3 ms·

Not directly related to TFA, but directed at people doing stuff like this in general: you cannot say things like "don't spend more than a few hours on this" or

Not directly related to TFA, but directed at people doing stuff like this in general: you cannot say things like "don't spend more than a few hours on this" or "don't worry about it too much" seriously. People are competing for a job with these, potentially a big career step. A lot will spend every waking hour between receiving the task and the deadline working on it, because that makes sense when you're fighting for a job alongside a bunch of other people. Anyone who actually follows the "don't spend more than a few hours on this" instruction is going to be at a huge disadvantage to the other people that almost certainly will ignore it, so as much as you try to make sure to reduce the pressure, you can't.

atomicity 6y ago
It's really in the best interest of the interviewer to set hard time limits. If you want your developers to work reasonable hours and be productive, you better hope that they can get shit done in a reasonable amount of time. A start would be to time-box your interviews. Then maybe time out your own day and realize that spending 4 hours on an interview means that you miss dinner, sleep, your workout, and/or social time. I wouldn't want to force a future coworker through that mess. So, now you've got to limit your interview to a couple of hours. Luckily, since 80% of industry is satisfied with trivia questions, you don't really need to try that hard to design an interview that helps you find better candidates than your competitors.