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I'm so disappointed to read comments on this thread to the effect of "There's nothing in it for the company but risk". I once put in about 8 hours on a take ho

I'm so disappointed to read comments on this thread to the effect of "There's nothing in it for the company but risk". I once put in about 8 hours on a take home project at a company (well known in these parts) that I had tremendous respect for, only to get an email back with "sorry, not up to par. We need someone with more experience". I asked them for a couple quick points on what I could have done better. I had zero intention of fighting them on it. No response The whole experience made me feel very ill, especially after putting in as much effort as I did, and obviously I feel quite differently about that company now. On the other hand, 5 years ago when looking for my first tech job, a virtually unknown startup that rejected me after a take home project and day long onsite gave me very thorough and specific feedback, encouragement, and even a bunch of reading suggestions. Even though I didn't get hired, I have very fond memories of that interview and reached out to them when I did land my first job to thank them again. Did it have any tangible implications for their bottom line to give me that feedback? Not really. But they treated me with compassion rather than like garbage. I have never named and shamed the first company and never intend to, but I personally think there's more risk involved in habitually treating people like garbage than like human beings.

Nursie 7y ago
> I once put in about 8 hours on a take home project at a company This is why I don't do such things. Want 8 hours of my time? Pay me.
0x445442 7y ago
Non paid take home projects... Huge red flag.
- reading-at-work 7y ago
  I disagree that it's an automatic red flag. 8 hours? Yeah that's too long. But I would rather do a 2 hour take-home project than a 2 hour whiteboard coding interview. Edit to add: as far as getting paid, nobody expects to get paid for an onsite interview so I wouldn't expect to get paid for a take home project either. As long as it takes the same amount of time that the coding portion of an onsite interview reasonably would, that is.
  - randomdude402 7y ago
    I totally agree. People say that a take home project is terrible, but most people I talk to who aren't recent graduates also dread live coding algorithms that will never be used on the job. The place I'm at now asked me if I wanted to come in and code as round one of interviews or code up a little something on my own time for a couple engineers to review. For me, it was a no brainier to code at my comfy desk at home for a few hours. Going into the city would have been an hour each way and about $50 worth of gas and tolls. I would much prefer not to bother with all that unless and until somebody has looked at my work closely enough to decide they are interested.
    - dcow 7y ago
      Yep! If it’s a question about respect as so many people seem to portray it, then the easy solution is to offer candidates a choice. But personally, I will always prefer working at my pace on my time in my style and having people judge the output once I deem it ready. If I really need/want the job I’ll make the time. What is an extra few hours relative to the new position, team, etc., that you're aiming for? For me it feels infinitely worse to not quite get through a difficult algorithmic problem on a whiteboard only to have the solution obviously materialize during later reflection when you have a clear headspace, and to know you were judged solely on that, than to give it a fair shot on your terms and be passed on because your style/work is not what they're interested in. I'd rather be somewhere that values my actual output.
  - beerandt 7y ago
    But it's an indication of the companies value of an employees time, in that it's one sided. If they're paying an existing employee to babysit me, that's a cost to them that demonstrates at least some expended effort. I'd consider this to be pretty important for a salaried position.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - meowface 7y ago
- kortilla 7y ago
  Honestly the non paid take home projects are much better. The three interviews I’ve done them for stand out as the best interview processes I’ve been a part of. They actually check for real software skills. The time you spend on-site grinding leetcode with some Google engineer is non-paid as well, so let’s not pretend it’s really any different.
  - randomdude402 7y ago
    Absolutely. The one job that offered me a take home project was the best interview I've ever had, and the best working environment I've ever experienced.
  - vonseel 7y ago
    Totally agree. I can’t imagine many people enjoy studying for leetcode type interviews, either, unless they are fresh out of a CS program and already practiced with that stuff.
    - Double_a_92 7y ago
      Do people actually accept such interviews? That seems quite disrespectful to me, tbh. > Oh you've been working in a relevant field for 10 years? Here take this written test first, so we can check how well you can memorize hundreds of random irrelevant algorithms... I'd walk out, unless it was maybe some simpler algorithm that you can actually figure out yourself by thinking for a few minutes.
      - deleted 7y ago
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      - tron27 7y ago
        I recently got ambushed with one of these types of interviews. I was going for a senior dev role, in the same industry I've been working on for the last 5+ years. Had done the normal initial phone interview (overview of experience etc), a take home code challenge (only took ~1hr) then I was asked to come in for a final interview that was to be a 15-20min presentation on project I'd worked on (that related to what I would be doing at the new role) then 15-20min of questions on that project and the technical challenges/solutions. All this sounded great until I got an email the day before informing me the presentation and follow up questions would be ~20 mins total and then there would be a 20 minute whiteboard session on data structures and algorithms. I retracted my application asap!
- jcims 7y ago
  I see this a lot but it seems fairly naive to expect. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with refusing to do them, but to get paid? Has anyone in the history of the world been paid for an interview take home project? Curious how it was set up and what the rate was. Did you have to file taxes? Was it 1099?
  - michael_storm 7y ago
    I have. It was a few hundred bucks. There was a tax form, but I don't recall specifically what it was.
    - jcims 7y ago
      Interesting. USA?
      - michael_storm 7y ago
        Yep.
  - AlexCoventry 7y ago
    It's pretty common in my experience.
    - jcims 7y ago
      Have never seen it in 25 years of working in the industry. Sounds like it's more common than I thought (who's the naive one lol).
      - AlexCoventry 7y ago
        I've mainly seen it with small companies.
  - noahtallen 7y ago
    I’ve done a trial project which was after an initial (much shorter) code test which was non paid. The trial earned me a couple grand and I got a 1099 alongside my w2 at the end of the years since I was hired full time.
hoka-one-one 7y ago
I had a guy at Qualcomm Austin tell me to read Advanced Compiler Design and Implementation by Muchnik. I read it and a few months later I was working for Qualcomm San Diego. I've thought about thanking him but I doubt he'd remember me, it was such a small comment.
- fwip 7y ago
  Even if he doesn't remember you, I'm sure he'd be happy to hear from you.
- hoorayimhelping 7y ago
  Thank him! Even if a lot of time has passed. Better late than never totally applies here. If he didn't remember you before, he'll remember you after. I've given thousands of semi strangers advice in various forms. I remember the two or three who followed up with me and said, "thank you for your advice, I followed it and have since reached my goal," and have kept in touch with them. It makes you feel really good to hear that.
- ComputerGuru 7y ago
  He doesn’t have to remember your name because your name is besides the point - it’s about him and what he did (for you) and not about you (the beneficiary). What you’re telling him is that something he did/does is good and helpful; one day when he asks himself “should I bother giving (such detailed) feedback?” he’ll have your anecdotal datapoint in mind to help him make his decision!
- bigiain 7y ago
  Do it anyway. You know if someone you don't remember from an interaction ages ago emailed you to say "Hey, you probably don't remember this, but you once told me $thing, so I took $action, and now I've achieved $outcome. Thanks you for that, it really helped my career!", it'd make you feel great and would probably be the highlight of your day, right?
  - snide 7y ago
    As an anecdote. I once received something like this (on Twitter of all places). It was a "you probably don't remember me but..." for someone I'd passed on a decade ago. It really touched me and made me sit down and reflect on my career. The person had gone on to have a successful career being creative. Which honestly, is all we can ever ask. I remembered the person, but not anything about what I'd said that day. I assume it was just what I normally say. Having that last realization made me feel even better. The easiest, most rewarding thing you can do daily in your life is appreciate the people around you. We all need that feedback.
scruple 7y ago
Call a spade a spade. Was it Blizzard? They're known in my parts for similar behavior. To the point that I've cautioned local and especially junior folks not to take their take homes too seriously. Even when/if they do pull you in after "passing" a take home, it's not like they take any effort to then talk to you about the literal work you just did for them.
lyjackal 7y ago
Also, as far as the companies bottom line is concerned, having disgruntled rejected applicants can hurt their hiring reputation. Especially considering sites like Glassdoor
- pythonaut_16 7y ago
  I've seen plenty of bad reviews on Glassdoor for companies providing no or vague feedback; usually the negativity of the review is in proportion to the amount of time the candidate invested and the level of feedback given. I've also seen good reviews on Glassdoor from candidates who weren't hired but were given prompt and appropriate feedback.
kamaal 7y ago
>>I once put in about 8 hours on a take home project at a company (well known in these parts) that I had tremendous respect for, only to get an email back with "sorry, not up to par. We need someone with more experience". Looks like this is a common pattern with take home projects. I faced a very similar problem a few weeks back. Though they called me for the interview. The general approach is to take some ones overnight deadline coding and code review it for a week. Then they dissect your code written in deadline duress like they are some masters of the universe. They also told me my code passed through their automated test suite, and then some programmers in their office reviewed it too. And then after two rounds of interviews they rejected me because apparently 'cat error.log | grep 'ERROR:' | wc -l' is not how real programmers find error count, but write python programs every single time they face such a problem. In short these places with take home interviews generally tend to be people who are full of themselves. They are also a kind of workplace full self-congratulatory people who have fallen in love with their own legend. Haven't had a single good experience with places that give take home tests.
- reificator 7y ago
  > And then after two rounds of interviews they rejected me because apparently 'cat error.log | grep 'ERROR:' | wc -l' is not how real programmers find error count, but write python programs every single time they face such a problem. bulletsDodged += 1
  - somebodythere 7y ago
    Real programmers would write bulletsDodged++;
    - reificator 7y ago
      https://doc.rust-lang.org/1.2.0/complement-design-faq.html#why-no---x-or-x++ https://doc.rust-lang.org/1.2.0/complement-design-faq.html#w...?
    - bagacrap 7y ago
      our style guide dictates ++bulletsDodged;
zweep 7y ago
By not naming and sharing the first company you’re doing the world a disservice. The powerful have convinced the world that being polite is more important than being truthful because politeness furthers the continuation of existing power structures.
- jakobegger 7y ago
  Maybe OP doesn't want to burn any bridges just because one interviewer at a big company behaved like 90% of interviewers do.
5cott0 7y ago
Interview homework is in many cases more of a disrespectful waste of candidates time than fresh grad whiteboard hazing rituals.
- atomicnumber3 7y ago
  I've just finished a job search, and the company I ended up going with (with the best offer, by far) was one of the only ones that didn't want a take-home project. With several of the companies, I managed to (via either vowing silence to recruiters, or having an inside guy) get feedback on my projects. Nobody volunteered feedback willingly. And honestly, based on what feedback I did get, I see why they didn't want to offer it. It was an unscientific mess. Generally: * There was either no rubric or very basic rubric for scoring the assignment * reviewer gut feel and comments were seemingly more important than the score (if present) anyway * frequently, reviewers disagreed over whether a cool doodad was indeed cool or over/under engineered. * frequently, there were "gotchas" where they were either expecting you to notice an "issue" with the prompt, or they gave a vague prompt and wanted you to fish around to discover specific non-obvious things they wanted to see. Now obviously, it's not like any strategy for interviewing software people is all that great. But at least interviews take nearly an order of magnitude less time than projects, and also have some built-in feedback via facial/verbal cues and such. Instead of just shooting your project tarball into the abyss just to get a boolean back.
  - 5cott0 7y ago
    The lack of feedback makes sense if you think about it; lazy, vaguely expansive requirements that even the interviewer cannot be bothered to figure out.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - rendall 7y ago
    I don't do unpaid take home projects that are expected to take more than an hour. Even if I "pass", now I work for a company that has already demonstrated a willingness to occupy my time. Ditto if the take-home project does not have clear acceptance criteria: that's how it will be to work there. It's a real red flag.
artsyca 7y ago
It's the small things this whole industry is a toxic brew I'm sick of all of it
- 72deluxe 7y ago
  Do you have a plan on something else to do? I quit my job and got a part time job doing development in a different field after a few toxic years. The same lack of understanding/appreciation can be felt in some jobs, but a change might be good? Ultimately I'd work at a garden centre or something and be outside more, but the pay would be less ! In any case, hope you have a plan.
  - artsyca 7y ago
    I've taken my learnings and rebranded myself as a hands on process and transformation consultant You'd be amazed how much value a truly agile workflow provides to the client relationship when centered on the principles of knowledge and relationship building and based on mutual investment What's killing me is how many young minds are devoting years of their lives chasing grades in university only to enter the workforce and fall in line with the false corporate stereotypes when there is a wealth of knowledge and joy to be had with much less stress and way more quality of life I have so much to write it causes me to choke on my words but I'm telling you people are wasting their lives away and I'm sure not having it It's cool you've also branched off into something a bit off the beaten path I'd love to compare notes if you'd be up for it
  - artsyca 7y ago
    Look https://www.popsci.com/story/technology/mcintosh-amp-factory-photos https://www.popsci.com/story/technology/mcintosh-amp-factory... This is how software could be instead it's a joyless endeavour perpetrated by sexless beta humanoids at the behest of busy waiting plate spinners and their poorly invested overlords We should value our work more than becoming human hamsters in a corporate machine headed nowhere at light speed
safety-third 7y ago
You probably wouldn't like the feedback. Most interviews these days are random because our field is obsessed with finding 10x megarockstar GTD superprogrammers. I can't think of a single field where interviews are such awful experiences. All interviews could be simple Q&A sessions to make sure the person isn't a charlatan and then sell them on the position. HR isn't a science, and it never will be. The FAANGs spend god knows how much time and money on it, and they admit that their interviews aren't better than a coin flip.
- indecisive_user 7y ago
  >The FAANGs spend god knows how much time and money on it, and they admit that their interviews aren't better than a coin flip. I'm curious what this means. Whiteboard style interviews aren't perfect, but at the very least they demonstrate 1. You can communicate with another engineer on a technical problem (simply writing the code with no explanation isn't sufficient), and 2. You have the determination to study CS topics for a long enough time to be prepared for an interview. Both of those skills should have at least some correlation with success at your job, certainly better than a coin flip.
  - safety-third 7y ago
    I can't find the article because its hidden behind Google's previously admitted coin flip, brain teasers. An interview only has one question to answer: How long will it take this person to do what I need? Everything after that is you trying to sell the company to the candidate. After you do the interviews, you pick the person who needs the least ramp time. Quietly staring at a person writing on a whiteboard while taking notes isn't communication. It isn't normal. It tests nothing except the candidate's whiteboard interview technique. You test their communication ability... by communicating with them. Have a conversation. Testing someone's determination to do useless studying for your ridiculous company is pointless. I am not here to get you to join my cult. I am here to pay you to do things. That's it. Unless your job is to design and review algorithms, I don't care if you can draw depth first search on a whiteboard blindfolded. There are a million ways to figure out how long it will take to get a person up to speed. I make a list of the skills needed for a position. I write down an approximate time to learn each one. In each interview, I figure out what skills the person has by discussing that skill. That's it.
sroussey 7y ago
Did they pay you for the 8hr? They should have. And there is less risk in assessing a piece of work you paid for.
iagooar 7y ago
In Germany every single lawyer or HR responsible would tell you not to send any reason at all, just a generic response. This has to do with how law is structured here: giving feedback gives an attack surface to candidates that could sue you for the feedback you gave (because they do not agree with it). So this is it, companies do not do this because they're evil, they do this because nobody wants legal consequences.
- hvidgaard 7y ago
  I don't understand this. If I select a candidate of three to offer a job, then as long as I'm not discriminating the others for things such as sexuality, gender, age, ect. then the person we feel is the best fit is just that. What we believe is the best candidate - no amount of arguing in a court is going to change that.
  - azernik 7y ago
    Germany is not the US. Labor laws impose restrictions aside from banning discrimination against protected categories. As one example: it is illegal to say anything negative in a letter of reference. See https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/74438/recommendation-letter-in-germany-arbeitszeugnis/74495#74495 https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/74438/recommen...
  - ChuckNorris89 7y ago
    Germany is not as egalitarian as the US when it comes to preventing discrimination for job applicants. Normally, in Germany, in your resume you should have a photo and specify your birthday/age and nationality, especially important when applying at traditional engineering companies. This opens you up for a lot of silent discrimination. So, if they reject you for being the wrong age, nationality or skin color (yes that happens, a former German manager explicitly told HR he doesn't want Indian candidates on his team) or for speaking German with a strange accent, they definitely don't want this information getting back to you as you can sue them for that so the only feedback you're gonna get is the legally safe copy-paste "unfortunately, we're looking for a candidate that better suits our needs".
cmonnow 7y ago
Capital One Data Challenge ?
yodsanklai 7y ago
I recently interviewed at Google and Facebook. They provided valuable feedback at every stage of the process. It gave me a good impression on the companies culture and the people who work there, and only makes me want to re-apply in the future.
- joaogui1 7y ago
  What kind of feedback? They never gave me any specific feedback when I interviewed
collyw 7y ago
Well small as it is, you can leave a shitty review on Glassdoor. Why are you against naming and shaming the company?
leothekim 7y ago
I get how the interview experience can be inhumane and all, and I’ve been through my fair share of shitty interview experiences. But feeling disappointed about not getting feedback from your performance? You’d need to assume interview feedback is constructive and relevant to your professional growth, interviewers are well-trained, interview processes are fair, and candidates receiving feedback are capable and willing to act positively on it. From my experience, having all of these factors be true isn’t all that common, and one of these factors is beyond the company’s control.
5cott0 7y ago
I had one homework assignment where the API keys they provided didn’t work. I spent 2 days playing tag with the hiring manager just to get functional credentials.
balfirevic 7y ago
> I'm so disappointed to read comments on this thread to the effect of "There's nothing in it for the company but risk". Well, it's true, what exactly do you expect people to say? No one's saying it's good or nice for the candidate.
heedlessly3 7y ago
I think not giving candidates any feedback has to do with companies being lazy than fear of being sued. If you have 50 candidates do a takehome assignment, then you will need an engineer to do code review and write comments on everything. Whereas it's easier to execute the code and have an engineer glance at the code quality. Their time is better spent looking more deeply candidate's who move onto the next round. I'm not saying it's morally right, but it's just more time efficient for companies to do this and that's how the power dynamics unfortunately work.
jowdones 7y ago
>> I have never named and shamed the first company You should. Does it look like they give a fuck about you? Who are they?
rstuart4133 7y ago
> I asked them for a couple quick points on what I could have done better. I feel your pain, but doing this gets them nothing and costs them effort. It might also be harmful. If the advice is "we needed more experience in X", and your reaction to it was either not apply for jobs asking for X (because you are unlikely to get them), or to get more training in X then that would be wonderful outcome for both you and the company. But as someone who has hired people, the most likely outcome is you are training someone on how to lie better about their expertise in X. That makes this a win for you, a lose for the company doing the hiring. In my experience that means it ain't going to happen.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
bartread 7y ago
> "There's nothing in it for the company but risk". The issues I have with this point of view is it's very short-sighted. Word travels. If people have a shitty selection experience when they apply to you they'll tell other people about it. That will impact your ability to hire the best talent. It's to companies' benefit to provide a good experience during the selection process, and that includes giving feedback.

Nursie 7y ago

> I once put in about 8 hours on a take home project at a company This is why I don't do such things. Want 8 hours of my time? Pay me.

0x445442 7y ago

Non paid take home projects... Huge red flag.

reading-at-work 7y ago
I disagree that it's an automatic red flag. 8 hours? Yeah that's too long. But I would rather do a 2 hour take-home project than a 2 hour whiteboard coding interview. Edit to add: as far as getting paid, nobody expects to get paid for an onsite interview so I wouldn't expect to get paid for a take home project either. As long as it takes the same amount of time that the coding portion of an onsite interview reasonably would, that is.
- randomdude402 7y ago
  I totally agree. People say that a take home project is terrible, but most people I talk to who aren't recent graduates also dread live coding algorithms that will never be used on the job. The place I'm at now asked me if I wanted to come in and code as round one of interviews or code up a little something on my own time for a couple engineers to review. For me, it was a no brainier to code at my comfy desk at home for a few hours. Going into the city would have been an hour each way and about $50 worth of gas and tolls. I would much prefer not to bother with all that unless and until somebody has looked at my work closely enough to decide they are interested.
  - dcow 7y ago
    Yep! If it’s a question about respect as so many people seem to portray it, then the easy solution is to offer candidates a choice. But personally, I will always prefer working at my pace on my time in my style and having people judge the output once I deem it ready. If I really need/want the job I’ll make the time. What is an extra few hours relative to the new position, team, etc., that you're aiming for? For me it feels infinitely worse to not quite get through a difficult algorithmic problem on a whiteboard only to have the solution obviously materialize during later reflection when you have a clear headspace, and to know you were judged solely on that, than to give it a fair shot on your terms and be passed on because your style/work is not what they're interested in. I'd rather be somewhere that values my actual output.
- beerandt 7y ago
  But it's an indication of the companies value of an employees time, in that it's one sided. If they're paying an existing employee to babysit me, that's a cost to them that demonstrates at least some expended effort. I'd consider this to be pretty important for a salaried position.
  - deleted 7y ago
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- meowface 7y ago
kortilla 7y ago
Honestly the non paid take home projects are much better. The three interviews I’ve done them for stand out as the best interview processes I’ve been a part of. They actually check for real software skills. The time you spend on-site grinding leetcode with some Google engineer is non-paid as well, so let’s not pretend it’s really any different.
- randomdude402 7y ago
  Absolutely. The one job that offered me a take home project was the best interview I've ever had, and the best working environment I've ever experienced.
- vonseel 7y ago
  Totally agree. I can’t imagine many people enjoy studying for leetcode type interviews, either, unless they are fresh out of a CS program and already practiced with that stuff.
  - Double_a_92 7y ago
    Do people actually accept such interviews? That seems quite disrespectful to me, tbh. > Oh you've been working in a relevant field for 10 years? Here take this written test first, so we can check how well you can memorize hundreds of random irrelevant algorithms... I'd walk out, unless it was maybe some simpler algorithm that you can actually figure out yourself by thinking for a few minutes.
    - deleted 7y ago
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    - tron27 7y ago
      I recently got ambushed with one of these types of interviews. I was going for a senior dev role, in the same industry I've been working on for the last 5+ years. Had done the normal initial phone interview (overview of experience etc), a take home code challenge (only took ~1hr) then I was asked to come in for a final interview that was to be a 15-20min presentation on project I'd worked on (that related to what I would be doing at the new role) then 15-20min of questions on that project and the technical challenges/solutions. All this sounded great until I got an email the day before informing me the presentation and follow up questions would be ~20 mins total and then there would be a 20 minute whiteboard session on data structures and algorithms. I retracted my application asap!
jcims 7y ago
I see this a lot but it seems fairly naive to expect. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with refusing to do them, but to get paid? Has anyone in the history of the world been paid for an interview take home project? Curious how it was set up and what the rate was. Did you have to file taxes? Was it 1099?
- michael_storm 7y ago
  I have. It was a few hundred bucks. There was a tax form, but I don't recall specifically what it was.
  - jcims 7y ago
    Interesting. USA?
    - michael_storm 7y ago
      Yep.
- AlexCoventry 7y ago
  It's pretty common in my experience.
  - jcims 7y ago
    Have never seen it in 25 years of working in the industry. Sounds like it's more common than I thought (who's the naive one lol).
    - AlexCoventry 7y ago
      I've mainly seen it with small companies.
- noahtallen 7y ago
  I’ve done a trial project which was after an initial (much shorter) code test which was non paid. The trial earned me a couple grand and I got a 1099 alongside my w2 at the end of the years since I was hired full time.

hoka-one-one 7y ago

I had a guy at Qualcomm Austin tell me to read Advanced Compiler Design and Implementation by Muchnik. I read it and a few months later I was working for Qualcomm San Diego. I've thought about thanking him but I doubt he'd remember me, it was such a small comment.

fwip 7y ago
Even if he doesn't remember you, I'm sure he'd be happy to hear from you.
hoorayimhelping 7y ago
Thank him! Even if a lot of time has passed. Better late than never totally applies here. If he didn't remember you before, he'll remember you after. I've given thousands of semi strangers advice in various forms. I remember the two or three who followed up with me and said, "thank you for your advice, I followed it and have since reached my goal," and have kept in touch with them. It makes you feel really good to hear that.
ComputerGuru 7y ago
He doesn’t have to remember your name because your name is besides the point - it’s about him and what he did (for you) and not about you (the beneficiary). What you’re telling him is that something he did/does is good and helpful; one day when he asks himself “should I bother giving (such detailed) feedback?” he’ll have your anecdotal datapoint in mind to help him make his decision!
bigiain 7y ago
Do it anyway. You know if someone you don't remember from an interaction ages ago emailed you to say "Hey, you probably don't remember this, but you once told me $thing, so I took $action, and now I've achieved $outcome. Thanks you for that, it really helped my career!", it'd make you feel great and would probably be the highlight of your day, right?
- snide 7y ago
  As an anecdote. I once received something like this (on Twitter of all places). It was a "you probably don't remember me but..." for someone I'd passed on a decade ago. It really touched me and made me sit down and reflect on my career. The person had gone on to have a successful career being creative. Which honestly, is all we can ever ask. I remembered the person, but not anything about what I'd said that day. I assume it was just what I normally say. Having that last realization made me feel even better. The easiest, most rewarding thing you can do daily in your life is appreciate the people around you. We all need that feedback.

scruple 7y ago

Call a spade a spade. Was it Blizzard? They're known in my parts for similar behavior. To the point that I've cautioned local and especially junior folks not to take their take homes too seriously. Even when/if they do pull you in after "passing" a take home, it's not like they take any effort to then talk to you about the literal work you just did for them.

lyjackal 7y ago

Also, as far as the companies bottom line is concerned, having disgruntled rejected applicants can hurt their hiring reputation. Especially considering sites like Glassdoor

pythonaut_16 7y ago
I've seen plenty of bad reviews on Glassdoor for companies providing no or vague feedback; usually the negativity of the review is in proportion to the amount of time the candidate invested and the level of feedback given. I've also seen good reviews on Glassdoor from candidates who weren't hired but were given prompt and appropriate feedback.

kamaal 7y ago

>>I once put in about 8 hours on a take home project at a company (well known in these parts) that I had tremendous respect for, only to get an email back with "sorry, not up to par. We need someone with more experience". Looks like this is a common pattern with take home projects. I faced a very similar problem a few weeks back. Though they called me for the interview. The general approach is to take some ones overnight deadline coding and code review it for a week. Then they dissect your code written in deadline duress like they are some masters of the universe. They also told me my code passed through their automated test suite, and then some programmers in their office reviewed it too. And then after two rounds of interviews they rejected me because apparently 'cat error.log | grep 'ERROR:' | wc -l' is not how real programmers find error count, but write python programs every single time they face such a problem. In short these places with take home interviews generally tend to be people who are full of themselves. They are also a kind of workplace full self-congratulatory people who have fallen in love with their own legend. Haven't had a single good experience with places that give take home tests.

reificator 7y ago
> And then after two rounds of interviews they rejected me because apparently 'cat error.log | grep 'ERROR:' | wc -l' is not how real programmers find error count, but write python programs every single time they face such a problem. bulletsDodged += 1
- somebodythere 7y ago
  Real programmers would write bulletsDodged++;
  - reificator 7y ago
    https://doc.rust-lang.org/1.2.0/complement-design-faq.html#why-no---x-or-x++ https://doc.rust-lang.org/1.2.0/complement-design-faq.html#w...?
  - bagacrap 7y ago
    our style guide dictates ++bulletsDodged;

zweep 7y ago

By not naming and sharing the first company you’re doing the world a disservice. The powerful have convinced the world that being polite is more important than being truthful because politeness furthers the continuation of existing power structures.

jakobegger 7y ago
Maybe OP doesn't want to burn any bridges just because one interviewer at a big company behaved like 90% of interviewers do.

5cott0 7y ago

Interview homework is in many cases more of a disrespectful waste of candidates time than fresh grad whiteboard hazing rituals.

atomicnumber3 7y ago
I've just finished a job search, and the company I ended up going with (with the best offer, by far) was one of the only ones that didn't want a take-home project. With several of the companies, I managed to (via either vowing silence to recruiters, or having an inside guy) get feedback on my projects. Nobody volunteered feedback willingly. And honestly, based on what feedback I did get, I see why they didn't want to offer it. It was an unscientific mess. Generally: * There was either no rubric or very basic rubric for scoring the assignment * reviewer gut feel and comments were seemingly more important than the score (if present) anyway * frequently, reviewers disagreed over whether a cool doodad was indeed cool or over/under engineered. * frequently, there were "gotchas" where they were either expecting you to notice an "issue" with the prompt, or they gave a vague prompt and wanted you to fish around to discover specific non-obvious things they wanted to see. Now obviously, it's not like any strategy for interviewing software people is all that great. But at least interviews take nearly an order of magnitude less time than projects, and also have some built-in feedback via facial/verbal cues and such. Instead of just shooting your project tarball into the abyss just to get a boolean back.
- 5cott0 7y ago
  The lack of feedback makes sense if you think about it; lazy, vaguely expansive requirements that even the interviewer cannot be bothered to figure out.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- rendall 7y ago
  I don't do unpaid take home projects that are expected to take more than an hour. Even if I "pass", now I work for a company that has already demonstrated a willingness to occupy my time. Ditto if the take-home project does not have clear acceptance criteria: that's how it will be to work there. It's a real red flag.

artsyca 7y ago

It's the small things this whole industry is a toxic brew I'm sick of all of it

72deluxe 7y ago
Do you have a plan on something else to do? I quit my job and got a part time job doing development in a different field after a few toxic years. The same lack of understanding/appreciation can be felt in some jobs, but a change might be good? Ultimately I'd work at a garden centre or something and be outside more, but the pay would be less ! In any case, hope you have a plan.
- artsyca 7y ago
  I've taken my learnings and rebranded myself as a hands on process and transformation consultant You'd be amazed how much value a truly agile workflow provides to the client relationship when centered on the principles of knowledge and relationship building and based on mutual investment What's killing me is how many young minds are devoting years of their lives chasing grades in university only to enter the workforce and fall in line with the false corporate stereotypes when there is a wealth of knowledge and joy to be had with much less stress and way more quality of life I have so much to write it causes me to choke on my words but I'm telling you people are wasting their lives away and I'm sure not having it It's cool you've also branched off into something a bit off the beaten path I'd love to compare notes if you'd be up for it
- artsyca 7y ago
  Look https://www.popsci.com/story/technology/mcintosh-amp-factory-photos https://www.popsci.com/story/technology/mcintosh-amp-factory... This is how software could be instead it's a joyless endeavour perpetrated by sexless beta humanoids at the behest of busy waiting plate spinners and their poorly invested overlords We should value our work more than becoming human hamsters in a corporate machine headed nowhere at light speed

safety-third 7y ago

You probably wouldn't like the feedback. Most interviews these days are random because our field is obsessed with finding 10x megarockstar GTD superprogrammers. I can't think of a single field where interviews are such awful experiences. All interviews could be simple Q&A sessions to make sure the person isn't a charlatan and then sell them on the position. HR isn't a science, and it never will be. The FAANGs spend god knows how much time and money on it, and they admit that their interviews aren't better than a coin flip.

indecisive_user 7y ago
>The FAANGs spend god knows how much time and money on it, and they admit that their interviews aren't better than a coin flip. I'm curious what this means. Whiteboard style interviews aren't perfect, but at the very least they demonstrate 1. You can communicate with another engineer on a technical problem (simply writing the code with no explanation isn't sufficient), and 2. You have the determination to study CS topics for a long enough time to be prepared for an interview. Both of those skills should have at least some correlation with success at your job, certainly better than a coin flip.
- safety-third 7y ago
  I can't find the article because its hidden behind Google's previously admitted coin flip, brain teasers. An interview only has one question to answer: How long will it take this person to do what I need? Everything after that is you trying to sell the company to the candidate. After you do the interviews, you pick the person who needs the least ramp time. Quietly staring at a person writing on a whiteboard while taking notes isn't communication. It isn't normal. It tests nothing except the candidate's whiteboard interview technique. You test their communication ability... by communicating with them. Have a conversation. Testing someone's determination to do useless studying for your ridiculous company is pointless. I am not here to get you to join my cult. I am here to pay you to do things. That's it. Unless your job is to design and review algorithms, I don't care if you can draw depth first search on a whiteboard blindfolded. There are a million ways to figure out how long it will take to get a person up to speed. I make a list of the skills needed for a position. I write down an approximate time to learn each one. In each interview, I figure out what skills the person has by discussing that skill. That's it.

sroussey 7y ago

Did they pay you for the 8hr? They should have. And there is less risk in assessing a piece of work you paid for.

iagooar 7y ago

In Germany every single lawyer or HR responsible would tell you not to send any reason at all, just a generic response. This has to do with how law is structured here: giving feedback gives an attack surface to candidates that could sue you for the feedback you gave (because they do not agree with it). So this is it, companies do not do this because they're evil, they do this because nobody wants legal consequences.

hvidgaard 7y ago
I don't understand this. If I select a candidate of three to offer a job, then as long as I'm not discriminating the others for things such as sexuality, gender, age, ect. then the person we feel is the best fit is just that. What we believe is the best candidate - no amount of arguing in a court is going to change that.
- azernik 7y ago
  Germany is not the US. Labor laws impose restrictions aside from banning discrimination against protected categories. As one example: it is illegal to say anything negative in a letter of reference. See https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/74438/recommendation-letter-in-germany-arbeitszeugnis/74495#74495 https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/74438/recommen...
- ChuckNorris89 7y ago
  Germany is not as egalitarian as the US when it comes to preventing discrimination for job applicants. Normally, in Germany, in your resume you should have a photo and specify your birthday/age and nationality, especially important when applying at traditional engineering companies. This opens you up for a lot of silent discrimination. So, if they reject you for being the wrong age, nationality or skin color (yes that happens, a former German manager explicitly told HR he doesn't want Indian candidates on his team) or for speaking German with a strange accent, they definitely don't want this information getting back to you as you can sue them for that so the only feedback you're gonna get is the legally safe copy-paste "unfortunately, we're looking for a candidate that better suits our needs".

cmonnow 7y ago

Capital One Data Challenge ?

yodsanklai 7y ago

I recently interviewed at Google and Facebook. They provided valuable feedback at every stage of the process. It gave me a good impression on the companies culture and the people who work there, and only makes me want to re-apply in the future.

joaogui1 7y ago
What kind of feedback? They never gave me any specific feedback when I interviewed

collyw 7y ago

Well small as it is, you can leave a shitty review on Glassdoor. Why are you against naming and shaming the company?

leothekim 7y ago

I get how the interview experience can be inhumane and all, and I’ve been through my fair share of shitty interview experiences. But feeling disappointed about not getting feedback from your performance? You’d need to assume interview feedback is constructive and relevant to your professional growth, interviewers are well-trained, interview processes are fair, and candidates receiving feedback are capable and willing to act positively on it. From my experience, having all of these factors be true isn’t all that common, and one of these factors is beyond the company’s control.

5cott0 7y ago

I had one homework assignment where the API keys they provided didn’t work. I spent 2 days playing tag with the hiring manager just to get functional credentials.

balfirevic 7y ago

> I'm so disappointed to read comments on this thread to the effect of "There's nothing in it for the company but risk". Well, it's true, what exactly do you expect people to say? No one's saying it's good or nice for the candidate.

heedlessly3 7y ago

I think not giving candidates any feedback has to do with companies being lazy than fear of being sued. If you have 50 candidates do a takehome assignment, then you will need an engineer to do code review and write comments on everything. Whereas it's easier to execute the code and have an engineer glance at the code quality. Their time is better spent looking more deeply candidate's who move onto the next round. I'm not saying it's morally right, but it's just more time efficient for companies to do this and that's how the power dynamics unfortunately work.

jowdones 7y ago

>> I have never named and shamed the first company You should. Does it look like they give a fuck about you? Who are they?

rstuart4133 7y ago

> I asked them for a couple quick points on what I could have done better. I feel your pain, but doing this gets them nothing and costs them effort. It might also be harmful. If the advice is "we needed more experience in X", and your reaction to it was either not apply for jobs asking for X (because you are unlikely to get them), or to get more training in X then that would be wonderful outcome for both you and the company. But as someone who has hired people, the most likely outcome is you are training someone on how to lie better about their expertise in X. That makes this a win for you, a lose for the company doing the hiring. In my experience that means it ain't going to happen.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

bartread 7y ago

> "There's nothing in it for the company but risk". The issues I have with this point of view is it's very short-sighted. Word travels. If people have a shitty selection experience when they apply to you they'll tell other people about it. That will impact your ability to hire the best talent. It's to companies' benefit to provide a good experience during the selection process, and that includes giving feedback.