5 ms·

It’s odd to me how people complain so much about being asked to write code (whiteboard, take-home, leetcode puzzles) in order to land a coding job. Is a prospe

It’s odd to me how people complain so much about being asked to write code (whiteboard, take-home, leetcode puzzles) in order to land a coding job. Is a prospective employer supposed to suss this out entirely through verbal questions?

Tryk 4y ago
I think the issue is more to do with the unpaid aspect rather than the take-home.
mathverse 4y ago
It's odd to me that you have completely misunderstood what is the problem here. It's not the take home assignment that is the problem but the asymmetric relationship and toxic practices. I invest 6h of my time as a highly paid engineer to do a home assignment and at best I receive a reply "sorry we found a candidate that's a better fit?". That's what's unacceptable.
- datalopers 4y ago
  Have you considered that it took you 6hr and 2k loc is maybe precisely why they didn’t hire you and it, in fact, was a very successful candidate screening tool?
  - mathverse 4y ago
    It has nothing to do with that. The numbers here are to illustrate the effort needed to solve the home assignment.
vitno 4y ago
I don't think people are complaining about writing code, I think they are complaining about the time involved with take homes (just having done a couple I can empathize with) and whiteboard codings "high stress nature". I've also had interviews which just talk about work I've done before. Most industries only need that, and I'm coming around to those being the more valuable questions.
warrenm 4y ago
>Is a prospective employer supposed to suss this out entirely through verbal questions? Yes It's really not that hard to ask questions that evaluate a candidate's ability without devolving into trivia Programming is merely logical thought converted into a terse form that a computer can execute Ask how to solve a problem; ask what needs to be considered to solve it; ask what corner cases does the initial answer not cover; ask for something like a confidence interval on how likely you think errors will happen (and how you plan to respond to them); ask how the program needs to change when you convert it from a cgi-bin/ C program to Ruby or PHP or Go; ask how a solution looks different in any two of the languages the candidate knows/likes Would you only hire a surgeon after they demonstrate an appendectomy? Would you hire a mechanic only after they demonstrate building a transmission from spare parts?
jeroenhd 4y ago
Have you ever heard of a restaurant having applicants mix drinks behind the bar for an hour to see if they're really as good as they claim to be? How many administrative offices have their applicants perform regular tasks on dummy data sets? And, the other way around: how often do applicants have their prospective team lead perform an hour of work for them, to see if the company is a decent match? I think these tests are a good way to have people without previous experience or formal education prove themselves. If you have skills, but no credentials, no public Git[la|hu]b, and no experience, you can still prove yourself with one of these programming tests. However, once someone has a year or so of experience or has finished formal education, the decision should be based on their credentials and the interview, not some kind of demonstration.
- PretzelPirate 4y ago
  As much as I don’t like unpaid take home tests, the restaurant industry does have unpaid tests for potential chefs: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stage_(cooking) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stage_(cooking)
  - jeroenhd 4y ago
    For cooks and chefs perhaps, but not for the entire workforce. Then again, the hospitality sector has a knack for abusing their workers, so I wouldn't be too surprised if they make waiters work for free as a "trial" as well. It's still silly to expect to have to work for you for free. You can discuss technical topics (design experience, programming language preferences, etc.) without doing a whole exercise. Honestly, it's insulting that people will ask you to come in for an interview and basically tell you that they don't believe what you've put on your resume and start quizzing you to confirm that you know what you claim you know.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

Tryk 4y ago

I think the issue is more to do with the unpaid aspect rather than the take-home.

mathverse 4y ago

It's odd to me that you have completely misunderstood what is the problem here. It's not the take home assignment that is the problem but the asymmetric relationship and toxic practices. I invest 6h of my time as a highly paid engineer to do a home assignment and at best I receive a reply "sorry we found a candidate that's a better fit?". That's what's unacceptable.

datalopers 4y ago
Have you considered that it took you 6hr and 2k loc is maybe precisely why they didn’t hire you and it, in fact, was a very successful candidate screening tool?
- mathverse 4y ago
  It has nothing to do with that. The numbers here are to illustrate the effort needed to solve the home assignment.

vitno 4y ago

I don't think people are complaining about writing code, I think they are complaining about the time involved with take homes (just having done a couple I can empathize with) and whiteboard codings "high stress nature". I've also had interviews which just talk about work I've done before. Most industries only need that, and I'm coming around to those being the more valuable questions.

warrenm 4y ago

>Is a prospective employer supposed to suss this out entirely through verbal questions? Yes It's really not that hard to ask questions that evaluate a candidate's ability without devolving into trivia Programming is merely logical thought converted into a terse form that a computer can execute Ask how to solve a problem; ask what needs to be considered to solve it; ask what corner cases does the initial answer not cover; ask for something like a confidence interval on how likely you think errors will happen (and how you plan to respond to them); ask how the program needs to change when you convert it from a cgi-bin/ C program to Ruby or PHP or Go; ask how a solution looks different in any two of the languages the candidate knows/likes Would you only hire a surgeon after they demonstrate an appendectomy? Would you hire a mechanic only after they demonstrate building a transmission from spare parts?

jeroenhd 4y ago

Have you ever heard of a restaurant having applicants mix drinks behind the bar for an hour to see if they're really as good as they claim to be? How many administrative offices have their applicants perform regular tasks on dummy data sets? And, the other way around: how often do applicants have their prospective team lead perform an hour of work for them, to see if the company is a decent match? I think these tests are a good way to have people without previous experience or formal education prove themselves. If you have skills, but no credentials, no public Git[la|hu]b, and no experience, you can still prove yourself with one of these programming tests. However, once someone has a year or so of experience or has finished formal education, the decision should be based on their credentials and the interview, not some kind of demonstration.

PretzelPirate 4y ago
As much as I don’t like unpaid take home tests, the restaurant industry does have unpaid tests for potential chefs: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stage_(cooking) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stage_(cooking)
- jeroenhd 4y ago
  For cooks and chefs perhaps, but not for the entire workforce. Then again, the hospitality sector has a knack for abusing their workers, so I wouldn't be too surprised if they make waiters work for free as a "trial" as well. It's still silly to expect to have to work for you for free. You can discuss technical topics (design experience, programming language preferences, etc.) without doing a whole exercise. Honestly, it's insulting that people will ask you to come in for an interview and basically tell you that they don't believe what you've put on your resume and start quizzing you to confirm that you know what you claim you know.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]