Why must a hiring position be so “confident” for an entry-level hire? Take a couple of weeks to decide, maybe even one. You basically already know what an ent

Why must a hiring position be so “confident” for an entry-level hire? Take a couple of weeks to decide, maybe even one. You basically already know what an entry-level hire will know: they’ll remember most of what the last year of their degree taught them, and have a fuzzy memory of anything earlier. They’ll be about as good at problem-solving as you can see on a whiteboard. You’re not paying ultra-senior salaries out of the gate; you’re just getting what you pay for so bring in somebody promising, start them on a project and let them begin a career with you. Like I said, put yourself in the “new hire” position. They should be treated better given their likely circumstances: You have to survive, you need rent and food and whatever else. You have debts. You’re probably working some non-ideal job (or 2 jobs) in the meantime for enough cash, enjoying all the no-free-time-left that gives you. If you’re really lucky, only a handful of companies have given you some stupid assignment to do with your spare hours, and since it’s “homework” and you have “more time”, they probably dreamed up a more involved problem than the average whiteboard question would be. Then you feel extra pressure because you really want to get it right but in reality you probably ended up rushing the thing and making some silly mistakes that you won’t see. Never mind that “homework” is just the latest example of unnecessarily-long-winded hiring practices. Once you add up every little thing that every company wants, you’ve spent a lot of time that you don’t really have. (Some want you to create a new web account and profile that redundantly re-specifies 90% of your résumé. Some require you to specify your résumé as a file, then they scan it and scatter it into the wrong fields and discard the rest, requiring you to fix it all. Some have other forms for you to fill out. Some want multiple phone interview half-hours of your time, multiple on-sites, etc. and still can’t get back to you in under 3 weeks. Now do that 10 or 20 more times and don’t miss your next shift at the coffee shop.)