4 ms·

Counter-Point. If the assignment is properly sized: no more than an hour. Then the candidate doing it at home using their system and their tools gives you a mor

by zaphar 4y ago

Counter-Point. If the assignment is properly sized: no more than an hour. Then the candidate doing it at home using their system and their tools gives you a more accurate picture of their actual capabilities than a whiteboard or doing it on your hardware in an unfamiliar setting with a stranger giving every appearance of critiquing your work. This is an interview after all. The power balance whether intended or not is very much different than an actual peer review If a candidate chooses to burn a whole week working on it that can be safely left up to them I think. But a take home test is not unfair because they decided to burn that much time on it. It is an attempt to let them give the clearest most accurate signal of their skill level and approach to problems. I would argue that not even pair programming accomplishes that as well as a take home assignment.

NeverFade 4y ago
> Then the candidate doing it at home using their system and their tools gives you a more accurate picture of their actual capabilities than a whiteboard or doing it on your hardware in an unfamiliar setting with a stranger giving every appearance of critiquing your work. Or, they don't even do the task, but pay someone else to do it for them, so eventually all these take-home tests just go to the same set of expert test-takers who already solved all these tasks. Very efficient, and also worse than useless as a screening tool: the dishonest candidates most willing to cheat will score the highest. > If a candidate chooses to burn a whole week working on it that can be safely left up to them I think. But a take home test is not unfair because they decided to burn that much time on it. Of course it is. Worse: it creates adverse selection, from the interviewer perspective. Top candidates who are looking for their next job while working a demanding full time job will not be able to dedicate more a minimum of time to each of the many take-home tests they are asked to do. Meanwhile, desperate poor candidates will dedicate x10+ the time (or simply cheat) to pass. So as an interviewer, you'll end up passing the random desperate candidate who somehow got through your earlier screening, and any good candidate with multiple other options and commitments will submit work that looks far inferior.
- glenjamin 4y ago
  If I set a take-home test designed to take two hours, and then very clearly tell the candidate to take two hours, and then they clearly spent way longer than that, then I will consider that a signal that they don’t follow instructions well and don’t value their time appropriately.
  - NeverFade 4y ago
    How do you know they clearly took over two hours? We love talking about productivity here. You're telling me employers will systematically fail the candidates who performed most productively in their process, because of a speculation they took too much time?
    - ghaff 4y ago
      And a reasonable response in any case is "Yah, I know you said that but I don't like to do sloppy work and there were clearly a number of different edge cases that needed to be handled for this to work reliably."
      - TylerE 4y ago
        That would actually be a huge red flag to me for hiring. I don't want an architecture astronaut who is never going to ship anything. An 80% solution when I need it is infinitely more useful than a 100% solution that's months late.
        ajford 4y ago
        And this would be the opposite for me. Someone properly thinking out the edge cases and handling them (or at least pointing them out in comments) would be much more useful in the roles I'd be hiring for. I need a stable system that can tolerate the real world and handle messy inputs without shitting the bed. A new hire that shows they consider their inputs and handle edge cases is a better fit to me than someone who focused on that 80% solution and didn't bother sanitizing inputs and crashes because of it.
andreyk 4y ago
I like this concept - have a one time download link, and a timer to submit solution within an hour or two. Seems like a good balance of fair and realistic (assuming you can't Google for solutions and all).
- dopamean 4y ago
  Years ago I interviewed somewhere that had a system like this. I was told ahead of time only to click the link when I was ready to sit down for two hours to do the work because the clock started then.
- ysavir 4y ago
  What if I have a lot going on and need to divide my time? I understand why you're choosing to do this, but ultimately it's assuming a lot on part of the interviewee, and doesn't offer any flexibility. If you gave me such a code challenge, I'd probably take it as a sign that company culture is to put employees under pressure and I would immediately decline.
  - stephenhogsten 4y ago
    Compared to committing to a specific hour block of time for a normal interview, isn't it more flexible? I guess it depends on how the company uses it - if they just stick the take-home in as an extra filter vs trying to replace live interview time
- chrisweekly 4y ago
  "can't Google for solutions"? I will never understand the desire to handicap interviewees like that. I recently passed an live-coding interview in which I was asked to use an unfamiliar library; bc it was open-book I was able to look up its docs and use it to solve the problem. At one point I also hopped onto MDN to confirm a browser API. The ability to search and effectively leverage available resources is fundamental to our profession. Closed-book "pop quiz"-style puzzles -- where the surface area of the relevant material is unbelievably vast, and the relevance of the problem to the job's requisite skills is tenuous at best -- are highly problematic.
jameshart 4y ago
> the candidate doing it at home using their system and their tools gives you a more accurate picture of their actual capabilities We’re just gonna run with the assumption that anyone who’s applying for a job has their own development machine.

by zaphar 4y ago

NeverFade 4y ago

> Then the candidate doing it at home using their system and their tools gives you a more accurate picture of their actual capabilities than a whiteboard or doing it on your hardware in an unfamiliar setting with a stranger giving every appearance of critiquing your work. Or, they don't even do the task, but pay someone else to do it for them, so eventually all these take-home tests just go to the same set of expert test-takers who already solved all these tasks. Very efficient, and also worse than useless as a screening tool: the dishonest candidates most willing to cheat will score the highest. > If a candidate chooses to burn a whole week working on it that can be safely left up to them I think. But a take home test is not unfair because they decided to burn that much time on it. Of course it is. Worse: it creates adverse selection, from the interviewer perspective. Top candidates who are looking for their next job while working a demanding full time job will not be able to dedicate more a minimum of time to each of the many take-home tests they are asked to do. Meanwhile, desperate poor candidates will dedicate x10+ the time (or simply cheat) to pass. So as an interviewer, you'll end up passing the random desperate candidate who somehow got through your earlier screening, and any good candidate with multiple other options and commitments will submit work that looks far inferior.

glenjamin 4y ago
If I set a take-home test designed to take two hours, and then very clearly tell the candidate to take two hours, and then they clearly spent way longer than that, then I will consider that a signal that they don’t follow instructions well and don’t value their time appropriately.
- NeverFade 4y ago
  How do you know they clearly took over two hours? We love talking about productivity here. You're telling me employers will systematically fail the candidates who performed most productively in their process, because of a speculation they took too much time?
  - ghaff 4y ago
    And a reasonable response in any case is "Yah, I know you said that but I don't like to do sloppy work and there were clearly a number of different edge cases that needed to be handled for this to work reliably."
    - TylerE 4y ago
      That would actually be a huge red flag to me for hiring. I don't want an architecture astronaut who is never going to ship anything. An 80% solution when I need it is infinitely more useful than a 100% solution that's months late.
      - ajford 4y ago
        And this would be the opposite for me. Someone properly thinking out the edge cases and handling them (or at least pointing them out in comments) would be much more useful in the roles I'd be hiring for. I need a stable system that can tolerate the real world and handle messy inputs without shitting the bed. A new hire that shows they consider their inputs and handle edge cases is a better fit to me than someone who focused on that 80% solution and didn't bother sanitizing inputs and crashes because of it.

andreyk 4y ago

I like this concept - have a one time download link, and a timer to submit solution within an hour or two. Seems like a good balance of fair and realistic (assuming you can't Google for solutions and all).

dopamean 4y ago
Years ago I interviewed somewhere that had a system like this. I was told ahead of time only to click the link when I was ready to sit down for two hours to do the work because the clock started then.
ysavir 4y ago
What if I have a lot going on and need to divide my time? I understand why you're choosing to do this, but ultimately it's assuming a lot on part of the interviewee, and doesn't offer any flexibility. If you gave me such a code challenge, I'd probably take it as a sign that company culture is to put employees under pressure and I would immediately decline.
- stephenhogsten 4y ago
  Compared to committing to a specific hour block of time for a normal interview, isn't it more flexible? I guess it depends on how the company uses it - if they just stick the take-home in as an extra filter vs trying to replace live interview time
chrisweekly 4y ago
"can't Google for solutions"? I will never understand the desire to handicap interviewees like that. I recently passed an live-coding interview in which I was asked to use an unfamiliar library; bc it was open-book I was able to look up its docs and use it to solve the problem. At one point I also hopped onto MDN to confirm a browser API. The ability to search and effectively leverage available resources is fundamental to our profession. Closed-book "pop quiz"-style puzzles -- where the surface area of the relevant material is unbelievably vast, and the relevance of the problem to the job's requisite skills is tenuous at best -- are highly problematic.

jameshart 4y ago

> the candidate doing it at home using their system and their tools gives you a more accurate picture of their actual capabilities We’re just gonna run with the assumption that anyone who’s applying for a job has their own development machine.