5 ms·

If you're recruiting with a specific company and specific team that you love, sure. But I can't imagine committing multiple hours of my time to each random comp

If you're recruiting with a specific company and specific team that you love, sure. But I can't imagine committing multiple hours of my time to each random company's take-homes. As a rule I don't really do any take-homes - the couple I've done haven't been very useful in terms of my own time investment into the problems themselves, and the companies have not been worth it to go above and beyond.

pmiller2 8y ago
This is my exact issue with take-home tasks: I can get to an onsite or a rejection with most other companies after a 15 minute recruiter call and a 45-60 minute technical phone screen. So, why do I want to do a 2+ hour homework assignment? Most of the time, there simply is no compelling reason to do so.
- llamataboot 8y ago
  I greatly prefer take-homes, because I feel they show off the quality of what I can do under actual coding conditions (rather than the stress of live coding or the BS of whiteboard coding) but it does get a bit tiresome. Especially because it is rarely a 2 hour assignment, they can be 8-16 easy. Recently I've had three or four interviews that didn't quite get to the job offer stage, but they did both include over 30 hours of work + interview steps. I'm sorry, but a full week's of unpaid work that I have to fit around my actual day job is just not practical, I know you want to make a good decision, but really...???? The best I've seen recently is a company that paid an hourly wage for 2 days worth of take-homes. Not consulting wages, but a good wage. It gives them incentives not to invite everyone in the world to do their test, and gives the interviewee something for their time.
  - maheart 8y ago
    > Recently I've had three or four interviews that didn't quite get to the job offer stage, but they did both include over 30 hours of work + interview steps. This lines up exactly with my experience. 3-4 interviews, each requiring ~30 hours of technical tests, and interviewing. Absolutely ridiculous.
    - llamataboot 8y ago
      I wish there was like one long interview process I could go through - I do a bunch of technical work, I answer some standard questions on video, a bunch of companies review it all, and the ones that are interested schedule a 1-2 hour personal conversation to make sure we are a good fit. I suppose that is what triple-byte is trying to do. But really, we're all at-will employment, let's just work together for 3 months or so, see if you like my skills and I like your culture and if not just part ways - I'd even be happy to work at a wage cut for the first 3 months. But having a full-time job interviewing while working a full-time job is exhausting, esp when after 30+ (!!!) hours of interviews and conversations, you can be cut at the final stage without a single word about what went wrong.
      - pmiller2 8y ago
        Regardless of what Triplebyte is trying to do, they don’t actually work the way you suggest. You take a short, multiple choice quiz, then do a coding challenge and an interview. I believe the time investment is around 4 hours. What you get is actual, real feedback on your performance, and you skip straight to onsites with companies they match you with. The feedback is valuable, but I don’t know how their matching process works at all. What it _doesn’t_ do is “turn an O(n) process into an O(1) process,” as their FAQ suggests. All it saves you is 1 phone screen per company they match you with. If a typical phone screen is 45-60 minutes, and the time you spend on their process is 4 hours, you need to interview with 4-6 of their clients to make it worthwhile in terms of time savings. IMO, don’t try Triplebyte to save yourself time. Do it for the interview feedback, because that’s the best place I know where you can get real feedback for free.
        llamataboot 8y ago
        Ture, but for some companies the "technical phone screen" is multiple interviews + a take home. Etc. If I get to skip 10+ hours of interviews and coding work, that's a significant time savings

pmiller2 8y ago

This is my exact issue with take-home tasks: I can get to an onsite or a rejection with most other companies after a 15 minute recruiter call and a 45-60 minute technical phone screen. So, why do I want to do a 2+ hour homework assignment? Most of the time, there simply is no compelling reason to do so.

llamataboot 8y ago
I greatly prefer take-homes, because I feel they show off the quality of what I can do under actual coding conditions (rather than the stress of live coding or the BS of whiteboard coding) but it does get a bit tiresome. Especially because it is rarely a 2 hour assignment, they can be 8-16 easy. Recently I've had three or four interviews that didn't quite get to the job offer stage, but they did both include over 30 hours of work + interview steps. I'm sorry, but a full week's of unpaid work that I have to fit around my actual day job is just not practical, I know you want to make a good decision, but really...???? The best I've seen recently is a company that paid an hourly wage for 2 days worth of take-homes. Not consulting wages, but a good wage. It gives them incentives not to invite everyone in the world to do their test, and gives the interviewee something for their time.
- maheart 8y ago
  > Recently I've had three or four interviews that didn't quite get to the job offer stage, but they did both include over 30 hours of work + interview steps. This lines up exactly with my experience. 3-4 interviews, each requiring ~30 hours of technical tests, and interviewing. Absolutely ridiculous.
  - llamataboot 8y ago
    I wish there was like one long interview process I could go through - I do a bunch of technical work, I answer some standard questions on video, a bunch of companies review it all, and the ones that are interested schedule a 1-2 hour personal conversation to make sure we are a good fit. I suppose that is what triple-byte is trying to do. But really, we're all at-will employment, let's just work together for 3 months or so, see if you like my skills and I like your culture and if not just part ways - I'd even be happy to work at a wage cut for the first 3 months. But having a full-time job interviewing while working a full-time job is exhausting, esp when after 30+ (!!!) hours of interviews and conversations, you can be cut at the final stage without a single word about what went wrong.
    - pmiller2 8y ago
      Regardless of what Triplebyte is trying to do, they don’t actually work the way you suggest. You take a short, multiple choice quiz, then do a coding challenge and an interview. I believe the time investment is around 4 hours. What you get is actual, real feedback on your performance, and you skip straight to onsites with companies they match you with. The feedback is valuable, but I don’t know how their matching process works at all. What it _doesn’t_ do is “turn an O(n) process into an O(1) process,” as their FAQ suggests. All it saves you is 1 phone screen per company they match you with. If a typical phone screen is 45-60 minutes, and the time you spend on their process is 4 hours, you need to interview with 4-6 of their clients to make it worthwhile in terms of time savings. IMO, don’t try Triplebyte to save yourself time. Do it for the interview feedback, because that’s the best place I know where you can get real feedback for free.
      - llamataboot 8y ago
        Ture, but for some companies the "technical phone screen" is multiple interviews + a take home. Etc. If I get to skip 10+ hours of interviews and coding work, that's a significant time savings