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In my current role I had what I consider the best interview I have had to date. I had a brief non technical video interview with the software director. Then I
by wonderwonder 8y ago
In my current role I had what I consider the best interview I have had to date. I had a brief non technical video
interview with the software director. Then I was assigned a programming task, essentially to create a site focused on a specific task using a given set of technologies. Once done, I sent the interviewer the url to the site and a link to the code on git. The next day I had a code review and video interview with the original director and several Sr. engineers to review my code and answer relatively technical questions on my design decisions and code.
I thought this was perfect, they did not waste much time on the original interview, essentially just determined I was not insane and would be an ok fit for the team. Then via the assignment they were able to see me build something from start to deployment including database development and server deployment. One of the required technologies was a javascript framework I had never used before, they knew that but I spent 8 hours (I really wanted the job) reading a book on it before starting the project and they appreciated it. I had a couple of options on server side stack and they were able to observe and question my decisions. In the code review they were able to see how I handled criticism and reacted to stress.
Whole process from scheduling the first interview to the job offer took 4 days. No white boarding, no obscure technical jargon. They met me (virtually), learned if I could code to their standards and made a decision. In my mind it was great. Via the same process they interviewed someone else I recommend and very professionally and politely turned them down, someone who in my mind was a pretty solid engineer but he just lacked the specific skill set they wanted. While creating the requested application, he knew he was not going to get the offer, which is great as you as a developer are then able to determine for yourself if you are a good fit for the role. No mess no fuss.
- eli 8y agoI've considered this approach, but I worry that it consumes too much of the candidate's time. That it ends up favoring people who have the time and the financial freedom to do a full day of unpaid work.
- wonderwonder 8y agoThis is a valid criticism; however, they did not specify I had to turn it in the next day, I could have kept it over the weekend and not taken a day off of work. Several people kept it over a weekend with no penalty. I also could have worked on it at night after work. I definitely preferred this option as opposed to having to take a full day off for an in person interview and another for the follow up. I only took an hour off for the first interview as it was at 5 and I just ran home and threw on a suit jacket and a couple hours for the final interview as it was close to the same time. If I had already worked in the js stack they asked me to use the entire project build would have been 5 or 6 hours and that's only because I really wanted to impress, I could have knocked it out once my kids went to sleep. But as in everything it depends on the person and their life circumstances, we all have different things going on.
- camjohnson26 8y agoI have been interviewing recently and started turning down any coding assignment that will take more than a couple of hours. To get a reasonable number of offers to enable you to negotiate requires going through the interview process for several companies since some percentage of them will turn you down. After a phone screen I don’t have enough information about the role to be able to potentially waste 10-20 hours on a toy problem. A few companies gave a simple api project or a timed hacker rank and those feel reasonable. An entire web app with database, rest api, front end and CI pipeline following production code best practices does not.
- dragonwriter 8y ago> To get a reasonable number of offers to enable you to negotiate You only need 1 offer to negotiate.
- the_jeremy 8y agoWhile technically correct, I think most people agree that it is better to field several offers simultaneously so you can choose the best culture fit for yourself as well as being able to provide a concrete example of someone offering you a higher salary to most easily justify your counter-offer.
- wonderwonder 8y agoNegotiating a salary is a situation I have never been in as I have always told them up front before interviewing how much I want to get paid after finding out the salary range. Whenever a recruiter calls, I ask the salary first and tell them where I want to be on that range before even sending a recent resume. Not that negotiating for more if I have several offers would not be great, just not something I have experienced. I interview, they already know my number as I have already asked the hiring salary range and told them what I want. If I pass the interview they offer me my original request and we move forward. I could see how if one was interviewing with multiple companies and had multiple offers how one could seek to play them against one another for a potentially higher amount. Just hasn't happened to me.
- pmiller2 8y agoHow is that any different from taking a whole day to do a normal onsite interview? Doesn’t that also favor those with the ability to take a day to jump through hoops?
- onion2k 8y agoAt my company we pay the candidate at a typical freelance rate.
- hvidgaard 8y agoThere is an entire class of developers you really want to hire, that don't want to spend that amount of time unless you are one of 10 companies on their list.