32 ms·

Good approach but can't imagine doing a take home unless it was paid.

endtime 4y ago
I've never been asked to do a take home interview assignment, but I actually have the opposite attitude. I would much rather spend a few hours putting together that I feel good about than spend 10x the time cramming interview prep.
- andrewingram 4y ago
  I did one that was time limited (2 hours, automatically timed and enforced). The exercise wasn't hard, but it did have some tedious quirks which meant I wasted quite a bit of time. But I thought "fine, I can jump through this 2 hour hoop". After I submitted it, it turned out there were some previously undisclosed extra steps where I had to record videos doing the kind of things i'd expect to do in an actual interview (talk through my solution, and talk about a project I'm proud of). I immediately lost interest.
- noirbot 4y ago
  Or, you know, you don't cram for the interview and just do as well as you can and let them evaluate on that. If you give me a meaningless take-home assignment, I have to actually write working code for it that looks good. If there's a trivial problem in an in-person interview, I can often "blah blah blah" through the more rote parts unless they really ask for details. There's no wiggle room on a take-home. The code you write either does the thing or it doesn't. If you don't remember the exact way to do something in an in-person interview, you can express your general understanding to the interviewer and probably get some/all the credit of actually knowing it.
  - endtime 4y ago
    > Or, you know, you don't cram for the interview and just do as well as you can and let them evaluate on that. Sure, depends how much you want the job and what your general approach is. If it's a competitive job then you want to optimize for the interviews. Last time I interviewed, the potential impact on my income and net worth over the next decade was significant, so I took it pretty seriously.
    - noirbot 4y ago
      Oh sure, but then as the interviewer, your take-home is also likely to be gamed by someone cramming for that too. Motivated people can always do too much work for a project. Whether it's a live coding thing, a take home exam, or a whiteboard problem, none of them really give a solution where someone isn't going to spend 100 hours prepping.
- intelVISA 4y ago
  I prefer a take home over some LC as you can learn a lot more by seeing somebody's repo, tests, code, etc. than their rote ver of reversing a linked list ...but LC is cheap, a take home that respects the developer's time isn't.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
gsibble 4y ago
If the person requests it, we pay for interview time as long as the hourly is reasonable. Not a problem. The real question I have for you is, how would you prefer to prove to me you can actually do the job? In person coding exercise? Isn't that more stressful?
- andrewingram 4y ago
  How long do your take home exercises take? I've always conducted interviews where I've given system design questions, and data modelling questions. Never found that coding exercises give good enough signal to justify the time investment on either side. If you want to catch someone in lie, i.e. they can't code at all, just give them something of fizzbuzz-level difficulty as a basic filter.
  - gsibble 4y ago
    Depends upon how much proof I think I need to see. Both min/max are an hour but you can spend as long as you'd like on some. We take fun problems (github challenge projects I've spent days on just for fun) and give them as tests. We ask you just to spend as much time as you want to give us a sense that you can actually code and give us a sense of your coding style. We're mostly looking that you can 1) actually solve problems 2) write legible code 3) write maintainable code. We don't give out dumb, tedious quizzes or anything. These are actual projects written to be fun. We don't get many/any complaints. We also give out the coding test very late in the interview cycle. I'd say we hire 80% of the people we give tests to. We already have a pretty good idea you'll be a good fit by that point. So we're not wasting your time.
- intelVISA 4y ago
  No issue with take home approach, I think it's incredibly valuable if done in a manner that respects everybody's time. Personally I'd probably do some sort of FizzBuzz/LC easy type low filter and then a fast (i.e. no compiled langs) take home in an area adjacent to the job description paid at said job's rate with a time expectation so you don't end up getting billed 20hrs for a Node RESTful API.

I've never been asked to do a take home interview assignment, but I actually have the opposite attitude. I would much rather spend a few hours putting together that I feel good about than spend 10x the time cramming interview prep.

andrewingram 4y ago
I did one that was time limited (2 hours, automatically timed and enforced). The exercise wasn't hard, but it did have some tedious quirks which meant I wasted quite a bit of time. But I thought "fine, I can jump through this 2 hour hoop". After I submitted it, it turned out there were some previously undisclosed extra steps where I had to record videos doing the kind of things i'd expect to do in an actual interview (talk through my solution, and talk about a project I'm proud of). I immediately lost interest.
noirbot 4y ago
Or, you know, you don't cram for the interview and just do as well as you can and let them evaluate on that. If you give me a meaningless take-home assignment, I have to actually write working code for it that looks good. If there's a trivial problem in an in-person interview, I can often "blah blah blah" through the more rote parts unless they really ask for details. There's no wiggle room on a take-home. The code you write either does the thing or it doesn't. If you don't remember the exact way to do something in an in-person interview, you can express your general understanding to the interviewer and probably get some/all the credit of actually knowing it.
- endtime 4y ago
  > Or, you know, you don't cram for the interview and just do as well as you can and let them evaluate on that. Sure, depends how much you want the job and what your general approach is. If it's a competitive job then you want to optimize for the interviews. Last time I interviewed, the potential impact on my income and net worth over the next decade was significant, so I took it pretty seriously.
  - noirbot 4y ago
    Oh sure, but then as the interviewer, your take-home is also likely to be gamed by someone cramming for that too. Motivated people can always do too much work for a project. Whether it's a live coding thing, a take home exam, or a whiteboard problem, none of them really give a solution where someone isn't going to spend 100 hours prepping.
intelVISA 4y ago
I prefer a take home over some LC as you can learn a lot more by seeing somebody's repo, tests, code, etc. than their rote ver of reversing a linked list ...but LC is cheap, a take home that respects the developer's time isn't.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

gsibble 4y ago

If the person requests it, we pay for interview time as long as the hourly is reasonable. Not a problem. The real question I have for you is, how would you prefer to prove to me you can actually do the job? In person coding exercise? Isn't that more stressful?

andrewingram 4y ago
How long do your take home exercises take? I've always conducted interviews where I've given system design questions, and data modelling questions. Never found that coding exercises give good enough signal to justify the time investment on either side. If you want to catch someone in lie, i.e. they can't code at all, just give them something of fizzbuzz-level difficulty as a basic filter.
- gsibble 4y ago
  Depends upon how much proof I think I need to see. Both min/max are an hour but you can spend as long as you'd like on some. We take fun problems (github challenge projects I've spent days on just for fun) and give them as tests. We ask you just to spend as much time as you want to give us a sense that you can actually code and give us a sense of your coding style. We're mostly looking that you can 1) actually solve problems 2) write legible code 3) write maintainable code. We don't give out dumb, tedious quizzes or anything. These are actual projects written to be fun. We don't get many/any complaints. We also give out the coding test very late in the interview cycle. I'd say we hire 80% of the people we give tests to. We already have a pretty good idea you'll be a good fit by that point. So we're not wasting your time.
intelVISA 4y ago
No issue with take home approach, I think it's incredibly valuable if done in a manner that respects everybody's time. Personally I'd probably do some sort of FizzBuzz/LC easy type low filter and then a fast (i.e. no compiled langs) take home in an area adjacent to the job description paid at said job's rate with a time expectation so you don't end up getting billed 20hrs for a Node RESTful API.