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Companies are notoriously bad at determining how long software development will take, hence the entirety of Jira et al. How accurate do you think their "2-3 hou

Companies are notoriously bad at determining how long software development will take, hence the entirety of Jira et al. How accurate do you think their "2-3 hours" estimate really is? These take homes are also only one of the many ridiculous asks made of candidates. I've seen "Talk for an hour about a project you've worked on," as one step in the process. [Edit] Let me tell you, their estimates are not accurate. Just like the job descriptions, they throw a bunch of stuff in and see what they like.

Manuel_D 3y ago
If the actually set a time limit, they would notice the vast majority of candidates failing. I took a test like this for a job application once, I had 180 minutes for a task that took an hour to actually implement, and I spent another 30 minutes testing.
- EchoChamberMan 3y ago
  Of course, but this is take home with a completely unenforceable time limit. Well, you can enforce it to some extent as someone mentioned. If you give the test friday and say two days, and they turn it in a week later, they've obviously blown the limit.
  - Manuel_D 3y ago
    No, the time limit is enforced. The way it worked when I took this kind of problem is that the company sent me a link to a web page that explained how the 3 hour timer would start when I viewed the prompt. I could choose to view the prompt whenever I wanted, within the next two weeks. I entered my solution in a leet code sort of editor. Presumably it would lock me out if I didn't submit within 3 hours of viewing the prompt.
    - EchoChamberMan 3y ago
      We're starting to go in circles, but here's your quote with the preceding sentence, emphasis mine. You're discussing an online test, not really a take home as described in the article. > Take-home coding tests used to be rare, deployed only if an employer needed to be further convinced. Now interviewees are regularly given projects described as requiring just two to three hours that instead take days of work. [Edit] They should probably call it a "take home project" to be more accurate. It can include front and back end code, tests, documentation, design, styling, etc. etc. "2-3 hours," yea right.
      - Manuel_D 3y ago
        What's the difference between a "take home coding test" and an "online test"? As far as I can tell, these are functionally identical perhaps save for the submission mechanism. Explain to the candidate that there will be a 3 hour time limit enforced once the prompt is revealed. Close submission 3 hours after the candidate chooses to reveal the prompt. This could easily be done in GitHub, if the submission mechanism is pushing updates to the company's repo. Voila, you have enforced a 3 hour time limit on your "take home coding test".
        EchoChamberMan 3y ago
        Have a good day

Manuel_D 3y ago

If the actually set a time limit, they would notice the vast majority of candidates failing. I took a test like this for a job application once, I had 180 minutes for a task that took an hour to actually implement, and I spent another 30 minutes testing.

EchoChamberMan 3y ago
Of course, but this is take home with a completely unenforceable time limit. Well, you can enforce it to some extent as someone mentioned. If you give the test friday and say two days, and they turn it in a week later, they've obviously blown the limit.
- Manuel_D 3y ago
  No, the time limit is enforced. The way it worked when I took this kind of problem is that the company sent me a link to a web page that explained how the 3 hour timer would start when I viewed the prompt. I could choose to view the prompt whenever I wanted, within the next two weeks. I entered my solution in a leet code sort of editor. Presumably it would lock me out if I didn't submit within 3 hours of viewing the prompt.
  - EchoChamberMan 3y ago
    We're starting to go in circles, but here's your quote with the preceding sentence, emphasis mine. You're discussing an online test, not really a take home as described in the article. > Take-home coding tests used to be rare, deployed only if an employer needed to be further convinced. Now interviewees are regularly given projects described as requiring just two to three hours that instead take days of work. [Edit] They should probably call it a "take home project" to be more accurate. It can include front and back end code, tests, documentation, design, styling, etc. etc. "2-3 hours," yea right.
    - Manuel_D 3y ago
      What's the difference between a "take home coding test" and an "online test"? As far as I can tell, these are functionally identical perhaps save for the submission mechanism. Explain to the candidate that there will be a 3 hour time limit enforced once the prompt is revealed. Close submission 3 hours after the candidate chooses to reveal the prompt. This could easily be done in GitHub, if the submission mechanism is pushing updates to the company's repo. Voila, you have enforced a 3 hour time limit on your "take home coding test".
      - EchoChamberMan 3y ago
        Have a good day