A lot of companies I interview for ask for a coding task to be completed within a limited time, such as building a small program/web application.
HR typically sends me an email with the challenge, and expects a reply email in the following 2-3 hours. Most of the time, HR can only administer the task during working hours, which happen to be same as mine.
This is a problem because my weekly deliverables at my current job are set and are pretty tightly packed, so taking a day off would be in an extreme situation for me.
Spread across a few days, I will usually squeeze some hours, reach home early, and give the interview, but by the time I get home from work, I am dead tired. I can whip up some basic code, but that is not my best shot.
Once or twice I have told HR that I can do it on a Saturday, but without blinking an eyelid they'd jump up and say 'only on weekdays'.
What alternatives do I have for performing time-limited code challenges for interviews when I am unable to take the time off work for them, and they can only be given during business hours?
My refusal to copy code from google searches can be one reason I am not able to perform well.
<-- what? I use code from google searches all the time at my job. – enderland Jun 21 '13 at 2:07