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I was not a fan of Zapier's interview process. You're actually timed on your project and you have exactly 2 hours to do it. I was ultimately turned down after d

by notus 7y ago

I was not a fan of Zapier's interview process. You're actually timed on your project and you have exactly 2 hours to do it. I was ultimately turned down after doing it because they said there were linting errors and they said I was using hooks incorrectly. My usage of react hooks was straight from the documentation and I showed my solution to several other people in the industry and they saw no issue with it. I was under the impression the purpose of those coding assignments is to deliver something imperfect but functioning and talk about how to improve it. The main problem I see with a lot of remote companies is that they seem to be overloaded with applications to the point they are making strange decisions about how to filter applicants. They also almost always require you to do some type of project which is a big commitment if you're applying to a lot of places. My best application experience apart from the one that hired me was Duck Duck Go. They pay you to do the project and I feel that is a far better approach. That way they don't have to feel bad about turning you down because hey you get paid, and you don't feel so bad about not getting it because hey you got paid. I ultimately got a much better position at a fully remote company than I would have gotten at Zapier so it wasn't a matter of me overestimating my worth either. I also found that a lot of the well known fully remote companies take forever to respond to you, gitlab, zapier, and DDG were the most responsive and communicative during the process, but I have some that I applied to 2 months ago that are just now emailing me to set up video screens. Startup companies tend to be the most responsive, I would get video screen invites sometimes within minutes after sending an email out.

bentona 7y ago
Would a 2-hour time-boxed interview feel better? Not @ zapier but thinking about optimizing remote interviews.
- notus 7y ago
  My main gripe was with the hard 2 hour requirement and the immediate dismissal of it based on what I felt were either trivial or inaccurate concerns. Additionally if you created a PR for the project any point past the 2 hour mark you were not considered anymore. Having a project is fine, but if the applicant takes the time to do the project and it's at least 80% of the way there I think interviewers are doing themselves a disservice by dismissing projects that are not perfect. There is no way to accurately determine whether that person is a good fit or not based on that little information. You might find that they spent more time planning for example and wrote something that would scale better if more time was spent on it. IMO people who plan more than they code are better assets. In essence, if you require a project to be done for an interview regardless of the time limits and the applicant makes a reasonable effort and demonstrates adequate competency then IMO you should always give them an interview. If you're looking for something perfect then pay them. If you put hard time requirements on the project and expect it to be flawless you give off the impression that people are required to work under pressure. That being said, I think it might be worth considering giving people the option of a take home project or a long interview. I know one guy who refuses to do take home projects and rather just sit in an interview all day and other friends who are the exact opposite.
abcpassword 7y ago
Salesforce wanted a THREE hour assignment before even discussing the role. What a joke!
- mlthoughts2018 7y ago
  I don’t know about Salesforce specifically, but this type of thing is surprisingly common. If your first interaction with candidates, even from a huge, huge open pipeline of applications, is an automatic request for a time-intensive project or skills assessment, something is very broken with that hiring process. You simply have to pay the (high & difficult) cost of evaluating & filtering applications and then having a detailed conversation with the small number of applicants you choose to move forward with. You need to understand their technical interests and match to the role, and let them ask lots of questions to even know if they are interested enough to invest time in the rest of the interviewing. Personally one major change I’ve instituted over a few years in the ML & data science pipeline at my company is that we only do a technical conversational interview, no shared screen coding or take home project at all, it just doesn’t tell you anything, and counterintuitively you end up wasting more time and money administering it than if you just bring people onsite sooner and bite the bullet to evaluate them in a full interview day.
- o-__-o 7y ago
  I said f that and still continued my assignment 5 hours later. When they asked me about it I told them the truth, my family came home and I Had to stop. But before I did I left documentation, tests to show my goal, and accepted failure but I personally wanted to solve the problem. Instant hire, even though the interviewers of that round sounded angry that I didn’t finish per the instructions
  - mlthoughts2018 7y ago
    That’s super rare. Most places won’t even look at your submission at all if it’s one minute past the timed deadline. I remember doing a timed interview once when I was literally dealing with a harrowing elder care / home hospice ordeal with an aging parent in the next room from where I was coding the interview. I remember thinking how myopic and un-human that company was (I had explained a little of the situation, they seemed super uncomfortable to hear any more about it, and basically said I could do their timed 2-hour thing like everyone else, take it or leave it). No room to be a human with a sick parent I guess, or kids or a whole variety of other personal circumstances that make devoting hours of personal time to a coding task a sincerely unrealistic request.
ossworkerrights 7y ago
Generally speaking all companies that gave users such tests have been quite mediocre imo. Code is only a part of a developer’s work.
brendanw 7y ago
I think most companies I've worked at opportunistically looked for standout candidates by always having job postings even when there were no openings. This creates a feedback loop.
- notus 7y ago
  Yeah definitely a possibility. In this case they told me it was to fill a position on a specific team, but they could have just been saying that.
amursft 7y ago
To me most of this is basically a sign that more companies who are hiring should try to shift to remote asap, because of the talent pool you get. Also, taking 2 months on a reply to schedule an interview is crazy.

by notus 7y ago

bentona 7y ago

Would a 2-hour time-boxed interview feel better? Not @ zapier but thinking about optimizing remote interviews.

notus 7y ago
My main gripe was with the hard 2 hour requirement and the immediate dismissal of it based on what I felt were either trivial or inaccurate concerns. Additionally if you created a PR for the project any point past the 2 hour mark you were not considered anymore. Having a project is fine, but if the applicant takes the time to do the project and it's at least 80% of the way there I think interviewers are doing themselves a disservice by dismissing projects that are not perfect. There is no way to accurately determine whether that person is a good fit or not based on that little information. You might find that they spent more time planning for example and wrote something that would scale better if more time was spent on it. IMO people who plan more than they code are better assets. In essence, if you require a project to be done for an interview regardless of the time limits and the applicant makes a reasonable effort and demonstrates adequate competency then IMO you should always give them an interview. If you're looking for something perfect then pay them. If you put hard time requirements on the project and expect it to be flawless you give off the impression that people are required to work under pressure. That being said, I think it might be worth considering giving people the option of a take home project or a long interview. I know one guy who refuses to do take home projects and rather just sit in an interview all day and other friends who are the exact opposite.

abcpassword 7y ago

Salesforce wanted a THREE hour assignment before even discussing the role. What a joke!

mlthoughts2018 7y ago
I don’t know about Salesforce specifically, but this type of thing is surprisingly common. If your first interaction with candidates, even from a huge, huge open pipeline of applications, is an automatic request for a time-intensive project or skills assessment, something is very broken with that hiring process. You simply have to pay the (high & difficult) cost of evaluating & filtering applications and then having a detailed conversation with the small number of applicants you choose to move forward with. You need to understand their technical interests and match to the role, and let them ask lots of questions to even know if they are interested enough to invest time in the rest of the interviewing. Personally one major change I’ve instituted over a few years in the ML & data science pipeline at my company is that we only do a technical conversational interview, no shared screen coding or take home project at all, it just doesn’t tell you anything, and counterintuitively you end up wasting more time and money administering it than if you just bring people onsite sooner and bite the bullet to evaluate them in a full interview day.
o-__-o 7y ago
I said f that and still continued my assignment 5 hours later. When they asked me about it I told them the truth, my family came home and I Had to stop. But before I did I left documentation, tests to show my goal, and accepted failure but I personally wanted to solve the problem. Instant hire, even though the interviewers of that round sounded angry that I didn’t finish per the instructions
- mlthoughts2018 7y ago
  That’s super rare. Most places won’t even look at your submission at all if it’s one minute past the timed deadline. I remember doing a timed interview once when I was literally dealing with a harrowing elder care / home hospice ordeal with an aging parent in the next room from where I was coding the interview. I remember thinking how myopic and un-human that company was (I had explained a little of the situation, they seemed super uncomfortable to hear any more about it, and basically said I could do their timed 2-hour thing like everyone else, take it or leave it). No room to be a human with a sick parent I guess, or kids or a whole variety of other personal circumstances that make devoting hours of personal time to a coding task a sincerely unrealistic request.

ossworkerrights 7y ago

Generally speaking all companies that gave users such tests have been quite mediocre imo. Code is only a part of a developer’s work.

brendanw 7y ago

I think most companies I've worked at opportunistically looked for standout candidates by always having job postings even when there were no openings. This creates a feedback loop.

notus 7y ago
Yeah definitely a possibility. In this case they told me it was to fill a position on a specific team, but they could have just been saying that.

amursft 7y ago

To me most of this is basically a sign that more companies who are hiring should try to shift to remote asap, because of the talent pool you get. Also, taking 2 months on a reply to schedule an interview is crazy.