22 ms·

> The challenge wasn’t trivial and I spent the whole weekend working on it (~20hours) For this shit alone they should be burned to the ground. Why do recruite

> The challenge wasn’t trivial and I spent the whole weekend working on it (~20hours) For this shit alone they should be burned to the ground. Why do recruiters do these silly "homeworks"? Every time I hear this during a recruitment I'm like "ooooh, so you just do a mass-casting, and see who's the most desperate?". Nope, nope, nope...

hardwaresofton 9y ago
While I don't think a 20 hour project is reasonable -- I do like the option of doing a shorter project when offered in lieu of a timed coding test or an hour interview. I think it's one of the most close-to-actual-work things you can do (especially if they give you a problem at least close to what you're going to be working on everyday). Designed well, I could imagine a test that would take 1 to 2 hours (of course you can't control how long someone will work on something, but if I ask you to reverse a string in python I don't think it's reasonable for that to take hours), and succinctly test for clean architecture and good general software engineering principles.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- pjmlp 9y ago
  The problem is that most of the time is like solving newspaper puzzles. Last time I got a stupid exercise about counting amount of 4s and 0s in a number, while obeying to a specific pattern, then generate numbers that according to that pattern would match a specific formula, while taking into consideration some GCD relations among those numbers. Yeah, cool exercise for a weekend. Zero value when writing enterprise distributed systems with web/native GUIs.
- zdragnar 9y ago
  In my experience designing these things, 1-2 hours only provides enough time for very simple assignments, which aren't enough to actually inform the reviewer much at all about you as an individual. It's hard to get one at 4 hours, but that provides just enough to really see something while still being respectful of candidates' time. Of course, this is entirely dependant on the type of programming that you're hiring for!
romanovcode 9y ago
While I agree that 20h working assignment is ridiculous I saw some serious primadonnas while interviewing who declined to do a simple 15-30 minutes on-site coding challenge because they have extensive github or whatever they told me. Needless to say those candidates didn't got hired.
- jpatokal 9y ago
  While I rather like "Pri madonna", it's originally simple Italian for "first lady": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prima_donna https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prima_donna
  - Arkaad 9y ago
    So what?
- hardwaresofton 9y ago
  Why even ask for resumes if you're going to ignore them? I also get very annoyed when people ask about your experience, then in the very next breath pretend none of it matters and you should do fizzbuzz. If we as an industry don't trust/value the stated experience of others, why do we continue to ask for it? Maybe tech companies should just stop accepting resumes then?
  - hvidgaard 9y ago
    FizzBuzz is a great way to see if the dev experience listed is total bullshit.
    - pawelkomarnicki 9y ago
      yeah like that one company asking me to do Slack to work at their inventory management startup ;-) Totally related, in so many ways.
    - bphogan 9y ago
      Not sure about that. FizzBuzz is an interview question you just expect. RosettaCode has every FizzBuzz solution out there. Tons of people know how to FizzBuzz. This is just "learning enough to pass the test" - a canned answer like the one you know you have for "How do you deal with multiple simultaneous high priority projects?" or "What's your biggest weakness?" You may be filtering out lazy lazy candidates with FizzBuzz. But just because they can do it doesn't mean they can ship code.
smacktoward 9y ago
I interviewed with one company whose approach to this was smarter than most: they gave me a little problem to solve, but paid me a couple hundred bucks as compensation for the time I'd need to put into it. That took the sting out of having to do a homework assignment on my own time. I suppose the main objection to that would be "but we'd end up paying out so much money to people we don't hire!", but that feels to me like it says more about that company's recruiting process. Just wait until you're serious about potentially hiring somebody before you bust out the homework assignments and you're fine.
- janpieterz 9y ago
  Was going to comment with this. I think homework assignments can work great, but compensation for the time seems totally logical, and it should somewhat be in the area of reasonable too, not just a 'spend 20 hours but get 200 bucks' either.
- listentojohan 9y ago
  Also incentivise the company to select a problem that is related to the actual work that they do / need done.
malaporte 9y ago
We started doing challenges like this in our hiring process some years ago. Our challenges are open-ended so the time spent on it really is up to the applicant, but you can come up with a good solution in a few hours. The feedback from candidates (including those we didn't hire) has been extremely good - they much prefer this to puzzles or whiteboard coding sessions. Note that we give such challenges to candidates after they passed through a phone screen and a first interview with a pair of engineers.
- bogomipz 9y ago
  >"The feedback from candidates (including those we didn't hire) has been extremely good - they much prefer this to puzzles or whiteboard coding sessions." This whole idea of asking people do use up their nights and weekends to do free work is completely ridiculous. And the justification is always the same - "we think its better than implementing algorithms on whiteboards." Well who ever said writing code on a whiteboard was necessary? This justification is ridiculous as it suggests there are just two possibilities for hiring people - algorithmic puzzles and unpaid work.
  - pawelkomarnicki 9y ago
    I would just make a short on-site, and not waste more of the time. It's super simple ;-)
  - philjohn 9y ago
    This is why it needs to be a challenge related to the employer, but not an actual feature they're going to go and use. At my last place we used one, said "please don't spend more than 5 hours on it" - it was a challenge to read a specific industry format (e.g. test you can go and find something to read it, not implement a library to do so ... not reinventing the wheel) and present it in a basic RESTful web app (testing that you know what REST is, and can implement basic CRUD). Never had an issue getting it done, and it was very illuminating, some people who passed through the initial interview with flying colours turned in absolute crap.
    - 9y ago
duiker101 9y ago
I'd rather spend 20 hours in a weekend doing an homework like this than inverting a binary tree on a whiteboard. At least I can actually show that I know something other than just sweating and look really dumb.
- pawelkomarnicki 9y ago
  Last time I was hiring an iOS dev, we had a cool 2 hour pairing session (it was supposed to be 1 hour, but time flies when you're having fun), doing something really simple in the scope of the project. He shown how he works, and tackles problems, answered some questions, got hired. You really can hire in a humane way, you just need to want it.
  - valuearb 9y ago
    Pair programming tests are fair because the company is investing the same time as candidate, just like any interview. Asking candidates to do tests on their own time is rude and dumb.
  - protonfish 9y ago
    If it's worth your time, its worth my time. I am happy to do any interview testing and activities as long it is on location. Any "homework" longer than an hour or so is disproportionally a burden on the candidate. I feel it is unethical and a dealbreaker for me.
- macca321 9y ago
  Except when you deliver the homework, working, with tests, and then you receive a rejection with incorrect bikesheddy feedback , or even worse, no feedback at all.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - kintalo 9y ago
    What's wrong with that? If they leave feedback people can argue and claim it's invalid. Interviewing at a company isn't a free mentoring resource.
bogomipz 9y ago
>"Why do recruiters do these silly "homeworks" It's not the recruiters, they are just the messenger. But yeah this is a joke.
- tnolet 9y ago
  If the challenge feels like "silly homework" then something is clearly wrong, but completing challenges during an application process if very, very necessary. I've been in a couple of "hiring manager" roles and many times the challenge completely exposed under par developers with otherwise interesting cv's. Sloppy code, beginner mistakes etc. It's maybe a sign of the times where hiring managers need to actively test whether someone is propping up their CV with stuff or is actually knowledgeable. I wish it were different, but alas it is not.
  - valuearb 9y ago
    Your challenges are biasing and filtering results in ways you aren't aware of.
kayoone 9y ago
As developers we are really fortunate that we often don't have to put up with this shit, but i have some designer friends (mostly fashion) where the job market isn't nearly as good and they have to go through shit like this all the time, because there is just no alternative. In those cases, if you don't agree with those weekend projects, you will most likely just not get a job because someone else will do it. If you ask for compensation for your time you will most likely hear a mad laugh and a "Nope"
ngcazz 9y ago
You can't come out of it knowing any less, I think I'd mostly be happy to do it.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
ryandrake 9y ago
I bet doctors don't have to do "surgery challenges" or "whiteboard anatomy pop quizzes" in order to get hired at a new hospital. What is it that their industry is doing that software engineering is not? This is a rhetorical question--we all know what they are doing, but everyone here's usually against it.
- segmondy 9y ago
  Doctors go through heavy schooling, residency. Do you know how many hours they work a week while in residency? Don't even compare.

hardwaresofton 9y ago

While I don't think a 20 hour project is reasonable -- I do like the option of doing a shorter project when offered in lieu of a timed coding test or an hour interview. I think it's one of the most close-to-actual-work things you can do (especially if they give you a problem at least close to what you're going to be working on everyday). Designed well, I could imagine a test that would take 1 to 2 hours (of course you can't control how long someone will work on something, but if I ask you to reverse a string in python I don't think it's reasonable for that to take hours), and succinctly test for clean architecture and good general software engineering principles.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
pjmlp 9y ago
The problem is that most of the time is like solving newspaper puzzles. Last time I got a stupid exercise about counting amount of 4s and 0s in a number, while obeying to a specific pattern, then generate numbers that according to that pattern would match a specific formula, while taking into consideration some GCD relations among those numbers. Yeah, cool exercise for a weekend. Zero value when writing enterprise distributed systems with web/native GUIs.
zdragnar 9y ago
In my experience designing these things, 1-2 hours only provides enough time for very simple assignments, which aren't enough to actually inform the reviewer much at all about you as an individual. It's hard to get one at 4 hours, but that provides just enough to really see something while still being respectful of candidates' time. Of course, this is entirely dependant on the type of programming that you're hiring for!

romanovcode 9y ago

While I agree that 20h working assignment is ridiculous I saw some serious primadonnas while interviewing who declined to do a simple 15-30 minutes on-site coding challenge because they have extensive github or whatever they told me. Needless to say those candidates didn't got hired.

jpatokal 9y ago
While I rather like "Pri madonna", it's originally simple Italian for "first lady": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prima_donna https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prima_donna
- Arkaad 9y ago
  So what?
hardwaresofton 9y ago
Why even ask for resumes if you're going to ignore them? I also get very annoyed when people ask about your experience, then in the very next breath pretend none of it matters and you should do fizzbuzz. If we as an industry don't trust/value the stated experience of others, why do we continue to ask for it? Maybe tech companies should just stop accepting resumes then?
- hvidgaard 9y ago
  FizzBuzz is a great way to see if the dev experience listed is total bullshit.
  - pawelkomarnicki 9y ago
    yeah like that one company asking me to do Slack to work at their inventory management startup ;-) Totally related, in so many ways.
  - bphogan 9y ago
    Not sure about that. FizzBuzz is an interview question you just expect. RosettaCode has every FizzBuzz solution out there. Tons of people know how to FizzBuzz. This is just "learning enough to pass the test" - a canned answer like the one you know you have for "How do you deal with multiple simultaneous high priority projects?" or "What's your biggest weakness?" You may be filtering out lazy lazy candidates with FizzBuzz. But just because they can do it doesn't mean they can ship code.

smacktoward 9y ago

I interviewed with one company whose approach to this was smarter than most: they gave me a little problem to solve, but paid me a couple hundred bucks as compensation for the time I'd need to put into it. That took the sting out of having to do a homework assignment on my own time. I suppose the main objection to that would be "but we'd end up paying out so much money to people we don't hire!", but that feels to me like it says more about that company's recruiting process. Just wait until you're serious about potentially hiring somebody before you bust out the homework assignments and you're fine.

janpieterz 9y ago
Was going to comment with this. I think homework assignments can work great, but compensation for the time seems totally logical, and it should somewhat be in the area of reasonable too, not just a 'spend 20 hours but get 200 bucks' either.
listentojohan 9y ago
Also incentivise the company to select a problem that is related to the actual work that they do / need done.

malaporte 9y ago

We started doing challenges like this in our hiring process some years ago. Our challenges are open-ended so the time spent on it really is up to the applicant, but you can come up with a good solution in a few hours. The feedback from candidates (including those we didn't hire) has been extremely good - they much prefer this to puzzles or whiteboard coding sessions. Note that we give such challenges to candidates after they passed through a phone screen and a first interview with a pair of engineers.

bogomipz 9y ago
>"The feedback from candidates (including those we didn't hire) has been extremely good - they much prefer this to puzzles or whiteboard coding sessions." This whole idea of asking people do use up their nights and weekends to do free work is completely ridiculous. And the justification is always the same - "we think its better than implementing algorithms on whiteboards." Well who ever said writing code on a whiteboard was necessary? This justification is ridiculous as it suggests there are just two possibilities for hiring people - algorithmic puzzles and unpaid work.
- pawelkomarnicki 9y ago
  I would just make a short on-site, and not waste more of the time. It's super simple ;-)
- philjohn 9y ago
  This is why it needs to be a challenge related to the employer, but not an actual feature they're going to go and use. At my last place we used one, said "please don't spend more than 5 hours on it" - it was a challenge to read a specific industry format (e.g. test you can go and find something to read it, not implement a library to do so ... not reinventing the wheel) and present it in a basic RESTful web app (testing that you know what REST is, and can implement basic CRUD). Never had an issue getting it done, and it was very illuminating, some people who passed through the initial interview with flying colours turned in absolute crap.
  - 9y ago

duiker101 9y ago

I'd rather spend 20 hours in a weekend doing an homework like this than inverting a binary tree on a whiteboard. At least I can actually show that I know something other than just sweating and look really dumb.

pawelkomarnicki 9y ago
Last time I was hiring an iOS dev, we had a cool 2 hour pairing session (it was supposed to be 1 hour, but time flies when you're having fun), doing something really simple in the scope of the project. He shown how he works, and tackles problems, answered some questions, got hired. You really can hire in a humane way, you just need to want it.
- valuearb 9y ago
  Pair programming tests are fair because the company is investing the same time as candidate, just like any interview. Asking candidates to do tests on their own time is rude and dumb.
- protonfish 9y ago
  If it's worth your time, its worth my time. I am happy to do any interview testing and activities as long it is on location. Any "homework" longer than an hour or so is disproportionally a burden on the candidate. I feel it is unethical and a dealbreaker for me.
macca321 9y ago
Except when you deliver the homework, working, with tests, and then you receive a rejection with incorrect bikesheddy feedback , or even worse, no feedback at all.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- kintalo 9y ago
  What's wrong with that? If they leave feedback people can argue and claim it's invalid. Interviewing at a company isn't a free mentoring resource.

bogomipz 9y ago

>"Why do recruiters do these silly "homeworks" It's not the recruiters, they are just the messenger. But yeah this is a joke.

tnolet 9y ago
If the challenge feels like "silly homework" then something is clearly wrong, but completing challenges during an application process if very, very necessary. I've been in a couple of "hiring manager" roles and many times the challenge completely exposed under par developers with otherwise interesting cv's. Sloppy code, beginner mistakes etc. It's maybe a sign of the times where hiring managers need to actively test whether someone is propping up their CV with stuff or is actually knowledgeable. I wish it were different, but alas it is not.
- valuearb 9y ago
  Your challenges are biasing and filtering results in ways you aren't aware of.

kayoone 9y ago

As developers we are really fortunate that we often don't have to put up with this shit, but i have some designer friends (mostly fashion) where the job market isn't nearly as good and they have to go through shit like this all the time, because there is just no alternative. In those cases, if you don't agree with those weekend projects, you will most likely just not get a job because someone else will do it. If you ask for compensation for your time you will most likely hear a mad laugh and a "Nope"

ngcazz 9y ago

You can't come out of it knowing any less, I think I'd mostly be happy to do it.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

ryandrake 9y ago

I bet doctors don't have to do "surgery challenges" or "whiteboard anatomy pop quizzes" in order to get hired at a new hospital. What is it that their industry is doing that software engineering is not? This is a rhetorical question--we all know what they are doing, but everyone here's usually against it.

segmondy 9y ago
Doctors go through heavy schooling, residency. Do you know how many hours they work a week while in residency? Don't even compare.