4 ms·

At the cost of 3 hours of the candidate's time (on top of all the other time demands, and to some extent necessarily irritating artificiality of the rest of the

At the cost of 3 hours of the candidate's time (on top of all the other time demands, and to some extent necessarily irritating artificiality of the rest of the interview process). Let's just hope the total compensation offered is in line with these demands, then.

db48x 5y ago
A lot of commenters have gotten hung up on the three hours, which I think is pretty funny. As explained elsewhere, it was really just one hour and most candidates did the work in half that. I think that this question fits nicely into a standard interview process, where a candidate spends half a day on site (or in video conference) meeting the team and doing interviews with several people.
- akhmatova 5y ago
  Because anyone who has a different point of view about things must be... just all hung up about something or other. Bottom line is -- if you tell a candidate "this could take up to 3 hours of your time" -- then boom, right there, you've asked them to carve 3 hours out of their life (away from their spouse who may be chronically ill, or who knows what else they might have going), in addition to the all the other hours they need to invest in your process before you can begin to take them seriously. If that's your process, fine -- just be up front please, and own up to it.
  - db48x 5y ago
    I think you misunderstood. Regardless of what the blog post said, this was a one–hour exercise, not a three–hour project. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31065845 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31065845 I agree with you that interviews which incorporate a larger project that takes multiple hours are usually a waste of time. Usually the project turns out to be too unfocused and too subjectively judged to provide useful information about the candidates. I spent four hours on one once where the only feedback I got was that my solution “wasn’t object oriented enough.”
    - akhmatova 5y ago
      Fair enough - thanks for clarifying.

db48x 5y ago

A lot of commenters have gotten hung up on the three hours, which I think is pretty funny. As explained elsewhere, it was really just one hour and most candidates did the work in half that. I think that this question fits nicely into a standard interview process, where a candidate spends half a day on site (or in video conference) meeting the team and doing interviews with several people.

akhmatova 5y ago
Because anyone who has a different point of view about things must be... just all hung up about something or other. Bottom line is -- if you tell a candidate "this could take up to 3 hours of your time" -- then boom, right there, you've asked them to carve 3 hours out of their life (away from their spouse who may be chronically ill, or who knows what else they might have going), in addition to the all the other hours they need to invest in your process before you can begin to take them seriously. If that's your process, fine -- just be up front please, and own up to it.
- db48x 5y ago
  I think you misunderstood. Regardless of what the blog post said, this was a one–hour exercise, not a three–hour project. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31065845 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31065845 I agree with you that interviews which incorporate a larger project that takes multiple hours are usually a waste of time. Usually the project turns out to be too unfocused and too subjectively judged to provide useful information about the candidates. I spent four hours on one once where the only feedback I got was that my solution “wasn’t object oriented enough.”
  - akhmatova 5y ago
    Fair enough - thanks for clarifying.