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Just that firing someone is legal does not mean it is easy. Especially if you have been working closely with the said person for months. And then there are peop

Just that firing someone is legal does not mean it is easy. Especially if you have been working closely with the said person for months. And then there are people who are very nice human beings but their performance just isn't good enough. Firing them is hard and pretty bad for team morale. I'd much rather do that extra work during the hiring process than have to deal with a bad hire later.

EliRivers 9y ago
Money where your mouth is; are you willing to pay for it? Would you pay the candidate a reasonable sum, certainly over a hundred Euros a day (after tax etc.) for their pre-interview homework? Given that the cost of a bad hire is orders of magnitude more than that, this seems like a really good deal for the company.
- abhinai 9y ago
  Absolutely. As you say, spending a few hundreds bucks is way cheaper than wasting almost half a day of the candidate and our team when we bring someone in and it ends in a no. For remote candidates it makes even more sense since we end up spending thousands of dollars in travel costs when we fly them in for onsite interviews.
- gaius 9y ago
  are you willing to pay for it? Would you pay the candidate a reasonable sum This would be additional income complicating tax, and many companies restrict employees from taking on outside paid work without approval. No matter how you slice it, these multi-hour homeworks are a stupid idea. And the real reason for them is to discourage candidates to justify getting indentured labour instead. Or to discriminate against older workers with more existing time commitments.
  - EliRivers 9y ago
    This would be additional income complicating tax, and many companies restrict employees from taking on outside paid work without approval. It seems wrong to reject a good idea because other bad idea will interfere with it. Maybe I'm fortunate; I take extra irregular work in the sum of about 30 days a year, and at the end of the year HMRC and I settle up very simply and easily. I couldn't imagine taking a contract that said I couldn't do any other work; it's by no means uncommon in the UK for people to have extra part-time work that fits around their main job. I think we shouldn't reject a good idea - paying people if you want them to do multi-day interviews - just because other bad ideas (tax systems that can't handle earning extra cash, employers who view their staff as property) will make it awkward for some people.
    - gaius 9y ago
      couldn't imagine taking a contract that said I couldn't do any other work It’s usually about avoiding conflicts of interest - you can generally get the box ticked easily enough to do something unrelated to your job with them. But “doing an audition at a competitor” is unlikely to be signed off! But even so - these homework assignments are stupid, and discriminatory on factors unrelated to job performance, and no other industry does it. In fact they yield worse candidates because quality candidates don’t tolerate this kind of nonsense. And how would this work - you take vacation to do your trial period? You quit to do a trial period knowing it’s still an interview not even an offer?
      - EliRivers 9y ago
        Wouldn't be surprised if that was all part of it. We want people who are desperate, people who will give up their precious free time to do our bidding, people who don't know when they're being asked to do something plainly ridiculous. We want people who will give up their vacation to try to please us. These are the people who will embrace poor working conditions and tie themselves to us through Stockholm syndrome.
  - BrendanD 9y ago
    The homework is, in part, a personality test to see how much the company will be able to take advantage of an applicant. This may or may not not be the intent, but it is a result.
    - pnw_hazor 9y ago
      AKA hazing.
- walshemj 9y ago
  A Hundred euros lol far to low id want 500 a day for a 3-6 month contract for just 3 days id want more.
danielh 9y ago
Firing someone is always hard, no doubt about it. But I disagree that it's bad for team morale to fire a nice underperformer. In fact, I've seen the opposite happen, where having to drag along a team member was a reason for people leaving. IMHO, hiring based on homework is no guarantee that you won't end up with a bad hire anyway. It is just another imperfect data point to base your decision on, but one that comes at the cost of massively reducing your number of candidates.
xab9 9y ago
Lately most of the companies I had an interview with wanted me to be a contractor (most of the time with all the benefits of being a contractor removed, from a law standpoint this is possible), this is a common practice around here, not just out of caution, but for tax evasion as well. There's not much I can do, it's so common a practice nowadays (literally all of my team members are in a similar construction and we are working on fixed projects from nine to six) that with my next workplace I will do the same.
Clubber 9y ago
Honestly, keeping someone around who is under par is bad for morale because your other teammates have to make up for the difference. It is hard though, but it's business and if you aren't up for it, you probably shouldn't be in that position.

EliRivers 9y ago

Money where your mouth is; are you willing to pay for it? Would you pay the candidate a reasonable sum, certainly over a hundred Euros a day (after tax etc.) for their pre-interview homework? Given that the cost of a bad hire is orders of magnitude more than that, this seems like a really good deal for the company.

abhinai 9y ago
Absolutely. As you say, spending a few hundreds bucks is way cheaper than wasting almost half a day of the candidate and our team when we bring someone in and it ends in a no. For remote candidates it makes even more sense since we end up spending thousands of dollars in travel costs when we fly them in for onsite interviews.
gaius 9y ago
are you willing to pay for it? Would you pay the candidate a reasonable sum This would be additional income complicating tax, and many companies restrict employees from taking on outside paid work without approval. No matter how you slice it, these multi-hour homeworks are a stupid idea. And the real reason for them is to discourage candidates to justify getting indentured labour instead. Or to discriminate against older workers with more existing time commitments.
- EliRivers 9y ago
  This would be additional income complicating tax, and many companies restrict employees from taking on outside paid work without approval. It seems wrong to reject a good idea because other bad idea will interfere with it. Maybe I'm fortunate; I take extra irregular work in the sum of about 30 days a year, and at the end of the year HMRC and I settle up very simply and easily. I couldn't imagine taking a contract that said I couldn't do any other work; it's by no means uncommon in the UK for people to have extra part-time work that fits around their main job. I think we shouldn't reject a good idea - paying people if you want them to do multi-day interviews - just because other bad ideas (tax systems that can't handle earning extra cash, employers who view their staff as property) will make it awkward for some people.
  - gaius 9y ago
    couldn't imagine taking a contract that said I couldn't do any other work It’s usually about avoiding conflicts of interest - you can generally get the box ticked easily enough to do something unrelated to your job with them. But “doing an audition at a competitor” is unlikely to be signed off! But even so - these homework assignments are stupid, and discriminatory on factors unrelated to job performance, and no other industry does it. In fact they yield worse candidates because quality candidates don’t tolerate this kind of nonsense. And how would this work - you take vacation to do your trial period? You quit to do a trial period knowing it’s still an interview not even an offer?
    - EliRivers 9y ago
      Wouldn't be surprised if that was all part of it. We want people who are desperate, people who will give up their precious free time to do our bidding, people who don't know when they're being asked to do something plainly ridiculous. We want people who will give up their vacation to try to please us. These are the people who will embrace poor working conditions and tie themselves to us through Stockholm syndrome.
- BrendanD 9y ago
  The homework is, in part, a personality test to see how much the company will be able to take advantage of an applicant. This may or may not not be the intent, but it is a result.
  - pnw_hazor 9y ago
    AKA hazing.
walshemj 9y ago
A Hundred euros lol far to low id want 500 a day for a 3-6 month contract for just 3 days id want more.

danielh 9y ago

Firing someone is always hard, no doubt about it. But I disagree that it's bad for team morale to fire a nice underperformer. In fact, I've seen the opposite happen, where having to drag along a team member was a reason for people leaving. IMHO, hiring based on homework is no guarantee that you won't end up with a bad hire anyway. It is just another imperfect data point to base your decision on, but one that comes at the cost of massively reducing your number of candidates.

xab9 9y ago

Lately most of the companies I had an interview with wanted me to be a contractor (most of the time with all the benefits of being a contractor removed, from a law standpoint this is possible), this is a common practice around here, not just out of caution, but for tax evasion as well. There's not much I can do, it's so common a practice nowadays (literally all of my team members are in a similar construction and we are working on fixed projects from nine to six) that with my next workplace I will do the same.

Clubber 9y ago

Honestly, keeping someone around who is under par is bad for morale because your other teammates have to make up for the difference. It is hard though, but it's business and if you aren't up for it, you probably shouldn't be in that position.