5 ms·

We let the candidates decide: Take-home assignment, pair-programming, or we go through an existing project of theirs, discuss it, and extend it together. The t

We let the candidates decide: Take-home assignment, pair-programming, or we go through an existing project of theirs, discuss it, and extend it together. The take-home assignment is short. It shouldn't take more than an hour if you really really want it to be polished, which we heavily insist we do not care about. The overall process is a bit longer, because we then discuss it together. For the pair programming session, the exercise is picked by a developer that isn't involved in the process, to put candidates and interviewers on equal footing. Our goal is to be able to give an offer within 48 hours starting at the first contact, and give a feedback, positive or negative, maximum one hour after each stage. It's a candidates' market. A long and complicated process only ensures you weed out the candidates who have plenty of options. I'd almost be tempted to give a long assignment and consider everything but a firm "Not even in your dreams" as a failure.

VoodooJuJu 4y ago
>Take-home assignment That's fine, pay me. >pair-programming Again, that's fine, pay me. >go through an existing project of theirs, discuss it, and extend it together The SaaS's I own and operate are closed-source and I'm not looking to take on any contractors at this time, but I'll let you know if anything opens up.
- ProjectArcturis 4y ago
  Think about the systemic problems that would arise if it were customary to pay applicants for the interview. You'd immediately have application farms spamming out fake resumes. They'd bomb the actual interview but collect $100+ each time.
  - Tryk 4y ago
    It's unduly burdensome to require the candidate to complete a take-home assignment before even having a interview. Simply first interview the candidate (requires an roughly equal investment in time) and then give take-home for the promising candidates. To compensate for the candidates time you obviously should compensate them. To do otherwise is to create a heavily unbalanced situation for the candidate who might have to complete multiple of these take-home assignments (as you're interviewing multiple candidates they should be interviewing multiple companies).
  - VoodooJuJu 4y ago
    I'm not asking to be paid for the interview, I'm asking to be paid for doing contract work.
    - mr-yamasi 4y ago
      Before I agree to pay you for contract work, I need you to do an assessment proving that you are worth being paid for your contract work.
      - VoodooJuJu 4y ago
        >Before I hire you to install a new roof on my house, I need you to install a portion of the roof to prove to me that you're good enough to pay to install a roof. It even sounds absurd. With this kind of attitude, you'll end up having to do your own roofing. Self-respecting men don't work for free. For prospective software employees: stop granting hiring managers absurd entitlements - do not work for free. This industry is not special and it needs to stop pretending like it is.
        mr-yamasi 4y ago
        Let's not get caught up in metaphors and analogies...but if you install a terrible roof, you don't get a dime you until you fix the leaks. If you come develop for me and do nothing but cry that you can't do a proper slice append in go and you need us to change our stack to elixir because you're used to it, all I get is a fight with HR for 3 months getting a paper trail together to fire you while I pay you $40k. Not to mention there's a whole sales model of household appliances where they very much come in and demonstrate the value of their vacuum before they sell you on one...
- lbreakjai 4y ago
  > Again, that's fine, pay me. The point of offering pair programming is that we invest the same amount of time. You don't spend five hours coding to my five minutes reviewing. If we're at this stage, then it means you are interested by the company, and the company is interested by you. An interview is not unidirectional, you review the company as much as they review you. > The SaaS's I own and operate are closed-source and I'm not looking to take on any contractors at this time, but I'll let you know if anything opens up. That's fine. I interviewed a very junior candidate this afternoon. She went through a coding bootcamp, only has one year of agency work. She didn't feel confident going into a pair programming session blind (which is perfectly understandable, it's not my favourite exercise either). She however had a bootcamp project she was quite happy with, and that she chose to explain. You can maybe get in on reputation or network alone, but for every person like you there's two hundred juniors who do not have that luxury, and we're trying to play as much as we can on their strengths.
- elpatoisthebest 4y ago
  What's a fair rate to pay an interviewee? Should I pay you for an hour of your demanded salary? So somewhere in the $100/hr ballpark? Or some nominal fee, the same across all candidates? $100 for the interview?
  - naniwaduni 4y ago
    You're hiring, you should have a decent idea of how much you're expecting to pay the hire. That's the amount you should expect the interviewee's time to be worth, since if you hire them that's how much you're expecting to pay them.

VoodooJuJu 4y ago

>Take-home assignment That's fine, pay me. >pair-programming Again, that's fine, pay me. >go through an existing project of theirs, discuss it, and extend it together The SaaS's I own and operate are closed-source and I'm not looking to take on any contractors at this time, but I'll let you know if anything opens up.

ProjectArcturis 4y ago
Think about the systemic problems that would arise if it were customary to pay applicants for the interview. You'd immediately have application farms spamming out fake resumes. They'd bomb the actual interview but collect $100+ each time.
- Tryk 4y ago
  It's unduly burdensome to require the candidate to complete a take-home assignment before even having a interview. Simply first interview the candidate (requires an roughly equal investment in time) and then give take-home for the promising candidates. To compensate for the candidates time you obviously should compensate them. To do otherwise is to create a heavily unbalanced situation for the candidate who might have to complete multiple of these take-home assignments (as you're interviewing multiple candidates they should be interviewing multiple companies).
- VoodooJuJu 4y ago
  I'm not asking to be paid for the interview, I'm asking to be paid for doing contract work.
  - mr-yamasi 4y ago
    Before I agree to pay you for contract work, I need you to do an assessment proving that you are worth being paid for your contract work.
    - VoodooJuJu 4y ago
      >Before I hire you to install a new roof on my house, I need you to install a portion of the roof to prove to me that you're good enough to pay to install a roof. It even sounds absurd. With this kind of attitude, you'll end up having to do your own roofing. Self-respecting men don't work for free. For prospective software employees: stop granting hiring managers absurd entitlements - do not work for free. This industry is not special and it needs to stop pretending like it is.
      - mr-yamasi 4y ago
        Let's not get caught up in metaphors and analogies...but if you install a terrible roof, you don't get a dime you until you fix the leaks. If you come develop for me and do nothing but cry that you can't do a proper slice append in go and you need us to change our stack to elixir because you're used to it, all I get is a fight with HR for 3 months getting a paper trail together to fire you while I pay you $40k. Not to mention there's a whole sales model of household appliances where they very much come in and demonstrate the value of their vacuum before they sell you on one...
lbreakjai 4y ago
> Again, that's fine, pay me. The point of offering pair programming is that we invest the same amount of time. You don't spend five hours coding to my five minutes reviewing. If we're at this stage, then it means you are interested by the company, and the company is interested by you. An interview is not unidirectional, you review the company as much as they review you. > The SaaS's I own and operate are closed-source and I'm not looking to take on any contractors at this time, but I'll let you know if anything opens up. That's fine. I interviewed a very junior candidate this afternoon. She went through a coding bootcamp, only has one year of agency work. She didn't feel confident going into a pair programming session blind (which is perfectly understandable, it's not my favourite exercise either). She however had a bootcamp project she was quite happy with, and that she chose to explain. You can maybe get in on reputation or network alone, but for every person like you there's two hundred juniors who do not have that luxury, and we're trying to play as much as we can on their strengths.
elpatoisthebest 4y ago
What's a fair rate to pay an interviewee? Should I pay you for an hour of your demanded salary? So somewhere in the $100/hr ballpark? Or some nominal fee, the same across all candidates? $100 for the interview?
- naniwaduni 4y ago
  You're hiring, you should have a decent idea of how much you're expecting to pay the hire. That's the amount you should expect the interviewee's time to be worth, since if you hire them that's how much you're expecting to pay them.