you can pass Google's hiring committee and then be told there's no headcount)." In practice though this is kind of rare especially for the larger SV companies. I'm not saying it's never happened but that Google incident sounds like an anomaly. How do take home projects save time if they take between 4 - 8 hours? That's the same time as an onsite takes. The difference being that before a company brings you onsite there has probably been at least a technical phone screen or two so the candidate has ben "qualified" to some extent no?
- hocuspocus 10y ago
  Not everyone lives in the SV. If you interview at a satellite branch of a company that has a big and generic interviewing pipeline, it can definitely happen. I can do a 4 hour[1] assignment on my own time, assuming I'm not given an unreasonable deadline. For a full round of interviews on site, I need to take a day off. That's a huge difference to me. [1] I've rarely been given any assignment taking more than 2-3 hours, I would flat out refuse anything that can take more than 4. Edit: oh and I can give you a very long list of companies that thought I was "qualified" after 1/2/3 phone screens, wasted a lot of my time afterwards, and ended up deciding I wasn't :)

bogomipz 10y ago

>"Some companies will happily bring you on site for a full round even though they have no idea whether there is an open position for you (infamous example, you can pass Google's hiring committee and then be told there's no headcount)." In practice though this is kind of rare especially for the larger SV companies. I'm not saying it's never happened but that Google incident sounds like an anomaly. How do take home projects save time if they take between 4 - 8 hours? That's the same time as an onsite takes. The difference being that before a company brings you onsite there has probably been at least a technical phone screen or two so the candidate has ben "qualified" to some extent no?

hocuspocus 10y ago
Not everyone lives in the SV. If you interview at a satellite branch of a company that has a big and generic interviewing pipeline, it can definitely happen. I can do a 4 hour[1] assignment on my own time, assuming I'm not given an unreasonable deadline. For a full round of interviews on site, I need to take a day off. That's a huge difference to me. [1] I've rarely been given any assignment taking more than 2-3 hours, I would flat out refuse anything that can take more than 4. Edit: oh and I can give you a very long list of companies that thought I was "qualified" after 1/2/3 phone screens, wasted a lot of my time afterwards, and ended up deciding I wasn't :)