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It's getting much more common among places that care about getting good developers. I've implemented this practice myself where I'm involved in hiring, although
by davelnewton 12y ago
It's getting much more common among places that care about getting good developers. I've implemented this practice myself where I'm involved in hiring, although when it occurs in the process has varied. It's always been after the initial phone screen, but before/after on-site has varied. I tend to prefer it after, e.g., phone screen, short on-site to suss out major compatibility issues, take-home drill(s), then longer on-site if the code passes muster.
You can find out a lot about how a person thinks about programming with exercises that take actual time. Twenty minutes with FizzBuzz (which I still get on occasion) doesn't speak towards anything beyond "can monkey type?"
I've made it a rule to provide fairly detailed feedback if I get to the point of giving someone an exercise. Not all places do that, and I think it's too bad. If someone goes to the trouble of spending their free time on this I feel I owe them at least some of mine.
- csmdev 12y agoWhen you got hired as an interviewer, did they make you interview a couple of people at home before a phone screening? You know, to check out your interviewing skills and to see if you're good or not. Also, do you do this with your doctors and lawyers too? Give them homework to see if they are worth the money?
- davelnewton 12y agoAs I stated, my take-home tests are post-phone screen. The idea of hiring a programmer without seeing non-trivial code is stupid. If a dev has a body of publicly-available work IMO a take-home test might not be necessary, but it depends on the nature of those works. For doctors and lawyers there are known sources of publicly-available information regarding their history, background, cases, etc. and the referral system is more formalized than for developers.