![]() ![]() You went for the asynchronous route, it’s your job to make it clear and explicit. Then, do a proper coding exercise, where the candidate has the opportunity to ask questions and clarify the requirements. Now, somebody will surely object to this and say that real-life problems are vague and that as a candidate you need to navigate unclear requirements. You prefer a vertical slice that’s not production-ready, or do you want to see a smaller part that is finished? What is important for you? Be specific! Do you want to see tests? Say it so. Vague InstructionsĪ home exercise is not the place to show the world how smart and cunning you are. Let alone how the rest of the process looks like (another pet peeve of mine!). ![]() But they couldn’t bother to explain what the role entails. A company congratulating a candidate for having the privilege of taking part in this challenge. It feels silly to write this, but I’ve seen it happen. ![]() On the other hand, your responsibility is to explain the position well enough so that a candidate can make an informed decision. You don’t want to set up a panel for somebody who can’t show any technical proficiency whatsoever. As a company, you might have multiple steps in the recruitment process. Putting this Step Way too Early in the Process Then, an engineer might spend five minutes at best going over the code before rejecting it. How long are your engineers going to spend going over the code? I know for a fact certain organizations send out exercises that take multiple hours to complete. The asymmetry of information will lead people to invest much more than what you had in mind.Ī related point is reciprocity. Setting up an application from scratch takes some time, even if you have some sample code to help with the bootstrapping. Is it two hours maximum, or two days? The candidate has no idea what you’re expecting. How much time should you invest in it? Set clear boundaries. I’m sure people with family commitments appreciate it. There are two aspects to it: DeadlineĪre you going to set a deadline of, like, one week without actually checking with the candidate? Great news, you just planned their weekend for them. If somebody is going to do some work for you, you have to respect their time. Let’s go over some antipatterns that are sadly all-too-common. Being forthcoming and honest about this is crucial to design an exercise that gives the company the information they need without putting undue pressure on a candidate. Let’s call it like it is, this is working for free. I’ve never heard of any organization that pays for that time, by the way. Even if you discard the submitted code, it still counts as labor in my book. There is another benefit for the companies that they like to downplay: The candidate has to invest time, and the company doesn’t. Many candidates struggle to code live, and they sometimes get rejected because they couldn’t showcase their knowledge within the strict boundaries of an interview. The main justification behind giving homework is that it allows the candidate to work at her own pace, without the pressure of an interview setting. Some examples are:īuilding a small application from scratch.įixing a provided application, or extending it with new functionality. It’s a programming exercise that a candidate completes on her own time. What is a Take-home Coding Assignment, anyways? Do you have opinions about them? I surely do! In this post, I want to talk about some practices I’ve observed lately that make companies look bad and poison the goodwill essential for a successful interaction between candidates and companies. More concretely, it seems that take-home coding assignments are becoming more and more the norm in the tech industry. It feels that you end up sinking a lot of time into it, often with little to show for it. It applies both as a candidate and as an interviewer. Technical interviews are a contentious topic, to say the least. How not to do a take-home coding assignment 5 Interviews Coding Challenge
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |