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My employer deals with this by compensating candidates for their time. Y'know... with money. We also don't give them our actual problems as homework tasks. We'

My employer deals with this by compensating candidates for their time. Y'know... with money. We also don't give them our actual problems as homework tasks. We'll occasionally talk about our real problems with candidates in interviews, but we're very clear about it when we do. It's not a perfect system. Some candidates will choose to spend longer on the task so that in the follow-up interview they'll have the opportunity to talk about stuff that really shows off their strengths, so their effective hourly compensation for doing it would be quite low. The task is explicitly flexible like this, and we've also hired people who spent _half_ the par time on it (e.g. life circumstances making spare hours hard to come by) and didn't implement much at all, but then were able to confidently answer our questions about the bits they didn't actually implement. Even if we were to only hire 1 out of every 15 people who get far enough through the pipeline to do the homework task (I don't recall the actual numbers) it costs us _nothing_ to compensate people for their time compared to, e.g., what it would cost us to make a bad hire. So it seems like an obvious thing to do even if only to stop candidates from having to wonder "am I getting screwed here?"

dotBen 6y ago
Doesn't this discriminates against people who are on visas who can't accept remuneration from anyone other than their current employers..? They then either have to do the same project for free or decline to continue the interview process.
- simlevesque 6y ago
  Paying someone for their work isn't discrimination. It never is. The visa process may be flawed, but putting the blame on the employer is... weird.
- smabie 6y ago
  or they can just take the money anyways and no one will know. besides, you can accept a gift in btc
- johannes1234321 6y ago
  Not only visa, but also while employed one often can't simply be paid by a "competitor" for similar work, that would break the loyality to the current employer which is mandated by contract law and general low.
codysan 6y ago
This is always, always the answer. It's not only the decent thing to do, it ensures you'll get an accurate representation of the quality of the prospective employee's work.
kasey_junk 6y ago
Nearly every worker in the US is covered by an employment agreement that says they have to get pre-approval for moonlighting. It may or may not be legal in their jurisdiction but by paying people to do your interview process you potentially open them up to bad liabilities. That said it is completely unethical to make people do real work as part of an interview process. We collectively should name and shame any firm that does that.
- pacman2 6y ago
  I did do analytical "sample" work for a company that took me two weeks. They were thankful for the work but did not hire me. I published it on my website and they were not very amused. Agilent is not great either. They interviewed me for 6 month and implemented some of my ideas. (In fact, I got the job, out of 500 applicants, but then they axed the job and hired nobody)
- nocman 6y ago
  "Nearly every worker in the US is covered by an employment agreement that says they have to get pre-approval for moonlighting." This is not true. I've can think of one employer my entire career that had conditions regarding work outside of my normal work hours. Granted, if you worked for your competetors and they found out about it you could be fired due to trade secrets or conflicts of interest. I only remember one employer I had where I signed something with binding agreements related to other work (and, as it happens, that was perhaps the worst employer I ever had). I know some employers in some regions do this, but it is a far cry from affecting "nearly every worker in the US". In fact, I am not aware of any of my friends in tech positions currently being under such an agreement (that is, an agreement requiring pre-approval for outside work). In fact I believe it is illegal under many circumstances in some states for an employer to require it (but don't rely on me for that, conditions/laws change, and I have had no reason to look into it recently). I do remember discussions about it in the not too distant past, however.
  - jldugger 6y ago
    It was definitely part of the agreement when I worked in Univerisity IT, and part of the agreement when I accepted an offer from a FAANG company. The language you're looking for in the contract is 'preponderance of time'.
teeray 6y ago
One downside is that to do this properly, you probably should be sending out 1099s for all of those candidates. Depending on the number of open reqs out there, your payroll department may be less than thrilled with this idea. I’ve seen some teams that have tried to sidestep this by paying in gift cards, but that sure does seem to be playing with fire.
- SkyPuncher 6y ago
  You are not required to file a 1099 if the payment is less than $600. Even then, I can't imagine it's that hard to send out an additional 1099 if needed. [0] https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/am-i-required-to-file-a-form-1099-or-other-information-return https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employe...
stjohnswarts 6y ago
This seems reasonable. I've never been offered anything like that. It would be minimum $1000 a day.

dotBen 6y ago

Doesn't this discriminates against people who are on visas who can't accept remuneration from anyone other than their current employers..? They then either have to do the same project for free or decline to continue the interview process.

simlevesque 6y ago
Paying someone for their work isn't discrimination. It never is. The visa process may be flawed, but putting the blame on the employer is... weird.
smabie 6y ago
or they can just take the money anyways and no one will know. besides, you can accept a gift in btc
johannes1234321 6y ago
Not only visa, but also while employed one often can't simply be paid by a "competitor" for similar work, that would break the loyality to the current employer which is mandated by contract law and general low.

codysan 6y ago

This is always, always the answer. It's not only the decent thing to do, it ensures you'll get an accurate representation of the quality of the prospective employee's work.

kasey_junk 6y ago

Nearly every worker in the US is covered by an employment agreement that says they have to get pre-approval for moonlighting. It may or may not be legal in their jurisdiction but by paying people to do your interview process you potentially open them up to bad liabilities. That said it is completely unethical to make people do real work as part of an interview process. We collectively should name and shame any firm that does that.

pacman2 6y ago
I did do analytical "sample" work for a company that took me two weeks. They were thankful for the work but did not hire me. I published it on my website and they were not very amused. Agilent is not great either. They interviewed me for 6 month and implemented some of my ideas. (In fact, I got the job, out of 500 applicants, but then they axed the job and hired nobody)
nocman 6y ago
"Nearly every worker in the US is covered by an employment agreement that says they have to get pre-approval for moonlighting." This is not true. I've can think of one employer my entire career that had conditions regarding work outside of my normal work hours. Granted, if you worked for your competetors and they found out about it you could be fired due to trade secrets or conflicts of interest. I only remember one employer I had where I signed something with binding agreements related to other work (and, as it happens, that was perhaps the worst employer I ever had). I know some employers in some regions do this, but it is a far cry from affecting "nearly every worker in the US". In fact, I am not aware of any of my friends in tech positions currently being under such an agreement (that is, an agreement requiring pre-approval for outside work). In fact I believe it is illegal under many circumstances in some states for an employer to require it (but don't rely on me for that, conditions/laws change, and I have had no reason to look into it recently). I do remember discussions about it in the not too distant past, however.
- jldugger 6y ago
  It was definitely part of the agreement when I worked in Univerisity IT, and part of the agreement when I accepted an offer from a FAANG company. The language you're looking for in the contract is 'preponderance of time'.

teeray 6y ago

One downside is that to do this properly, you probably should be sending out 1099s for all of those candidates. Depending on the number of open reqs out there, your payroll department may be less than thrilled with this idea. I’ve seen some teams that have tried to sidestep this by paying in gift cards, but that sure does seem to be playing with fire.

SkyPuncher 6y ago
You are not required to file a 1099 if the payment is less than $600. Even then, I can't imagine it's that hard to send out an additional 1099 if needed. [0] https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/am-i-required-to-file-a-form-1099-or-other-information-return https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employe...

stjohnswarts 6y ago

This seems reasonable. I've never been offered anything like that. It would be minimum $1000 a day.