Couldn't agree more. Last year, I interviewed for a number of tech companies around the world. The interviewing process has evolved quite a lot. Almost all companies had a challenge-based selection process. More like - here's a problem, take 2 weeks, come back with the code and then we'll discuss the code and decide whether to move forward or not.
Two weeks? I wonder if you're testing any kind of mental agility and independent problem solving skill if you're giving someone two weeks to cobble something together. Just put them behind a screen and give them 30 minutes to work out a reasonable set of puzzles, spare them having to spend that much time (unpaid, that is).
@leob
- these are challenges that probably require 16-20 hours of work, with quite a bit of work. This is an alternative to the 1-3 hour programming rounds. I think some companies are going this way now.
Meaning they're asking you to put in 16-20 hours of unpaid work? I say that's a lot, clearly they can only get away with that because the balance of power is on their side. A more fair approach would be having 2 rounds, first round the 1-2 hours test (3 hours is already a LOT), then if you make it through that round they can ask you to do the 16 hours assignment, BUT in that stage it should come with something of a 50-75% chance job guarantee, or with some sort of financial compensation. If they're putting 25 people through an unpaid 20 hours assignment and only hiring one then I'd call that gross.
@leob
- I have called that out. But I do it for the fun of it. Most of these assignments don't last that long, anyway. 16-20 hours is a conservative number. It usually takes much less. But you're right about the unpaid work!
I agree, 2 weeks is too much. I've seen most programming rounds to last somewhere between 1-3 hours max. If it goes beyond that, then I assume it's more of "build something" kind of test.
Which is bad in my opinion ... "tell me something about yourself" is incredibly meaningful when done right. The puzzles and the skills tests are valuable tools, but we're not algorithmic robots which are hired only to crank out lines of code, that's pretty dehumanizing I would say.
There's more to critical, strategic and abstract thinking (and more to good personality traits) than solving an algorithmic puzzle (and please don't test rote memorization of standard algorithms like being able to reproduce a quicksort from scratch, that's theoretical knowledge which is completely useless in real life).
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Couldn't agree more. Last year, I interviewed for a number of tech companies around the world. The interviewing process has evolved quite a lot. Almost all companies had a challenge-based selection process. More like - here's a problem, take 2 weeks, come back with the code and then we'll discuss the code and decide whether to move forward or not.
Two weeks? I wonder if you're testing any kind of mental agility and independent problem solving skill if you're giving someone two weeks to cobble something together. Just put them behind a screen and give them 30 minutes to work out a reasonable set of puzzles, spare them having to spend that much time (unpaid, that is).
@leob - these are challenges that probably require 16-20 hours of work, with quite a bit of work. This is an alternative to the 1-3 hour programming rounds. I think some companies are going this way now.
Meaning they're asking you to put in 16-20 hours of unpaid work? I say that's a lot, clearly they can only get away with that because the balance of power is on their side. A more fair approach would be having 2 rounds, first round the 1-2 hours test (3 hours is already a LOT), then if you make it through that round they can ask you to do the 16 hours assignment, BUT in that stage it should come with something of a 50-75% chance job guarantee, or with some sort of financial compensation. If they're putting 25 people through an unpaid 20 hours assignment and only hiring one then I'd call that gross.
@leob - I have called that out. But I do it for the fun of it. Most of these assignments don't last that long, anyway. 16-20 hours is a conservative number. It usually takes much less. But you're right about the unpaid work!
I agree, 2 weeks is too much. I've seen most programming rounds to last somewhere between 1-3 hours max. If it goes beyond that, then I assume it's more of "build something" kind of test.
If they're giving you an assignment that takes more than a day then it's work, and you can ask "how much do you pay me for this".
Yeah, some of them have offered to pay too!
Yes. Seems like this comes even before “Tell me something about yourself” 🙆🏻♂️
Which is bad in my opinion ... "tell me something about yourself" is incredibly meaningful when done right. The puzzles and the skills tests are valuable tools, but we're not algorithmic robots which are hired only to crank out lines of code, that's pretty dehumanizing I would say.
There's more to critical, strategic and abstract thinking (and more to good personality traits) than solving an algorithmic puzzle (and please don't test rote memorization of standard algorithms like being able to reproduce a quicksort from scratch, that's theoretical knowledge which is completely useless in real life).