Timeline for Given a 'homework' tasks on a job interview?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
14 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Aug 31, 2017 at 1:23 | comment | added | John61590 | @amphibient who said anyone failed? They could just ignore it due to budget changes, which has happened plenty of times for me. | |
| Apr 25, 2017 at 23:02 | comment | added | amphibient | I never said there was no risk of failure involved | |
| Apr 25, 2017 at 23:01 | comment | added | John61590 | @amphibient Whoever said getting the job was a guarantee even after doing hours long test? A lot of times I don't even get a response back with any feedback after spending 5 hours on take-home test. And employers wonder why people don't want to do their tests! | |
| Aug 26, 2014 at 8:10 | comment | added | Juha Untinen | I've always felt more suspicious about interviews where you don't do a technical test. How on earth can they tell the level of technical competence by just talking? Soft skills yeah, but a technical test requires a sufficiently complex and small task to accurately prove skill or learning capacity. Otherwise it will look bad on both - perhaps the candidate overestimated his skill, or the employer underestimated the difficulty of the job. | |
| Jan 30, 2014 at 0:02 | comment | added | Mistah Mix | I would not work for you if you think that it's a good idea to send potential candidates home with tests. It would tell me what type of boss that you are and how unpleasant it would be to work for you. Fortunately for you, there are plenty of desperate and foolish people who will perform such a test AFTER they interview. However, most people realize that they are the required quantity (e.g. good employees) and they would politely decline this questionable job offer. | |
| Jan 28, 2014 at 20:49 | comment | added | amphibient | if your time is so "valuable" that you don't want to use a few of its hours to complete a coding assignment as often the last step before getting a job, i would not hire you. Is your time also too valuable to shower, shave and dress up before an interview? Sheesh, it'd be nice if jobs just came on a silver platter... | |
| Jan 28, 2014 at 17:46 | comment | added | Mistah Mix | My time is valuable. I have no idea how (or even if) you value yours. Unless there's a strong possibility that I'm going to get the job, then in my assessment it's a waste of time that might be spent elsewhere. | |
| Jan 28, 2014 at 17:39 | comment | added | amphibient | sounds like a bunch of unfounded paranoia about a little coding exercise whose typical intent is to check whether the candidate actually knows how to code, knows basic concepts (like concurrency or data structures), and has a habit of writing well structured and commented code. | |
| Jan 28, 2014 at 16:40 | comment | added | Bor | @atk the tasks are very trival for 1-2 hours. But the feedback doubles the time for completion, just with more details. | |
| Jan 28, 2014 at 16:16 | comment | added | atk | (separate comment to keep thoughts separate) I'm also not sure that the original question is clear that the questioner is being used. The response from the interviewer may have been interpreted as "can you fix this" and could have been meant as "why did you choose to do this instead of that?" or "how would you fix this?" Or not - like I said, it's unclear from the original question. | |
| Jan 28, 2014 at 16:14 | comment | added | atk | I agree that it depends upon whether the time investment is reasonable, but I'm not sure that 1 hour is the most appropriate measurement. Some programming tests are "can this person program at all" which may take a very junior person more than an hour to debug, and a very senior person less than 10 minutes to complete. | |
| Jan 28, 2014 at 14:20 | comment | added | Mistah Mix | It would depend upon how long it would take. If it is clear that you are being used, then it would be advisable to politely decline. If they expect you to spend more than a reasonable amount of time on their "test" (reasonable being less than 1 hour) then it also might not be advisable. | |
| Jan 28, 2014 at 13:25 | comment | added | atk | Would you be against small programming projects during the interview itself? And do you interview on your own time or on company time? | |
| Jan 28, 2014 at 13:14 | history | answered | Mistah Mix | CC BY-SA 3.0 |