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"The challenge probably takes 4-8 hours, though." The problem with that is you aren't the only one doing this and when I am job searching I am applying to many

"The challenge probably takes 4-8 hours, though." The problem with that is you aren't the only one doing this and when I am job searching I am applying to many companies. So now I have 10 different companies asking for an 8 hour code test to be completed within a couple business days. Meanwhile I still have a job to hold down. It's a massive time commitment to make to just one company without knowing if the work put in will result in an offer. I much rather prefer companies that aren't lazy interviewing and will look over some of my github repos and discuss those with me to gauge my experience. There is no one size fits all answer to interviewing, but 4-8 hour code tests(plus interviews) just isn't one I can get on board with.

cldellow 11y ago
We don't have a time limit on our challenge - it's public, you can work on it whenever and submit it whenever. But I do see how having a challenge means our funnel gets narrower at the top because we're competing for people's time. We think we're worth it. :) At the same time, we're always wondering if our process is excluding too many people. If someone came to us and articulated: "I think your challenge is trying to assess me for X, Y and Z; here's a GitHub profile that shows I have those traits" we'd likely be open to being convinced.
fsk 11y ago
Here's my problem with pre-interview coding tests: 1. The employer is just sending the coding test as a form letter to everyone who submits a resume. I can submit the test, ace it, THEN they read my resume and decide I'm a bad fit. So I wasted my time. I've done several coding tests where I know I aced it, and still no interview. Why am I wasting my time on this? 2. I do the test, get an interview, and now they decide I'm a "bad cultural fit". If you're going to reject me for a flaky reason like "bad cultural fit", then you should do it BEFORE you make me waste time on a pre-interview screening test. But as you said, the test is a useful way to filter out bad employers. If they ask me for a coding test, I don't do it, knowing I'm not missing much. Suppose there are 5 people willing to proceed directly to a phone interview and 20 people who want me to take a 1-8 hour coding test first. As a candidate, who am I going to spend my limited job search time on?

cldellow 11y ago

We don't have a time limit on our challenge - it's public, you can work on it whenever and submit it whenever. But I do see how having a challenge means our funnel gets narrower at the top because we're competing for people's time. We think we're worth it. :) At the same time, we're always wondering if our process is excluding too many people. If someone came to us and articulated: "I think your challenge is trying to assess me for X, Y and Z; here's a GitHub profile that shows I have those traits" we'd likely be open to being convinced.

fsk 11y ago

Here's my problem with pre-interview coding tests: 1. The employer is just sending the coding test as a form letter to everyone who submits a resume. I can submit the test, ace it, THEN they read my resume and decide I'm a bad fit. So I wasted my time. I've done several coding tests where I know I aced it, and still no interview. Why am I wasting my time on this? 2. I do the test, get an interview, and now they decide I'm a "bad cultural fit". If you're going to reject me for a flaky reason like "bad cultural fit", then you should do it BEFORE you make me waste time on a pre-interview screening test. But as you said, the test is a useful way to filter out bad employers. If they ask me for a coding test, I don't do it, knowing I'm not missing much. Suppose there are 5 people willing to proceed directly to a phone interview and 20 people who want me to take a 1-8 hour coding test first. As a candidate, who am I going to spend my limited job search time on?