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I once applied at a company that started with a programming test before any human communication. I think I did a pretty good job on the test. After that I was r

I once applied at a company that started with a programming test before any human communication. I think I did a pretty good job on the test. After that I was rejected when I assume they saw my resume. They gave me $50 store credit on their website (custom sticker printing). I assume it cost them a lot less than $50 but it was still pretty cool.

justinlloyd 6y ago
This past week one of the companies on "who's hiring" sent me three challenges that "would only take 2 hours" before I ever got to talk to a human being or even got a human being responding with an email. This was a fully automated system apparently. "Take this programming test, we'll let you know if you're good enough to talk with a human." Whilst the challenges were not particularly complex, you also had to ensure that the person who was going to run your code could stand up your environment, so part of the second challenge was "thoroughly document how to run your code, the environment needed, etc, etc." Life is too short to deal with this kind of stonewalling.
- collyw 6y ago
  We (the whole developer community) really need to stop responding to such companies. I did one recently after the initial HR person chat. I spent a morning on it as they suggested 2 or 3 hours. But then I was rejected for the most pedantic reasons (2 white space PEP violations), not setting up mocks for testing (that would have doubled the scope of the project). Providing an HTML response rather than JSON when the spec asked for a "page, don't bother about styling". And various other trivialities. I tried passing on my complaints, but the HR girls didn't like that. Pretty disrespectful after giving up a morning of my free time. Sennder is the company, as I feel that we should be naming and shaming.
  - VonGallifrey 6y ago
    I just completed this exact challenge (Yes, for Sennder) and I think their challenge is fine. It is not really difficult or takes much time at all. They didn't seem too strict in their review and I was able to discuss some of the "mistakes" and choices I made in the tech interview. Including some PEP8 violations. Despite these mistakes I passed the tech interview just fine and I just have the CTO interview left. I don't see how mocks would have doubled the scope of the project. I think I have mocks set up in a few lines of code or so. If your project is so difficult to test or if it is difficult to set up mocks for it maybe there is a serious flaw in your project structure? > Providing an HTML response rather than JSON when the spec asked for a "page, don't bother about styling". I don't understand what you mean with this. Did you provide a HTML response or did you provide JSON? I did a super simple HTML response with no styling and that was fine. If you did JSON I could see how they would mark it as a mistake when they clearly asked for a HTML page.
    - collyw 6y ago
      They did say that they were planning on changing it so maybe you got a different one. I gave them HTML, and they claimed that "JSON would have been better" despite the specification asking for a "page" with "no need for styling".
  - caymanjim 6y ago
    It sounds like your submission was unrefined, maybe amateur. That's what tests like this are for. Referring to "the HR girls" isn't winning you any points either, and makes me wonder what kind of attitude you displayed to the people involved.
    - collyw 6y ago
      Not as amateur as the spec.
- wildrhythms 6y ago
  I turned down an offer from a direct competitor company because they tried to funnel me through an automated programming "test". I told them I have years of experience at their competing company whose hiring bar is notoriously high, and they still demanded I take their weird test. The company was Goldman Sachs. Name and shame.
  - pandaman 6y ago
    I had similar experience with Facebook, not directly competing as they are just expanding into my area of expertise, but they had been looking to poach. The recruiter told me that the first step will be a test to determine if I can program so I told them I am not interested without even trying to negotiate out of it.
    - cutemonster 6y ago
      > a test to determine if I can program so I told them I am not interested It seems you don't enjoy coding?
      - pandaman 6y ago
        No, not writing code per se.
  - GordonS 6y ago
    You need to try to see it from the hirer's perspective too. I don't interview much these days, but I spent several years of my career sifting through CVs and interviewing candidates. The number of candidates with seemingly impressive CVs and apparent several years of experience, yet whom basically couldn't code, was shockingly high. And when I say "couldn't code", I'm talking "couldn't even fizz-buzz" levels of incompetence. The fact is that there are many devs out there who coast through jobs, while all the time it's their colleagues who are doing all the work. I wasted, many, many hours of my life before realising that it was pointless interviewing candidates that couldn't code - asking them to perform a sort of gatekeeper test improved things immensely. So it might seem insulting to have to perform these entry tests, but unless you already have code publicly available (e.g. on GitHub), you shouldn't take it personally.

justinlloyd 6y ago

This past week one of the companies on "who's hiring" sent me three challenges that "would only take 2 hours" before I ever got to talk to a human being or even got a human being responding with an email. This was a fully automated system apparently. "Take this programming test, we'll let you know if you're good enough to talk with a human." Whilst the challenges were not particularly complex, you also had to ensure that the person who was going to run your code could stand up your environment, so part of the second challenge was "thoroughly document how to run your code, the environment needed, etc, etc." Life is too short to deal with this kind of stonewalling.

collyw 6y ago
We (the whole developer community) really need to stop responding to such companies. I did one recently after the initial HR person chat. I spent a morning on it as they suggested 2 or 3 hours. But then I was rejected for the most pedantic reasons (2 white space PEP violations), not setting up mocks for testing (that would have doubled the scope of the project). Providing an HTML response rather than JSON when the spec asked for a "page, don't bother about styling". And various other trivialities. I tried passing on my complaints, but the HR girls didn't like that. Pretty disrespectful after giving up a morning of my free time. Sennder is the company, as I feel that we should be naming and shaming.
- VonGallifrey 6y ago
  I just completed this exact challenge (Yes, for Sennder) and I think their challenge is fine. It is not really difficult or takes much time at all. They didn't seem too strict in their review and I was able to discuss some of the "mistakes" and choices I made in the tech interview. Including some PEP8 violations. Despite these mistakes I passed the tech interview just fine and I just have the CTO interview left. I don't see how mocks would have doubled the scope of the project. I think I have mocks set up in a few lines of code or so. If your project is so difficult to test or if it is difficult to set up mocks for it maybe there is a serious flaw in your project structure? > Providing an HTML response rather than JSON when the spec asked for a "page, don't bother about styling". I don't understand what you mean with this. Did you provide a HTML response or did you provide JSON? I did a super simple HTML response with no styling and that was fine. If you did JSON I could see how they would mark it as a mistake when they clearly asked for a HTML page.
  - collyw 6y ago
    They did say that they were planning on changing it so maybe you got a different one. I gave them HTML, and they claimed that "JSON would have been better" despite the specification asking for a "page" with "no need for styling".
- caymanjim 6y ago
  It sounds like your submission was unrefined, maybe amateur. That's what tests like this are for. Referring to "the HR girls" isn't winning you any points either, and makes me wonder what kind of attitude you displayed to the people involved.
  - collyw 6y ago
    Not as amateur as the spec.
wildrhythms 6y ago
I turned down an offer from a direct competitor company because they tried to funnel me through an automated programming "test". I told them I have years of experience at their competing company whose hiring bar is notoriously high, and they still demanded I take their weird test. The company was Goldman Sachs. Name and shame.
- pandaman 6y ago
  I had similar experience with Facebook, not directly competing as they are just expanding into my area of expertise, but they had been looking to poach. The recruiter told me that the first step will be a test to determine if I can program so I told them I am not interested without even trying to negotiate out of it.
  - cutemonster 6y ago
    > a test to determine if I can program so I told them I am not interested It seems you don't enjoy coding?
    - pandaman 6y ago
      No, not writing code per se.
- GordonS 6y ago
  You need to try to see it from the hirer's perspective too. I don't interview much these days, but I spent several years of my career sifting through CVs and interviewing candidates. The number of candidates with seemingly impressive CVs and apparent several years of experience, yet whom basically couldn't code, was shockingly high. And when I say "couldn't code", I'm talking "couldn't even fizz-buzz" levels of incompetence. The fact is that there are many devs out there who coast through jobs, while all the time it's their colleagues who are doing all the work. I wasted, many, many hours of my life before realising that it was pointless interviewing candidates that couldn't code - asking them to perform a sort of gatekeeper test improved things immensely. So it might seem insulting to have to perform these entry tests, but unless you already have code publicly available (e.g. on GitHub), you shouldn't take it personally.