Hi, I normally contract in MSBI, Oracle, .Net/.Net Core, focusing on a property platform at the moment. Have also been working hard on upgrading my limited company website too.
Was planning to write my own article on this. Recently secured a contract. The interview went really well but afterwards, the agency said there was a technical test from a third-party. Now, I researched the test and there was an online repo to check out and try. Being relatively conscientious, it made sense to download their sample to understand their thought process. It involved getting the unit tests to pass. Except they were using integers rather than doubles which made no sense at all. Took me hours to understand what on earth they were trying to achieve with the test. I had to install the exact version of Visual Studio on my PC.
The next morning, the actual test. Different, and involved using SQLLite (Why? Was this being used in the role?). I use LiteDB inside my project in quite a neat way - how many coders would feel happy being given that as a test? SQL Lite which had it's own versions of ADODB connectivity, and worse the online code writer was next to useless and my visual studio version seemed incompatible. So the first 10 minutes were spent faffing around. Eventually, after seat of your pants stuff and Google, I managed to do quite a bit on the test.
The next part was a code commenting part - except the browser app didn't work. So I wrote some notes in Word and sent them to the agency.
Finally, quick-fire questions which were more of a syntax check, which was basically either you remembered it or used Google.
The minute you abdicate responsibility to a third-party, I feel whilst many may feel it gives extra assurance, I suspect it is taking you further away from understanding candidate compatibility. It isn't necessarily a failing of the hiring company, more that it can seem like the right way to do something. People feels there is a benchmark to pass and that tests are a good way to evaluate it.
All in all, I had probably committed 5-6 hours extra.
When I hire people, my approach is to have a set of questions which I suspect the candidate may fail, but care more about how they try to solve the problem. I have occasionally had to create a technical test (because a senior manager), only to understand the way they try to solve it. Indeed, hopefully they are smarter than me.
I would never go for a role again with this kind of technical test. Only because I liked the guys interviewing did I persevere.
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Was planning to write my own article on this. Recently secured a contract. The interview went really well but afterwards, the agency said there was a technical test from a third-party. Now, I researched the test and there was an online repo to check out and try. Being relatively conscientious, it made sense to download their sample to understand their thought process. It involved getting the unit tests to pass. Except they were using integers rather than doubles which made no sense at all. Took me hours to understand what on earth they were trying to achieve with the test. I had to install the exact version of Visual Studio on my PC.
The next morning, the actual test. Different, and involved using SQLLite (Why? Was this being used in the role?). I use LiteDB inside my project in quite a neat way - how many coders would feel happy being given that as a test? SQL Lite which had it's own versions of ADODB connectivity, and worse the online code writer was next to useless and my visual studio version seemed incompatible. So the first 10 minutes were spent faffing around. Eventually, after seat of your pants stuff and Google, I managed to do quite a bit on the test.
The next part was a code commenting part - except the browser app didn't work. So I wrote some notes in Word and sent them to the agency.
Finally, quick-fire questions which were more of a syntax check, which was basically either you remembered it or used Google.
The minute you abdicate responsibility to a third-party, I feel whilst many may feel it gives extra assurance, I suspect it is taking you further away from understanding candidate compatibility. It isn't necessarily a failing of the hiring company, more that it can seem like the right way to do something. People feels there is a benchmark to pass and that tests are a good way to evaluate it.
All in all, I had probably committed 5-6 hours extra.
When I hire people, my approach is to have a set of questions which I suspect the candidate may fail, but care more about how they try to solve the problem. I have occasionally had to create a technical test (because a senior manager), only to understand the way they try to solve it. Indeed, hopefully they are smarter than me.
I would never go for a role again with this kind of technical test. Only because I liked the guys interviewing did I persevere.