3 ms·

One note that might be good to highlight in the article is that the take-home is expected to be 2 hours long. From my experience, they are much longer so I was

by ro_bit 11mo ago

One note that might be good to highlight in the article is that the take-home is expected to be 2 hours long. From my experience, they are much longer so I was initially surprised to see take-home's being given before an initial call until I looked at the assignment itself.

kassner 11mo ago
I still consider this a red flag. The company wants me to put time into the hiring process, but they can’t be bothered to do the same. If there is at least a recruiter screening first, I’ll apply and ask about “Bring Your Own Code Examples”, mostly when their daily work would use tools that I have some code published.
- resonious 11mo ago
  > but they can’t be bothered to do the same They will need to review your submission, which absolutely does take time.
  - LtWorf 11mo ago
    I'm sure the AI will do that.
    - stavros 11mo ago
      Who do you think will write the submission code?
  - joshdavham 11mo ago
    > They will need to review your submission, which absolutely does take tim But that's the kicker: they won't review your submission!
- joshdavham 11mo ago
  > I still consider this a red flag. The company wants me to put time into the hiring process, but they can’t be bothered to do the same. Exactly this. It costs a company nothing to give you a take-home, but it will cost you (the candidate) potentially many hours. On my last job search, I got burned a number of times where I'd work for hours on a take-home only to get ghosted. I don't think they even looked at my solution. Now I have a personal policy where I will refuse to do a take-home unless the interviewer sits there with me while I do it. This demonstrates to me that the interviewer is actually serious and respectful of my time.
  - phrotoma 11mo ago
    It CAN cost nothing to give a take home, but this is not a requirement. At my previous employer any candidate that made it as far as the take home project was paid for the time they worked on it.
    - joshdavham 11mo ago
      That’s a good distinction. A paid take home is very different than an unpaid one.
  - ryandrake 11mo ago
    Another thing problematic about take-home projects: They don't scale for the candidate. Sure, 2 hours is nothing if you want a job, but typically the candidate is going to be applying for dozens, if not hundreds of jobs. Even 20 take-homes just like this is now 40 hours of work--just to get through a hiring gate! It is not "respectful of the candidate's time" if everyone is doing it.
matusp 11mo ago
I can see both perspectives. If you are a skilled hiree, this seems like a waste of time. But if you are hiring online, you will inevitably get a lot of terrible candidates and you need to filter them out. If you are a small team, you can't spend weeks interviewing randos with little to none coding experience for a SE role. The problem is that online hiring is full of noise, but both sides suffer from the expenses this creates.
preciousoo 11mo ago
Click the link of the take home and tell me if you expect it to take you more than 20 minutes. I don’t understand the resections here

by ro_bit 11mo ago

kassner 11mo ago

I still consider this a red flag. The company wants me to put time into the hiring process, but they can’t be bothered to do the same. If there is at least a recruiter screening first, I’ll apply and ask about “Bring Your Own Code Examples”, mostly when their daily work would use tools that I have some code published.

resonious 11mo ago
> but they can’t be bothered to do the same They will need to review your submission, which absolutely does take time.
- LtWorf 11mo ago
  I'm sure the AI will do that.
  - stavros 11mo ago
    Who do you think will write the submission code?
- joshdavham 11mo ago
  > They will need to review your submission, which absolutely does take tim But that's the kicker: they won't review your submission!
joshdavham 11mo ago
> I still consider this a red flag. The company wants me to put time into the hiring process, but they can’t be bothered to do the same. Exactly this. It costs a company nothing to give you a take-home, but it will cost you (the candidate) potentially many hours. On my last job search, I got burned a number of times where I'd work for hours on a take-home only to get ghosted. I don't think they even looked at my solution. Now I have a personal policy where I will refuse to do a take-home unless the interviewer sits there with me while I do it. This demonstrates to me that the interviewer is actually serious and respectful of my time.
- phrotoma 11mo ago
  It CAN cost nothing to give a take home, but this is not a requirement. At my previous employer any candidate that made it as far as the take home project was paid for the time they worked on it.
  - joshdavham 11mo ago
    That’s a good distinction. A paid take home is very different than an unpaid one.
- ryandrake 11mo ago
  Another thing problematic about take-home projects: They don't scale for the candidate. Sure, 2 hours is nothing if you want a job, but typically the candidate is going to be applying for dozens, if not hundreds of jobs. Even 20 take-homes just like this is now 40 hours of work--just to get through a hiring gate! It is not "respectful of the candidate's time" if everyone is doing it.

matusp 11mo ago

I can see both perspectives. If you are a skilled hiree, this seems like a waste of time. But if you are hiring online, you will inevitably get a lot of terrible candidates and you need to filter them out. If you are a small team, you can't spend weeks interviewing randos with little to none coding experience for a SE role. The problem is that online hiring is full of noise, but both sides suffer from the expenses this creates.

preciousoo 11mo ago

Click the link of the take home and tell me if you expect it to take you more than 20 minutes. I don’t understand the resections here