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> The value of the ‘free work’ to the company is the same as the value it has to you Absolutely none? I somehow doubt that, otherwise only the most incompetent
by luord 6y ago
> The value of the ‘free work’ to the company is the same as the value it has to you
Absolutely none? I somehow doubt that, otherwise only the most incompetently run companies would still ask for that kind of commitment during the process and... Actually, you might have a point. I certainly have rarely liked work in companies that demanded free work from me during the hiring process. That might be one of the reasons why I haven't done an unpaid take home test in a long time.
> But the idea that the company is getting you to do work for its value outside of the interview process just seems
So the company isn't getting the candidate to work for free because it isn't getting value... If we ignore the value it gets from the interview process itself.
Providing some company a service so that it can make a decision on how it operates sounds like work to me.
On another note, this doesn't take into account that pointless busywork is still work.
- carmen_sandiego 6y agoI don’t recall ever saying it wasn’t work, so I’m not sure why you’ve taken the discussion in that direction. It is work, it’s just not the cynical exploitation that’s being implied. The intent is that both employer and candidate mutually benefit from it. Evaluating the output of these assignments is also work given for your mutual benefit, and it’s typically seen by multiple people, which makes it a non-trivial amount. Both sides do speculative work for the evaluation stage, in that sense.
- throwaway2245 6y agoPrimarily, the employer benefits - which is particularly evident in this case. They can ask the applicant to do the work to prove themselves, with the pretence of an available job, and don't even have to consider the result of that work. This scenario lays bare that the employer has all the power in the situation.