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A quick chat with HR followed by a "coding challenge" for free. I just had a recruitment consultant tell me that my perspective might be wrong for not wanting

by collyw 4y ago

A quick chat with HR followed by a "coding challenge" for free. I just had a recruitment consultant tell me that my perspective might be wrong for not wanting to do it. He had 70 people in his pipeline for 25 jobs. So I do half a days worth of work for free and I have approx 2 - 1 chance that I don't get the job.

donatj 4y ago
It’s been ten years and I am still mad at Facebook. Post phone interview on Friday I was given a code challenge to complete over the weekend. When I submitted it on Monday I received a response immediately “The team has reviewed your resume and decided to not move forward. We will not be reviewing your code challenge. Feel free to apply again in one year.” I spent my whole weekend on it, it was shined and buffed and you could have at least glanced at it. Or at the very least lied to me.
- dmos62 4y ago
  > Or at the very least lied to me. It sucks that they requested work from you that was not necessary, but would you really prefer that they lied about it? I'd say they mismanaged the situation, but at least were honest about it.
  - donatj 4y ago
    Absolutely. If they had told me that the code was total garbage in a snide tone followed by derogatory remarks about my mother, I would be over it by now. I am a very forgiving person. Having me do two days of work and immediately throwing it in the trash without even glancing at it is the far worse insult.
- hppb 4y ago
  That just sounds like an attempt to save both of you time (elapsed time, from interview to offer, not time spent) in case your phone interview did do well. After the phone interview, somebody needs to write it up, a hiring committee needs to look at it, and then they can decide whether to move forward or not. If they give you the challenge after that it's easily another week. Frankly I am surprised they gave you a full response on Monday after a phone interview Friday, that's actually quite fast given all the steps and people involved.
  - donatj 4y ago
    I went and looked up the emails. I submitted my code challenge at 9:45pm on Sunday central time and received the response at 2:18am Monday. Couple hours, and a strange time to get a response. I suspect the recruiter was not US based. Given that the job was supposed to be west coast based, I have to imagine they’d made their decision on Friday.
    - cvhashim 4y ago
      Probably an auto rejection.
  - darkerside 4y ago
    Would've been courteous to get a decision back to the candidate on Friday. Somebody didn't care enough.
- collyw 4y ago
  I have been burned like that before.One time it was probably a days worth of work, but split over evenings of my free time took longer, so I didn't finish it. Another time it was as if some junior developer was circle jerking. Whining about the most trivial things (a couple of whitespace errors in Pylint, not returning JSON when they had requested a "page without styling", Not adding a setup.py, when they didn't ask for it. )
- teeray 4y ago
  > I spent my whole weekend on it, it was shined and buffed and you could have at least glanced at it. Or at the very least lied to me. This is why coding challenges are an immediate dealbreaker for me these days. If I’m going to do a project to showcase my skills, you can be sure I’m going to put my all into it. Getting ghosted after that is insulting beyond words. Put me in an interview setting and I at least know that it’s time-boxed and the interviewer is losing just as much time as I am.
throwawaylala1 4y ago
Do your thing I guess. The results will speak for themselves. Just know that even in the mid-2000s (when the market was red hot) there were all sorts of hurdles you'd have to go through to get a good gig. A lot of that involved doing work "for free". A little hustle pays dividends long term. It's much worse in other industries.
- giantg2 4y ago
  "A little hustle pays dividends long term." Only if you're lucky too. Hustle by itself means nothing.
  - throwawaylala1 4y ago
    You're not wrong, but there is a large spectrum of success out there. It's not like you get only "one shot, one opportunity" (Eminem) or nothing. Yes there's also a spectrum of the work/reward ratio and sometimes it's skewed in a crappy way. For some people it's too easy and for some people it's too hard Point is that reaching upper middle class and higher is totally feasible no matter your walk of life as long as you keep the hustle going. Success could only happen in one's late 30s though. (There are of course overriding factors like having an abusive childhood or something like that. Systematic discrimination plays a big part too. But that's outside the scope of this particular thread)
    - giantg2 4y ago
      "Point is that reaching upper middle class and higher is totally feasible no matter your walk of life as long as you keep the hustle going." It's also unlikely, even just looking at it statistically.
      - abrichr 4y ago
        Perhaps it's only unlikely because most people give up, and if you don't give up, it's much more likely.
onion2k 4y ago
The reward is a pay increase (hopefully) and a delightful 6 months before you realize the new job has the same problems as the old job, then 18 months of stress while you try to change things, and then you get to do it all again. What's not to love about a system like that?
mytailorisrich 4y ago
Looking for a job means doing 'work' potentially for nothing. You have to apply, sit interviews, sit tests, etc. Investing half a day before a decision is very reasonable.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  Coding and tech hiring challenges are far longer than half a day nowadays. Some are even up to two weeks. I much prefer an hour of whiteboarding grilling than wasting an entire week on open ended problems full of fluff.
  - mytailorisrich 4y ago
    Person I'm replying to said half a day, hence my reply that this is actually pretty good! That being said, I've never had coding tests for more than a few hours.
    - krm01 4y ago
      More than a few hours seems pretty extreme.
jriot 4y ago
FanDuel sent me test (data science) before I talked with anyone. I'll admit the questions appeared aligned with the work and would be interesting. But I am not taking a test before talking with anyone.

by collyw 4y ago

donatj 4y ago

It’s been ten years and I am still mad at Facebook. Post phone interview on Friday I was given a code challenge to complete over the weekend. When I submitted it on Monday I received a response immediately “The team has reviewed your resume and decided to not move forward. We will not be reviewing your code challenge. Feel free to apply again in one year.” I spent my whole weekend on it, it was shined and buffed and you could have at least glanced at it. Or at the very least lied to me.

dmos62 4y ago
> Or at the very least lied to me. It sucks that they requested work from you that was not necessary, but would you really prefer that they lied about it? I'd say they mismanaged the situation, but at least were honest about it.
- donatj 4y ago
  Absolutely. If they had told me that the code was total garbage in a snide tone followed by derogatory remarks about my mother, I would be over it by now. I am a very forgiving person. Having me do two days of work and immediately throwing it in the trash without even glancing at it is the far worse insult.
hppb 4y ago
That just sounds like an attempt to save both of you time (elapsed time, from interview to offer, not time spent) in case your phone interview did do well. After the phone interview, somebody needs to write it up, a hiring committee needs to look at it, and then they can decide whether to move forward or not. If they give you the challenge after that it's easily another week. Frankly I am surprised they gave you a full response on Monday after a phone interview Friday, that's actually quite fast given all the steps and people involved.
- donatj 4y ago
  I went and looked up the emails. I submitted my code challenge at 9:45pm on Sunday central time and received the response at 2:18am Monday. Couple hours, and a strange time to get a response. I suspect the recruiter was not US based. Given that the job was supposed to be west coast based, I have to imagine they’d made their decision on Friday.
  - cvhashim 4y ago
    Probably an auto rejection.
- darkerside 4y ago
  Would've been courteous to get a decision back to the candidate on Friday. Somebody didn't care enough.
collyw 4y ago
I have been burned like that before.One time it was probably a days worth of work, but split over evenings of my free time took longer, so I didn't finish it. Another time it was as if some junior developer was circle jerking. Whining about the most trivial things (a couple of whitespace errors in Pylint, not returning JSON when they had requested a "page without styling", Not adding a setup.py, when they didn't ask for it. )
teeray 4y ago
> I spent my whole weekend on it, it was shined and buffed and you could have at least glanced at it. Or at the very least lied to me. This is why coding challenges are an immediate dealbreaker for me these days. If I’m going to do a project to showcase my skills, you can be sure I’m going to put my all into it. Getting ghosted after that is insulting beyond words. Put me in an interview setting and I at least know that it’s time-boxed and the interviewer is losing just as much time as I am.

throwawaylala1 4y ago

Do your thing I guess. The results will speak for themselves. Just know that even in the mid-2000s (when the market was red hot) there were all sorts of hurdles you'd have to go through to get a good gig. A lot of that involved doing work "for free". A little hustle pays dividends long term. It's much worse in other industries.

giantg2 4y ago
"A little hustle pays dividends long term." Only if you're lucky too. Hustle by itself means nothing.
- throwawaylala1 4y ago
  You're not wrong, but there is a large spectrum of success out there. It's not like you get only "one shot, one opportunity" (Eminem) or nothing. Yes there's also a spectrum of the work/reward ratio and sometimes it's skewed in a crappy way. For some people it's too easy and for some people it's too hard Point is that reaching upper middle class and higher is totally feasible no matter your walk of life as long as you keep the hustle going. Success could only happen in one's late 30s though. (There are of course overriding factors like having an abusive childhood or something like that. Systematic discrimination plays a big part too. But that's outside the scope of this particular thread)
  - giantg2 4y ago
    "Point is that reaching upper middle class and higher is totally feasible no matter your walk of life as long as you keep the hustle going." It's also unlikely, even just looking at it statistically.
    - abrichr 4y ago
      Perhaps it's only unlikely because most people give up, and if you don't give up, it's much more likely.

onion2k 4y ago

The reward is a pay increase (hopefully) and a delightful 6 months before you realize the new job has the same problems as the old job, then 18 months of stress while you try to change things, and then you get to do it all again. What's not to love about a system like that?

mytailorisrich 4y ago

Looking for a job means doing 'work' potentially for nothing. You have to apply, sit interviews, sit tests, etc. Investing half a day before a decision is very reasonable.

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
Coding and tech hiring challenges are far longer than half a day nowadays. Some are even up to two weeks. I much prefer an hour of whiteboarding grilling than wasting an entire week on open ended problems full of fluff.
- mytailorisrich 4y ago
  Person I'm replying to said half a day, hence my reply that this is actually pretty good! That being said, I've never had coding tests for more than a few hours.
  - krm01 4y ago
    More than a few hours seems pretty extreme.

jriot 4y ago

FanDuel sent me test (data science) before I talked with anyone. I'll admit the questions appeared aligned with the work and would be interesting. But I am not taking a test before talking with anyone.