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As a candidate, I've soured on work-sample tests. Too many times, I've done the assignment, and not even gotten an interview (and I know I submitted a correct

by fsk 12y ago

As a candidate, I've soured on work-sample tests. Too many times, I've done the assignment, and not even gotten an interview (and I know I submitted a correct answer). As someone who already has a job, committing a large number of hours for the chance of an interview seems like a waste of time. If every employer demands a 5-10 hour work sample test before they even talk to you, that really isn't a scalable solution from the viewpoint of a candidate. I could easily put in 100 hours into works-sample tests without getting a single decent interview, so now I just refuse them.

Offler 12y ago
They can be enjoyable tests. I have learnt new things while doing some.
- log_n 12y ago
  Yeah, those are the ideal. A lot of us are already learning different things during our down-time. An enterprising company could take that drive to learn new things to find potentially good employees by 'tricking' them into learning something new from them.
tptacek 12y ago
Just a reminder: work-sample testing isn't the entirety of my recommendation, or even the majority. Employers need to do more than one thing to fix the hiring process.
- fsk 12y ago
  I'm beginning to think that one way to "fix" hiring is to do stuff that nobody else is doing. Everyone else is screening people based on resumes? Then, you can find good candidates by ignoring resumes, so you find good people with bad experience. Nobody else hires people older than 40? Then you target people who are older than 40 but are still good workers. Everyone wants a programmer with X experience but there's a shortage of people with X experience? Then hire good programmers without X experience, and give them a chance to learn X on the job. Nobody else gives a work-sample test? Then giving a work-sample test is a benefit. You find candidates who are desperate and good enough to do the work-sample test. If everyone gives a work-sample test, then you get an advantage by NOT doing a work-sample test. (For example, a company with a work-sample test is now excluding me from their candidate pool, due the the large number of bad experiences I've had with them.) One idea that seems workable is the paid work-sample test. But then you have to do some screening before giving people the test. (I.e., hire someone for a 10-20 hour mini-project before committing to hiring them full-time.) With 100 hours of free time, I could get a personal project done and put it on the Internet somewhere. That seems like a much better use of my time than doing 10-20 work-sample tests for companies that aren't going to give me an interview even after I do it.

by fsk 12y ago

Offler 12y ago

They can be enjoyable tests. I have learnt new things while doing some.

log_n 12y ago
Yeah, those are the ideal. A lot of us are already learning different things during our down-time. An enterprising company could take that drive to learn new things to find potentially good employees by 'tricking' them into learning something new from them.

tptacek 12y ago

Just a reminder: work-sample testing isn't the entirety of my recommendation, or even the majority. Employers need to do more than one thing to fix the hiring process.

fsk 12y ago
I'm beginning to think that one way to "fix" hiring is to do stuff that nobody else is doing. Everyone else is screening people based on resumes? Then, you can find good candidates by ignoring resumes, so you find good people with bad experience. Nobody else hires people older than 40? Then you target people who are older than 40 but are still good workers. Everyone wants a programmer with X experience but there's a shortage of people with X experience? Then hire good programmers without X experience, and give them a chance to learn X on the job. Nobody else gives a work-sample test? Then giving a work-sample test is a benefit. You find candidates who are desperate and good enough to do the work-sample test. If everyone gives a work-sample test, then you get an advantage by NOT doing a work-sample test. (For example, a company with a work-sample test is now excluding me from their candidate pool, due the the large number of bad experiences I've had with them.) One idea that seems workable is the paid work-sample test. But then you have to do some screening before giving people the test. (I.e., hire someone for a 10-20 hour mini-project before committing to hiring them full-time.) With 100 hours of free time, I could get a personal project done and put it on the Internet somewhere. That seems like a much better use of my time than doing 10-20 work-sample tests for companies that aren't going to give me an interview even after I do it.