50 ms·

Slavery, Factory Sweatshops? You have a chance of a job at a household name company (who can afford to be selective) , probably with cushy salary and benefits.

by jiggy2011 13y ago

Slavery, Factory Sweatshops? You have a chance of a job at a household name company (who can afford to be selective) , probably with cushy salary and benefits. 8-10 hours worth of work isn't a great deal, especially if they give you a few weeks. Even a person working a full time job should be able to squeeze that in by temporarily reducing hours spent watching TV. It's not like facebook even get any benefit from you performing this work for them.

deniswolf 13y ago
But they automatically send this without even talking to person. They already assume that it's fine and I should be happy to do so. That's why I call it sweatshop approach.
- kelnos 13y ago
  I think you cheapen the seriousness of what the term "sweatshop" means for people unfortunate enough to actually work in sweatshops.
  - deniswolf 13y ago
    I was born in one of the poorest countries in Asia, so I can imagine rather low quality of life and working conditions. And I know pretty well that people who work in real old school sweatshops will never read this article. By other hand, inhumane treatment and faceless exploitation were ones of reasons that lead to existence of sweatshops in the first place. When people start to accept this way of treatment as a norm, when agree to humiliate themselves, even a bit, to get a position - with time it all will lead to the next generation of sweatshops - in Western way, with white collars. The reason behind my writing - to warn people and raise the question as soon as possible - before 10h of free work will be included as a demand for sending CV.
    - kelnos 13y ago
      I don't see how the procedure you described is at all humiliating. You were sent a programming challenge and asked to complete it. How is that humiliating?
lazyjones 13y ago
> You have a chance of a job at a household name company (who can afford to be selective) There are many such companies out there and the better ones will talk to you politely first, look at previous work you've done and then perhaps invite you over for a couple of interviews (including some code puzzles). I was once flown from Europe to Florida before any code puzzles, got to see the whole company, talk to founders (the company was a subsidiary of a household name in games) and technical directors before sitting down for some tests. It was a great experience and I felt very bad for turning down the job offer because they treated me so well ... Google and Facebook I'd avoid from what I've heard (no firsthand experience though), they seem to hire talent just to keep it away from the competition.
- jiggy2011 13y ago
  With the number of applications that they must get there's no way they can afford to talk to everyone, let alone fly them out. Therefore they need some way to filter people quickly. Would it be better to do this purely on the basis of resume? Forcing people to invest time making sure they have the correct mixture of buzzwords or would you rather spend that time demonstrating that you can actually code?
  - lazyjones 13y ago
    > Therefore they need some way to filter people quickly. This really depends on whether they chose particular people to contact directly or whether those applicants contacted the company. Sure, the 1000s of applications these companies get every month must be filtered quickly, but if someone was selected for a "cold call" by the employer (presumably based on some research), then handing him menial tasks upfront is a terrible idea and unacceptable for the probably more skilled people typically contacted this way.

deniswolf 13y ago

But they automatically send this without even talking to person. They already assume that it's fine and I should be happy to do so. That's why I call it sweatshop approach.

kelnos 13y ago
I think you cheapen the seriousness of what the term "sweatshop" means for people unfortunate enough to actually work in sweatshops.
- deniswolf 13y ago
  I was born in one of the poorest countries in Asia, so I can imagine rather low quality of life and working conditions. And I know pretty well that people who work in real old school sweatshops will never read this article. By other hand, inhumane treatment and faceless exploitation were ones of reasons that lead to existence of sweatshops in the first place. When people start to accept this way of treatment as a norm, when agree to humiliate themselves, even a bit, to get a position - with time it all will lead to the next generation of sweatshops - in Western way, with white collars. The reason behind my writing - to warn people and raise the question as soon as possible - before 10h of free work will be included as a demand for sending CV.
  - kelnos 13y ago
    I don't see how the procedure you described is at all humiliating. You were sent a programming challenge and asked to complete it. How is that humiliating?

lazyjones 13y ago

> You have a chance of a job at a household name company (who can afford to be selective) There are many such companies out there and the better ones will talk to you politely first, look at previous work you've done and then perhaps invite you over for a couple of interviews (including some code puzzles). I was once flown from Europe to Florida before any code puzzles, got to see the whole company, talk to founders (the company was a subsidiary of a household name in games) and technical directors before sitting down for some tests. It was a great experience and I felt very bad for turning down the job offer because they treated me so well ... Google and Facebook I'd avoid from what I've heard (no firsthand experience though), they seem to hire talent just to keep it away from the competition.

jiggy2011 13y ago
With the number of applications that they must get there's no way they can afford to talk to everyone, let alone fly them out. Therefore they need some way to filter people quickly. Would it be better to do this purely on the basis of resume? Forcing people to invest time making sure they have the correct mixture of buzzwords or would you rather spend that time demonstrating that you can actually code?
- lazyjones 13y ago
  > Therefore they need some way to filter people quickly. This really depends on whether they chose particular people to contact directly or whether those applicants contacted the company. Sure, the 1000s of applications these companies get every month must be filtered quickly, but if someone was selected for a "cold call" by the employer (presumably based on some research), then handing him menial tasks upfront is a terrible idea and unacceptable for the probably more skilled people typically contacted this way.