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>> advised that we should spend no more that 3–5 hours on the task I have to wonder if they didn't get the position because they spent more than the advised ti

>> advised that we should spend no more that 3–5 hours on the task I have to wonder if they didn't get the position because they spent more than the advised time for the task.

bryanrasmussen 7y ago
As a general rule when I'm given a programming task that takes 4 hours to do then - IF everything I will need for the task is already installed on my computer and all dependencies bugs and so forth have already been taken care of in these things - it will take 4 hours. Maybe the same situation applies in Design somehow? I mean yeah it takes 4 hours to make the product if you happen to have all the graphical elements you will be using already downloaded and organized. on edit: although I have noticed a disappointment in some places that I have not done a lot of time cleaning up the code after writing it and making everything beautiful and writing a good readme to tell them everything to do and so on and so forth and normally I don't do those things because I spent more than 4 hours because there was stuff that needed fixing and anyway if they wanted all that 4 hours would not be enough.
- Zenbit_UX 7y ago
  Unfortunately not. Coding is like math homework. When your doing the math homework you know when your done, it's very obvious and anyone can check your work and clearly see it's either right or wrong. Design is like a book report for English class, it's bottomless and can always be improved given more time, albeit with diminishing returns. Design challenges are evil and bullshit, you can poor hundreds of hours into a design challenge and still iterate further.
  - bryanrasmussen 7y ago
    well that is sort of the point of my example - I am done with my math homework if the math works = I am done with my programming assignment if the program does what was asked. But people complain that I am not done with the programming assignment if I have not made it DRY enough, or put in tests, or done a readme outlining more advanced than run npm install then do npm run start. Programming assignments may not be infinitely improvable but they can often be improved, I just don't consider it worth the effort to improve the work before submitting
  - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
    > Coding is like math homework Agreed, unless they want a good polished solutions, meaning it has been refactored, has decent comments, is well tested, etc.... then it becomes a lot like design where the sky is the limit. My wife got her first job in the states because of a take home design challenge. Other companies were wary of her because of her foreign degree and no US experience, and she was able to show off in the design challenge they gave her (she spent more time than estimated, but not incredibly much more than that). In this case, it really worked out for her.
- gowld 7y ago
  Right. Someone asked me to make a small Javascript backend API. I spent a day installing a dev environment on my personal machine since I haven't worked not-at-work since I last upgraded. I didn't mind doing it because it was interesting, but taking that time would be a dumb reason to no-hire me over someone else.
Phenix88be 7y ago
No one could do what they ask in 3-5 hours. At this point they are not testing your ability, they are testing your commitment.
- quakenul 7y ago
  Seems like a really obnoxious way to communicate though. If they want somebody to do their best work and really do not care how much time it takes them to get there, they should just be upfront about it: "You have until next Monday, good luck". If that makes them look like assholes, yeah, I can see why someone would feel that way but at least they are clear about their intentions and not insulting anyone's intelligence in the process.
- iamben 7y ago
  Are they though? Playing Devil's Advocate, I have a pretty good idea of what I can do in 3-5 hours of solid work. If I was hiring for someone to replace me and asked the same question, I'm fairly sure I could tell whether it had been 3-5 hours or 3-5 days. It'd be more useful to know they could execute roughly what I'd expect in 3-5 hours. As in they think quickly, come up with something, get the basics down and are ready to progress or not. ...Of course, if they're doing it at home they could spend 3-5 days on something I'd spend 3-5 hours on and I'd never know...
jacurtis 7y ago
This was actually my thought. Looking at the mockups he submitted, it is clear that this was 30-40 hours of work minimum. And depending how fast/slow they worked it could be much more than that. If I asked a candidate to spend 4 hours on something and they come back to me with 40 hours of work, it isn't what I asked for. Despite it being potentially amazing, that person ignored the task. A 4-hour task would probably yield 1-3 mockups. Maybe a launch/splash page, the home leaderboard page, and then a page showing the details of a specific user. Even these 3 pages would be pushing your 4 hour time limit, but that is really the most I would expect. So if I was interviewing and comparing candidates and one candidate submits a 40-60 hour project while the other candidates submitted a 4 hour project. I can't really compare the two. I would probably throw out the guy that ignore what I asked them to do by spending 40-60 hours of work on something I only wanted 4 hours of work on.

>> advised that we should spend no more that 3–5 hours on the task I have to wonder if they didn't get the position because they spent more than the advised time for the task.

bryanrasmussen 7y ago

As a general rule when I'm given a programming task that takes 4 hours to do then - IF everything I will need for the task is already installed on my computer and all dependencies bugs and so forth have already been taken care of in these things - it will take 4 hours. Maybe the same situation applies in Design somehow? I mean yeah it takes 4 hours to make the product if you happen to have all the graphical elements you will be using already downloaded and organized. on edit: although I have noticed a disappointment in some places that I have not done a lot of time cleaning up the code after writing it and making everything beautiful and writing a good readme to tell them everything to do and so on and so forth and normally I don't do those things because I spent more than 4 hours because there was stuff that needed fixing and anyway if they wanted all that 4 hours would not be enough.

Zenbit_UX 7y ago
Unfortunately not. Coding is like math homework. When your doing the math homework you know when your done, it's very obvious and anyone can check your work and clearly see it's either right or wrong. Design is like a book report for English class, it's bottomless and can always be improved given more time, albeit with diminishing returns. Design challenges are evil and bullshit, you can poor hundreds of hours into a design challenge and still iterate further.
- bryanrasmussen 7y ago
  well that is sort of the point of my example - I am done with my math homework if the math works = I am done with my programming assignment if the program does what was asked. But people complain that I am not done with the programming assignment if I have not made it DRY enough, or put in tests, or done a readme outlining more advanced than run npm install then do npm run start. Programming assignments may not be infinitely improvable but they can often be improved, I just don't consider it worth the effort to improve the work before submitting
- seanmcdirmid 7y ago
  > Coding is like math homework Agreed, unless they want a good polished solutions, meaning it has been refactored, has decent comments, is well tested, etc.... then it becomes a lot like design where the sky is the limit. My wife got her first job in the states because of a take home design challenge. Other companies were wary of her because of her foreign degree and no US experience, and she was able to show off in the design challenge they gave her (she spent more time than estimated, but not incredibly much more than that). In this case, it really worked out for her.
gowld 7y ago
Right. Someone asked me to make a small Javascript backend API. I spent a day installing a dev environment on my personal machine since I haven't worked not-at-work since I last upgraded. I didn't mind doing it because it was interesting, but taking that time would be a dumb reason to no-hire me over someone else.

Phenix88be 7y ago

No one could do what they ask in 3-5 hours. At this point they are not testing your ability, they are testing your commitment.

quakenul 7y ago
Seems like a really obnoxious way to communicate though. If they want somebody to do their best work and really do not care how much time it takes them to get there, they should just be upfront about it: "You have until next Monday, good luck". If that makes them look like assholes, yeah, I can see why someone would feel that way but at least they are clear about their intentions and not insulting anyone's intelligence in the process.
iamben 7y ago
Are they though? Playing Devil's Advocate, I have a pretty good idea of what I can do in 3-5 hours of solid work. If I was hiring for someone to replace me and asked the same question, I'm fairly sure I could tell whether it had been 3-5 hours or 3-5 days. It'd be more useful to know they could execute roughly what I'd expect in 3-5 hours. As in they think quickly, come up with something, get the basics down and are ready to progress or not. ...Of course, if they're doing it at home they could spend 3-5 days on something I'd spend 3-5 hours on and I'd never know...

jacurtis 7y ago

This was actually my thought. Looking at the mockups he submitted, it is clear that this was 30-40 hours of work minimum. And depending how fast/slow they worked it could be much more than that. If I asked a candidate to spend 4 hours on something and they come back to me with 40 hours of work, it isn't what I asked for. Despite it being potentially amazing, that person ignored the task. A 4-hour task would probably yield 1-3 mockups. Maybe a launch/splash page, the home leaderboard page, and then a page showing the details of a specific user. Even these 3 pages would be pushing your 4 hour time limit, but that is really the most I would expect. So if I was interviewing and comparing candidates and one candidate submits a 40-60 hour project while the other candidates submitted a 4 hour project. I can't really compare the two. I would probably throw out the guy that ignore what I asked them to do by spending 40-60 hours of work on something I only wanted 4 hours of work on.