4 ms·

Probably very controversial opinion, but so far, my favorite type of interviews have actually been take-home problems. Of course, it sucks if you've invested t

Probably very controversial opinion, but so far, my favorite type of interviews have actually been take-home problems. Of course, it sucks if you've invested time into those, and get ghosted afterwards - but luckily I have yet to experience that. Some people excel on taking test, some people excel on projects, others in both - I've personally never been the type to perform well on banging out code on whiteboards, but I will perform well on projects. edit: Let me expand a bit on this All my take-home problems have been very reasonable. Usually they've been more big-picture / architecture oriented, and not some specific implementation - some coding, some presentation, usually takes 2-6 hours to complete, depending on how much you put into it. It is of course unfortunate if someone decides to code up something for a whole weekend, like 20-30 hours, only to get ghosted or similar. I guess it comes down to identifying free work from actual interview problems.

SteveNuts 5y ago
Not controversial so long as they pay you for your time. This should be standard practice IMO
- amelius 5y ago
  Perhaps both parties should pay, i.e. 50/50.
  - lokimedes 5y ago
    Well it is a single-sided risk reduction strategy. The candidate presumably is convinced that she can fulfill the role regardless of the test.
    - quickthrower2 5y ago
      Then does the candidate pay for the part of the time spent explaining the company and role?
- andrewingram 5y ago
  Personally I don't find making my tax situation more complicated doesn't help with the stress of job applications. I did a work trial last year and it added a whole new layer of anxiety about figuring out how i'm supposed to declare ad-hoc income (which in this case was foreign, making it even more complicated). If you're used to something like the UK's PAYE system, being paid for interviewing is far from a no-brainer.
  - quickthrower2 5y ago
    Offering a “or we give it to charity” option would have helped I’m guessing.
    - andrewingram 5y ago
      In this case, given the choice, i'd just have opted to do a few more interviews rather than investing a week in a work trial. I was burning through my savings due to being unemployed for ages, so exchanging a week of my time for a charitable donation wasn't really on the cards -- i've no doubt they would have done that if i'd asked. Not to mention that I now consider mandatory work trials to be an unethical practice. The stress of an interview, but stretched to last an entire week. A week where you feel you can't make any mistakes. I'll never do another one, it's not worth it.
      - quickthrower2 5y ago
        Sorry I misunderstood or misread. For a weeks work you definitely want to be paid! I’d view a week trial as a knee jerk “skip this opportunity” signal.
  - milesvp 5y ago
    The fundamental problem with take homes is that they produce a huge asymmetry in the cost of interviewing. The company can waste hours of random people's time without having to spend a single minute on them. So while I understand that paying someone for a take home complicates things for some individuals, some kind of contractual agreement that the company will reciprocate some amount of good faith effort is necessary to avoid abuse. Payment is basically a proof of work, and money deposited in my account is a sure way I know of that a company expended some resource on my part. I'd say that even just offering to pay standard contract rates would make me more likely to actually do a take home.
- jayd16 5y ago
  Do they pay you on how well they grade you or do they pay a flat amount? Either they grade you at 0 and still hire you or I can make some extra cash turning in a bunch of empty applications.
decafninja 5y ago
The other big problem with homework is that they are most often used in addition to the leetcode round, not instead of. So double the fun!
pydry 5y ago
I've only ever had bad experiences. * Here's a problem that takes 6 hours now do it in two. * Ghosted * Bizarre feedback that suggests they mixed me up with a different candidate. * Emailed while I'm half way through the task to let me know that the position has been filled. * We aren't prepared to spend 5 minutes looking at your portfolio to see if you can code to a base level but please do our take home problem that takes an hour and a half to prove that you can code to a base level.
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marcinzm 5y ago
The problem with take home interviews as I see it is that it costs the candidate X time and the company roughly 0 time. This incentives companies to give them to anyone and everyone. So you may be considered a marginal candidate who has little chance of passing unless you prove to be an utter genius in the take home. With in person interviews you'd just get rejected but with a take home they have nothing to lose by giving it to you. So it's a system that can work when few companies do it but utterly implodes at scale.
- akvadrako 5y ago
  I've had some take home interview assignments that were paid at my freelancing rate. In my opinion that's win-win; the company has the right incentives and also saves engineering time since interviews are shorter while in the worst case the candidate made a little money on the side.
jordache 5y ago
>takes 2-6 hours to complete screw that
juancn 5y ago
At my company, we usually do the more in-person interview, but if we suspect you have potential and your performance is negatively impacted by the stress of the interview process, we propose a project interview to wrap up the decision. Since it's more time consuming we don't offer it up front, most people don't like them, but it's a useful tool to have to size up a candidate. The post-project debrief provides a lot of information on how you think and how you work, the end result is not expected to be perfect, or even complete, as long as the approach is reasonable and we can picture if the person-team fit is there.

SteveNuts 5y ago

Not controversial so long as they pay you for your time. This should be standard practice IMO

amelius 5y ago
Perhaps both parties should pay, i.e. 50/50.
- lokimedes 5y ago
  Well it is a single-sided risk reduction strategy. The candidate presumably is convinced that she can fulfill the role regardless of the test.
  - quickthrower2 5y ago
    Then does the candidate pay for the part of the time spent explaining the company and role?
andrewingram 5y ago
Personally I don't find making my tax situation more complicated doesn't help with the stress of job applications. I did a work trial last year and it added a whole new layer of anxiety about figuring out how i'm supposed to declare ad-hoc income (which in this case was foreign, making it even more complicated). If you're used to something like the UK's PAYE system, being paid for interviewing is far from a no-brainer.
- quickthrower2 5y ago
  Offering a “or we give it to charity” option would have helped I’m guessing.
  - andrewingram 5y ago
    In this case, given the choice, i'd just have opted to do a few more interviews rather than investing a week in a work trial. I was burning through my savings due to being unemployed for ages, so exchanging a week of my time for a charitable donation wasn't really on the cards -- i've no doubt they would have done that if i'd asked. Not to mention that I now consider mandatory work trials to be an unethical practice. The stress of an interview, but stretched to last an entire week. A week where you feel you can't make any mistakes. I'll never do another one, it's not worth it.
    - quickthrower2 5y ago
      Sorry I misunderstood or misread. For a weeks work you definitely want to be paid! I’d view a week trial as a knee jerk “skip this opportunity” signal.
- milesvp 5y ago
  The fundamental problem with take homes is that they produce a huge asymmetry in the cost of interviewing. The company can waste hours of random people's time without having to spend a single minute on them. So while I understand that paying someone for a take home complicates things for some individuals, some kind of contractual agreement that the company will reciprocate some amount of good faith effort is necessary to avoid abuse. Payment is basically a proof of work, and money deposited in my account is a sure way I know of that a company expended some resource on my part. I'd say that even just offering to pay standard contract rates would make me more likely to actually do a take home.
jayd16 5y ago
Do they pay you on how well they grade you or do they pay a flat amount? Either they grade you at 0 and still hire you or I can make some extra cash turning in a bunch of empty applications.

decafninja 5y ago

The other big problem with homework is that they are most often used in addition to the leetcode round, not instead of. So double the fun!

pydry 5y ago

I've only ever had bad experiences. * Here's a problem that takes 6 hours now do it in two. * Ghosted * Bizarre feedback that suggests they mixed me up with a different candidate. * Emailed while I'm half way through the task to let me know that the position has been filled. * We aren't prepared to spend 5 minutes looking at your portfolio to see if you can code to a base level but please do our take home problem that takes an hour and a half to prove that you can code to a base level.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

marcinzm 5y ago

The problem with take home interviews as I see it is that it costs the candidate X time and the company roughly 0 time. This incentives companies to give them to anyone and everyone. So you may be considered a marginal candidate who has little chance of passing unless you prove to be an utter genius in the take home. With in person interviews you'd just get rejected but with a take home they have nothing to lose by giving it to you. So it's a system that can work when few companies do it but utterly implodes at scale.

akvadrako 5y ago
I've had some take home interview assignments that were paid at my freelancing rate. In my opinion that's win-win; the company has the right incentives and also saves engineering time since interviews are shorter while in the worst case the candidate made a little money on the side.

jordache 5y ago

>takes 2-6 hours to complete screw that

juancn 5y ago

At my company, we usually do the more in-person interview, but if we suspect you have potential and your performance is negatively impacted by the stress of the interview process, we propose a project interview to wrap up the decision. Since it's more time consuming we don't offer it up front, most people don't like them, but it's a useful tool to have to size up a candidate. The post-project debrief provides a lot of information on how you think and how you work, the end result is not expected to be perfect, or even complete, as long as the approach is reasonable and we can picture if the person-team fit is there.