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I have been interviewing a lot lately, and I have to say that Company's really expect you to waste a lot of time just so they can weed you out. Here is a codin

I have been interviewing a lot lately, and I have to say that Company's really expect you to waste a lot of time just so they can weed you out. Here is a coding exercise that will take around and hour. Once you finish it you never end up hearing back anyway and when you send a followup they still don't respond. How are can you know whether you should waste your time doing a coding exercise or not? If its not coding exercises its an excessive number of hour long interviews, or the employer requiring that you work with them for free for anywhere from a few hours to a week. Is there any way to weed them out before you waste so much of your time?

cookiecaper 12y ago
>Here is a coding exercise that will take around and hour. Once you finish it you never end up hearing back anyway and when you send a followup they still don't respond. How are can you know whether you should waste your time doing a coding exercise or not? If you don't hear back, the company's not interested. Few people write rejection letters as few people react well to them. We do coding exercises before we interview candidates, but try to keep them as minimalist as possible. It sucks for the candidate who is doing 10 of these a week, but companies waste huge amounts of time with people who are totally unqualified and the pre-screen is necessary to weed such persons out. >If its not coding exercises its an excessive number of hour long interviews Hiring someone is a big commitment. If a company wants to interview you a reasonable amount of times, be flattered and enjoy it. Recognize that this is a big commitment for them and they have a lot of candidates to choose from. >or the employer requiring that you work with them for free for anywhere from a few hours to a week Stay away from any company that wants you to work for free. Sure, a probationary contract is fine, but if they're actually expecting you to do any non-interview work without paying you for it, you don't want to be involved with that company. Don't even entertain these types of offers. >Is there any way to weed them out before you waste so much of your time? Look online for postings that discuss that company's hiring processes. In your cover letter, tell them that you're excited about the prospect of working for their company and ask about their interview process. This will hint that you're sensitive to excessive prospective-employer time consumption, and you'll probably get back some kind of answer with which you can make more of a decision. After you interview, post about the process online for future applicants' benefit.
- x0x0 12y ago
  And somewhere on the front page of HN right now is someone whining about an engineering "shortage", whilst telling engineers that applying to their company costs 2-8 hours of time. The cognitive dissonance is a little hard to take, is what I'm saying.
  - cookiecaper 12y ago
    I mean, I understand that it can be demanding and have personally halted my applications when people had interview "tests" that were obviously hours of work, but you can't expect the company to hire someone without doing a reasonable amount of due diligence, which usually includes at least some basic exercises and multiple interviews. Like I said, hiring is a big commitment for the company -- bigger than people who've never employed people often think. Most interviewers will be sympathetic because they'll remember what it was like when they were applying for jobs, but that doesn't mean they can just hand-wave away all the requirements.
    - x0x0 12y ago
      Of course companies need to verify you can actually do the work for which they are potentially going to hire you. However, if you hand me such a task (or glassdoor says you will), I have to be really excited about your company to spend my time that way. A 20 minute shared-coding session in one of the dozen online collaborative edit tools would probably give you most of the same information while saving a lot of the candidate's time.
      - cookiecaper 12y ago
        The code exercise we distribute shouldn't take a competent developer more than 20 minutes. I agree that you don't need to waste a lot of the dev's time.
roberte3 12y ago
In the last two days, I've gotten coding exercises that are supposed to take a eight hours, and one that was based on an api that doesn't exist anymore, that would be a solid two days of engineering time if the apis worked.

cookiecaper 12y ago

>Here is a coding exercise that will take around and hour. Once you finish it you never end up hearing back anyway and when you send a followup they still don't respond. How are can you know whether you should waste your time doing a coding exercise or not? If you don't hear back, the company's not interested. Few people write rejection letters as few people react well to them. We do coding exercises before we interview candidates, but try to keep them as minimalist as possible. It sucks for the candidate who is doing 10 of these a week, but companies waste huge amounts of time with people who are totally unqualified and the pre-screen is necessary to weed such persons out. >If its not coding exercises its an excessive number of hour long interviews Hiring someone is a big commitment. If a company wants to interview you a reasonable amount of times, be flattered and enjoy it. Recognize that this is a big commitment for them and they have a lot of candidates to choose from. >or the employer requiring that you work with them for free for anywhere from a few hours to a week Stay away from any company that wants you to work for free. Sure, a probationary contract is fine, but if they're actually expecting you to do any non-interview work without paying you for it, you don't want to be involved with that company. Don't even entertain these types of offers. >Is there any way to weed them out before you waste so much of your time? Look online for postings that discuss that company's hiring processes. In your cover letter, tell them that you're excited about the prospect of working for their company and ask about their interview process. This will hint that you're sensitive to excessive prospective-employer time consumption, and you'll probably get back some kind of answer with which you can make more of a decision. After you interview, post about the process online for future applicants' benefit.

x0x0 12y ago
And somewhere on the front page of HN right now is someone whining about an engineering "shortage", whilst telling engineers that applying to their company costs 2-8 hours of time. The cognitive dissonance is a little hard to take, is what I'm saying.
- cookiecaper 12y ago
  I mean, I understand that it can be demanding and have personally halted my applications when people had interview "tests" that were obviously hours of work, but you can't expect the company to hire someone without doing a reasonable amount of due diligence, which usually includes at least some basic exercises and multiple interviews. Like I said, hiring is a big commitment for the company -- bigger than people who've never employed people often think. Most interviewers will be sympathetic because they'll remember what it was like when they were applying for jobs, but that doesn't mean they can just hand-wave away all the requirements.
  - x0x0 12y ago
    Of course companies need to verify you can actually do the work for which they are potentially going to hire you. However, if you hand me such a task (or glassdoor says you will), I have to be really excited about your company to spend my time that way. A 20 minute shared-coding session in one of the dozen online collaborative edit tools would probably give you most of the same information while saving a lot of the candidate's time.
    - cookiecaper 12y ago
      The code exercise we distribute shouldn't take a competent developer more than 20 minutes. I agree that you don't need to waste a lot of the dev's time.

roberte3 12y ago

In the last two days, I've gotten coding exercises that are supposed to take a eight hours, and one that was based on an api that doesn't exist anymore, that would be a solid two days of engineering time if the apis worked.