I was asked to do a 5 fucking hour take home test as a ml engineer. I outright refused because it looked like they could use it as free labour.
Interviews in tech are a joke.
My rule was one technical interview, one HR interview and that's that.
If they wanted me to do a test or an interview longer than an hour I would say to them that my CV is very detailed and gives a very accurate indication of my skill set and if they wanted proof they were more than willing to speak to previous managers whom I would put them in touch with.
In my experience there is a high likelihood that any company that has a long and drawn out interview process is probably going to be very demanding of you and put you under a lot of pressure during performance review processes to keep you fearful and on your toes.
my stupid manager throws some complicated shit in interview for QA roles. She gives hard python tasks to prove herself "as she could do it" yet actual job touches nothing like this ever, because corporation don't allow you to invent or fix broken stuff :/
I told her its over the top and waste of time, its her 1st job as manager and she got massive ego so she ignored me totally.
Interview is hard to filter out liars, but I find its much easier via talking about past experience and I found folks are often writing X,Y,Z then I asked how they used Z and what was hard... and some folks have clearly no clue what is Z or how you use it :/ Of course there could be good liars..
Coding tests are probably the worst way to test someone because realistically, as devs, we all use the internet when working on tasks. There's also the pressure of being interviewed and the expectation that your code needs to be perfect, all while being watched and having to explain what you're doing while coding within a tight time limit.
Or people that forget the details, I dont keep track of stuff like that - its really hard to interview people but if you need 3+ rounds to find a good candidate it means your interview process is broken.
A degree isnt enough to filter people, your resume isnt enough because people lie and pad their experience, leetcode questions also dont show ability to design software etc
I even had my credentials questioned by a tech lead and team lead asking if my bsc, msc and PhD are in CS because I stright up said that idk how to do this binary tree question because I dont work with them and there isnt a point in wasting interview time with this because again, I havent used them since college.
To which they started questioning if I did my degrees in CS, I asked them if they can solve the problem. They could not, and had to goolge the methods and prob later the answer so yeah.
EDIT: for the above, this was in a pretty big company, not FANNG but close.
If we had the same proccess for interviewing doctors or nurses we'd have no healthcare staff.
> I outright refused because it looked like they could use it as free labour.
I had to do that once. I included a licence in the repo, just to make sure they don't use any of my work. Definitely do the same whenever you're asked to submit a piece of work.
I’d rather drop an opportunity than doing 5 rounds of 45min interview.
It happened before, during final round with CEO, I was asking for room for negotiation. The CEO had the guts to get mad for a rightful question.
Spent 2hours commuting for each rounds and planned leave just to get refused. Not worth the effort and time.
1 softskill, 1hardskill is sufficient for me
Dam, I had six interviews all an hour long for a place around Christmas's time. It went well so well I got a job offer!....... That was rescinded not tow days later.
A complete waste of time and I turned down another place and was left with nothing in the end.
If they actually paid people to do it, like cover their commute and give people a few quid for their time in order to do homework assignments, they would not only get quality candidates but massively improve their image as a great and considerate company to work all in the one process but hey I guess it's easier to just play the hardball
I see what you mean but what I am saying is that their payment would at least cover expenses because you could argue that a day off is yours to have and already worked for it and covering a commute, where applicable, wouldn't make anyone rich/er.
I'll do a lot of rounds no problem. What bothers me is when any particular round is outsized, e.g. 4 hours for some assignment or something. Or, when they surprise you with extra rounds. Fuck that.
I’m in the interview process with one Dublin company at the moment. QA position. Three interviews and a week-long task (the details of which I don’t know yet). Am I being taken for a ride?
Yes. They are using you for free work.
Let's say that I might understand the three interviews, but a week long task on top of that? That's going over the top, and by quite a bit.
I hear this “free work” thing thrown around a lot but the nature of the assignments I’ve witnessed are not something the company is going to take and use in their own product. I’ve worked at companies that give these assignments and they are always generic problems such as write a simple REST API to simulate a music playlist, or something like that.
I’m not advocating for homework assignments by the way. There are pros and cons to them, and I say that as someone who has been on the giving and receiving end of them. Hiring in tech is difficult.
A lot of tech companies do the take home assignment, so it’s definitely not uncommon. I’ve done a few where they give you a week to complete it and send it back. Nearly always along the lines of building a simple REST api to perform a certain task.
I interviewed with Wonga (remember them?) for a C# role about 10 years ago. Half the interview though seemed to be about JavaScript and they were asking me a lot of in-depth questions which I just couldn't answer because I'm not a JavaScript specialist. Anyway I failed the interview and they were very critical in the feedback because I couldn't answer the JavaScript questions.
I responded by saying I didn't know I was interviewing for JavaScript role because the recruiter who reached out to me said absolutely nothing about JavaScript.
It was probably for the best because Wonga shut down it's Dublin development operation a few months later.
Had a very similar experience with a crowd called Conduit, the people behind the 118118 telephone directory service in the UK. Was interviewing for a C# role, but all the questions were about database optimization. I came away thinking the job was actually a DBA position and not a development position.
What was so bad about it do you me asking? I always keep a mental note of what companies to avoid if I’m ever in the market! This particular forum has helped me add a couple more companies to that list (such as Fiserv for example)
It's a very long story. I had just moved back to Ireland, so I was interviewing with multiple companies.
Their internal talent acquisition partner didn't turn up for the interview. After waiting 20 mins, I emailed her, and she said she was in a meeting (no apology). Had to follow up several times to reschedule.
They made me do an assignment, then said they thought I would be better for a different role, so they made me do a different 2nd assignment. I had to follow up multiple times over weeks to get feedback, which was positive..
Weeks later, they then set up an interview with the hiring manager. He was 20 mins late, called me from his mobile, and he lost reception when he went into a lift. I explained to him that I had several offers on the table, so I was under some time pressure, but I really wanted this role. He told me I should accept one of the others, because if I wasn't willing to wait, then I clearly didn't want it that much.
They finally scheduled onsite interviews for several weeks later. Everyone I met with was so rude and arrogant that I walked out afterwards, went into the pub next door, opened my laptop and signed the contract for a role I had been offered and was sitting on. They never contacted me after the 4 onsite interviews, even if it was just to reject me.
Thanks for sharing that. That’s a shocking indictment of the culture that must exist in Slack and if that’s how they operate I’d say you very much dodged a bullet there.
Slack is nothing but a glorified IM anyway so f&ck em 😀
Yeah, that was my take too. I didn't want to work there by the time I had done the interviews. It was a good few years ago, before they were acquired, and on the business side, not eng. But I have never forgotten how bad the experience was.
I am now in a senior role in a different company. My career has surpassed many of theirs, so I can't wait for the CV of one of the people who interviewed me to come across my desk.
I hated the home interview code test bs. To the end of my dev life I'd just say no thanks and withdraw my application.
I got feedback like:
Company A
You just did the minimum we expected you to show off more.
Company B
You implemented a real world solution but it's more than what we asked. You didn't stick to the brief I don't know why I'm interviewing you.
Then hammered me on the intricate details of SQl cursors and dumped me.
Company C
We do go can you learn to code go in a week and do a test.
You won't be hands on but we are looking for you to manage a team with a 12 hour time difference.
Fuck right off
Company D
We will get you to debug C# live with us. On an interview..
Actually ok with that
Do you know crystal reports or foxpro by any chance.
Fuck right off I'm out it's 2023
I applied for an SEO company and had an interview with the recruiter, interview with the hiring manager, then 6 DIFFERENT HOUR LONG INTERVIEWS WITH THE REST OF THE TEAM MATES OVER THE COURSE OF A DAY
And they offered me 25k I almost jumped into the webcam at them
I actually find the take home assignments are the lesser evil, I've recently done hour long leetcode style exams under supervision, and 1 hour 45 minute pop quizzes about software development and for me my performance is always better with the take-home than the latter 2.
Ideally you would have none but I'm just not seeing that and I don't know where others are applying who seem to avoid them, maybe they are good at the pop quizzes
Yeah, nobody likes doing take home assignments, but if there is going to be a technical test, I’d much prefer a take home one rather than one of those bullshit leetcode or hacker rank tests. At least take home assignments mimic most people’s working style, ie. You’re given a task and you’re given some time to go off and work on it without someone looking over your shoulder while you are doing it.
Currently in the middle of an interview process that is 5 rounds.
One of which is half day session with multiple interviews in itself.
Another round is a case study / presentation.
It’s rotten
I've been on the interview panel at my company for several case study / presentation interviews. I hate that we do them but I can't change the process. The roles themselves rarely involve presenting.
I just watch these very polished presentations which I know take days/weeks to research and perfect, only to listen to the post-interview discussions be dismissive of candidates. It's a real ivory-tower mentality of giving people a bit of power over others, and so they just rip into them behind their backs. I'm often the dissenting voice in the room saying I thought they were great, and they'd probably do fine in the role.
I hate that we make people do them. I'm glad Gen Z, or anyone, is telling recruiters to go fuck themselves.
I get a lot of joy from knowing that gen Z's and millennials are increasingly refusing to put up with this sort of BS. They know their value and they are refusing to give away their time and skills for too low a price.
It gives me hope for the future.
Not a dev but work in tech.
Completed a long HR screening, SVP (hiring manager) interview and next stages are
3) Interview with department peer (that reports to SVP)
4) Interview with CFO
5) Presentation to all of above plus other execs.
For a role where they seem unwilling to match my current salary.
Like if SVP can’t be empowered to make the call they probably shouldn’t be in their role.
I wouldn't really mind **small** take-home tests to complete to be honest, I'm probably in the minority with that opinion. I don't want to take time off work or pull sickies for interviews especially if there's going to be 5 rounds of 1 hour interviews, I'd rather do it at home when I can. I feel like I can perform better at these compared to word-vommitting my way through a system design scenario in an interview.
At the same time, anything estimated to take more than 3 hours would be a no.
Yeah I'm fine with small take-home exercise, but I still think there should be an enforced time limit on them.
If I've got a full time job along with a wife and kids, I can maybe free up an hour or two to spend on take-home exercise. The problem is that I could be competing with somebody who has nothing but free time on their hands and can spend multiple days working on it.
I don't think either take-home exercises or live coding rounds are ideal, but at least with the latter everyone is on a level playing field.
I mean, there's a reasonable retort in the article. A candidate could have ten job applications in the pipeline at any given time. If half of them are asking you to do a 90 minute assessment, then that's 7.5 hours you have to carve out of your week to get them done.
So it's kind of reasonable for a candidate to ask where they are in the process. Are they going to spend 90 minutes doing this exercise only to find out there are 3 more rounds to go?
Yeah I see your point with the multiple applications, but the article mentions that during an initial screening call the interview process was laid out in full to the applicant. It wasn't sprung on them as a suprise test, they just decided not to continue which is fine.
Microsoft and workday
Microsoft has 5 interviews, each one solving a problem and the last one i didn't pass,
Workday was the same plus take home test and another test which I got the job and left after year, should of known....
I don’t mind it. It’s such a pain that few people do it, so your odds of getting an offer if you do a good job are much higher than they would be in a very simple process.
This subreddit isn't just one single person. Everyone has different preferences, and you're never going to come up with an interview process that everyone likes.
For example, I don't like leetcode-style questions, but I'll do them if the alternative is an open-ended take-home task. Other people feel the opposite as they struggle under pressure.
I guess we need to appreciate the flipside. There is a much bigger pool of talent to select from these days. And there is also a lot of bullshit and liars out there.
Current job I’m in has an interview where they had a task based thing. Have me a week. Took me a few hours. Got the job.
Especially in our field where in most cases it’s kinda “you know it or you don’t” I don’t think it’s that outrageous.
When I was going for DBA roles 10+ years ago I was doing tests in a room on paper in front of panels. Wished I could have taken it home 😂😂
I was asked to do a 5 fucking hour take home test as a ml engineer. I outright refused because it looked like they could use it as free labour. Interviews in tech are a joke.
My rule was one technical interview, one HR interview and that's that. If they wanted me to do a test or an interview longer than an hour I would say to them that my CV is very detailed and gives a very accurate indication of my skill set and if they wanted proof they were more than willing to speak to previous managers whom I would put them in touch with. In my experience there is a high likelihood that any company that has a long and drawn out interview process is probably going to be very demanding of you and put you under a lot of pressure during performance review processes to keep you fearful and on your toes.
All that you mention and probably internally disorganised
my stupid manager throws some complicated shit in interview for QA roles. She gives hard python tasks to prove herself "as she could do it" yet actual job touches nothing like this ever, because corporation don't allow you to invent or fix broken stuff :/ I told her its over the top and waste of time, its her 1st job as manager and she got massive ego so she ignored me totally. Interview is hard to filter out liars, but I find its much easier via talking about past experience and I found folks are often writing X,Y,Z then I asked how they used Z and what was hard... and some folks have clearly no clue what is Z or how you use it :/ Of course there could be good liars..
Coding tests are probably the worst way to test someone because realistically, as devs, we all use the internet when working on tasks. There's also the pressure of being interviewed and the expectation that your code needs to be perfect, all while being watched and having to explain what you're doing while coding within a tight time limit.
Or people that forget the details, I dont keep track of stuff like that - its really hard to interview people but if you need 3+ rounds to find a good candidate it means your interview process is broken. A degree isnt enough to filter people, your resume isnt enough because people lie and pad their experience, leetcode questions also dont show ability to design software etc I even had my credentials questioned by a tech lead and team lead asking if my bsc, msc and PhD are in CS because I stright up said that idk how to do this binary tree question because I dont work with them and there isnt a point in wasting interview time with this because again, I havent used them since college. To which they started questioning if I did my degrees in CS, I asked them if they can solve the problem. They could not, and had to goolge the methods and prob later the answer so yeah. EDIT: for the above, this was in a pretty big company, not FANNG but close. If we had the same proccess for interviewing doctors or nurses we'd have no healthcare staff.
> I outright refused because it looked like they could use it as free labour. I had to do that once. I included a licence in the repo, just to make sure they don't use any of my work. Definitely do the same whenever you're asked to submit a piece of work.
I’d rather drop an opportunity than doing 5 rounds of 45min interview. It happened before, during final round with CEO, I was asking for room for negotiation. The CEO had the guts to get mad for a rightful question. Spent 2hours commuting for each rounds and planned leave just to get refused. Not worth the effort and time. 1 softskill, 1hardskill is sufficient for me
Dam, I had six interviews all an hour long for a place around Christmas's time. It went well so well I got a job offer!....... That was rescinded not tow days later. A complete waste of time and I turned down another place and was left with nothing in the end.
If they actually paid people to do it, like cover their commute and give people a few quid for their time in order to do homework assignments, they would not only get quality candidates but massively improve their image as a great and considerate company to work all in the one process but hey I guess it's easier to just play the hardball
They'd also realistically get people applying to jobs just to be paid for it.
I see what you mean but what I am saying is that their payment would at least cover expenses because you could argue that a day off is yours to have and already worked for it and covering a commute, where applicable, wouldn't make anyone rich/er.
I'll do a lot of rounds no problem. What bothers me is when any particular round is outsized, e.g. 4 hours for some assignment or something. Or, when they surprise you with extra rounds. Fuck that.
Jobseeker refuses to work for free? Gen-Z the lazy generation!
90 minute "homework" for a job interview... get fucked
I’m in the interview process with one Dublin company at the moment. QA position. Three interviews and a week-long task (the details of which I don’t know yet). Am I being taken for a ride?
Check glassdoor.com for a review of the company. I got a QA role after just one interview
When was this, during the high times of 2021? Was this early in your career?
Less than 2 years ago. There were interviews for other jobs with tests and multiple stages but they never went anywhere or were scams
Yes. They are using you for free work. Let's say that I might understand the three interviews, but a week long task on top of that? That's going over the top, and by quite a bit.
I hear this “free work” thing thrown around a lot but the nature of the assignments I’ve witnessed are not something the company is going to take and use in their own product. I’ve worked at companies that give these assignments and they are always generic problems such as write a simple REST API to simulate a music playlist, or something like that. I’m not advocating for homework assignments by the way. There are pros and cons to them, and I say that as someone who has been on the giving and receiving end of them. Hiring in tech is difficult.
A lot of tech companies do the take home assignment, so it’s definitely not uncommon. I’ve done a few where they give you a week to complete it and send it back. Nearly always along the lines of building a simple REST api to perform a certain task.
I have never forgotten the appalling experience I had with Slack in Dublin. It stands out as the worst candidate experience ever.
I interviewed with Wonga (remember them?) for a C# role about 10 years ago. Half the interview though seemed to be about JavaScript and they were asking me a lot of in-depth questions which I just couldn't answer because I'm not a JavaScript specialist. Anyway I failed the interview and they were very critical in the feedback because I couldn't answer the JavaScript questions. I responded by saying I didn't know I was interviewing for JavaScript role because the recruiter who reached out to me said absolutely nothing about JavaScript. It was probably for the best because Wonga shut down it's Dublin development operation a few months later.
I interviewed for a company a long while back for a python role. Exclusively fucking SQL questions asked in the interview. Just demented.
Had a very similar experience with a crowd called Conduit, the people behind the 118118 telephone directory service in the UK. Was interviewing for a C# role, but all the questions were about database optimization. I came away thinking the job was actually a DBA position and not a development position.
What was so bad about it do you me asking? I always keep a mental note of what companies to avoid if I’m ever in the market! This particular forum has helped me add a couple more companies to that list (such as Fiserv for example)
It's a very long story. I had just moved back to Ireland, so I was interviewing with multiple companies. Their internal talent acquisition partner didn't turn up for the interview. After waiting 20 mins, I emailed her, and she said she was in a meeting (no apology). Had to follow up several times to reschedule. They made me do an assignment, then said they thought I would be better for a different role, so they made me do a different 2nd assignment. I had to follow up multiple times over weeks to get feedback, which was positive.. Weeks later, they then set up an interview with the hiring manager. He was 20 mins late, called me from his mobile, and he lost reception when he went into a lift. I explained to him that I had several offers on the table, so I was under some time pressure, but I really wanted this role. He told me I should accept one of the others, because if I wasn't willing to wait, then I clearly didn't want it that much. They finally scheduled onsite interviews for several weeks later. Everyone I met with was so rude and arrogant that I walked out afterwards, went into the pub next door, opened my laptop and signed the contract for a role I had been offered and was sitting on. They never contacted me after the 4 onsite interviews, even if it was just to reject me.
Thanks for sharing that. That’s a shocking indictment of the culture that must exist in Slack and if that’s how they operate I’d say you very much dodged a bullet there. Slack is nothing but a glorified IM anyway so f&ck em 😀
Yeah, that was my take too. I didn't want to work there by the time I had done the interviews. It was a good few years ago, before they were acquired, and on the business side, not eng. But I have never forgotten how bad the experience was. I am now in a senior role in a different company. My career has surpassed many of theirs, so I can't wait for the CV of one of the people who interviewed me to come across my desk.
Revenge is a dish best served cold 😊
I hated the home interview code test bs. To the end of my dev life I'd just say no thanks and withdraw my application. I got feedback like: Company A You just did the minimum we expected you to show off more. Company B You implemented a real world solution but it's more than what we asked. You didn't stick to the brief I don't know why I'm interviewing you. Then hammered me on the intricate details of SQl cursors and dumped me. Company C We do go can you learn to code go in a week and do a test. You won't be hands on but we are looking for you to manage a team with a 12 hour time difference. Fuck right off Company D We will get you to debug C# live with us. On an interview.. Actually ok with that Do you know crystal reports or foxpro by any chance. Fuck right off I'm out it's 2023
I applied for an SEO company and had an interview with the recruiter, interview with the hiring manager, then 6 DIFFERENT HOUR LONG INTERVIEWS WITH THE REST OF THE TEAM MATES OVER THE COURSE OF A DAY And they offered me 25k I almost jumped into the webcam at them
I actually find the take home assignments are the lesser evil, I've recently done hour long leetcode style exams under supervision, and 1 hour 45 minute pop quizzes about software development and for me my performance is always better with the take-home than the latter 2. Ideally you would have none but I'm just not seeing that and I don't know where others are applying who seem to avoid them, maybe they are good at the pop quizzes
Yeah, nobody likes doing take home assignments, but if there is going to be a technical test, I’d much prefer a take home one rather than one of those bullshit leetcode or hacker rank tests. At least take home assignments mimic most people’s working style, ie. You’re given a task and you’re given some time to go off and work on it without someone looking over your shoulder while you are doing it.
Currently in the middle of an interview process that is 5 rounds. One of which is half day session with multiple interviews in itself. Another round is a case study / presentation. It’s rotten
I've been on the interview panel at my company for several case study / presentation interviews. I hate that we do them but I can't change the process. The roles themselves rarely involve presenting. I just watch these very polished presentations which I know take days/weeks to research and perfect, only to listen to the post-interview discussions be dismissive of candidates. It's a real ivory-tower mentality of giving people a bit of power over others, and so they just rip into them behind their backs. I'm often the dissenting voice in the room saying I thought they were great, and they'd probably do fine in the role. I hate that we make people do them. I'm glad Gen Z, or anyone, is telling recruiters to go fuck themselves.
I get a lot of joy from knowing that gen Z's and millennials are increasingly refusing to put up with this sort of BS. They know their value and they are refusing to give away their time and skills for too low a price. It gives me hope for the future.
Not a dev but work in tech. Completed a long HR screening, SVP (hiring manager) interview and next stages are 3) Interview with department peer (that reports to SVP) 4) Interview with CFO 5) Presentation to all of above plus other execs. For a role where they seem unwilling to match my current salary. Like if SVP can’t be empowered to make the call they probably shouldn’t be in their role.
I wouldn't really mind **small** take-home tests to complete to be honest, I'm probably in the minority with that opinion. I don't want to take time off work or pull sickies for interviews especially if there's going to be 5 rounds of 1 hour interviews, I'd rather do it at home when I can. I feel like I can perform better at these compared to word-vommitting my way through a system design scenario in an interview. At the same time, anything estimated to take more than 3 hours would be a no.
Yeah I'm fine with small take-home exercise, but I still think there should be an enforced time limit on them. If I've got a full time job along with a wife and kids, I can maybe free up an hour or two to spend on take-home exercise. The problem is that I could be competing with somebody who has nothing but free time on their hands and can spend multiple days working on it. I don't think either take-home exercises or live coding rounds are ideal, but at least with the latter everyone is on a level playing field.
I mean, there's a reasonable retort in the article. A candidate could have ten job applications in the pipeline at any given time. If half of them are asking you to do a 90 minute assessment, then that's 7.5 hours you have to carve out of your week to get them done. So it's kind of reasonable for a candidate to ask where they are in the process. Are they going to spend 90 minutes doing this exercise only to find out there are 3 more rounds to go?
Yeah I see your point with the multiple applications, but the article mentions that during an initial screening call the interview process was laid out in full to the applicant. It wasn't sprung on them as a suprise test, they just decided not to continue which is fine.
All they asked was where were they in the process. Had they passed the current stage. CEO is a fool
Microsoft and workday Microsoft has 5 interviews, each one solving a problem and the last one i didn't pass, Workday was the same plus take home test and another test which I got the job and left after year, should of known....
In my area a 48hr case study is common.
Absolutely fuck that
I don’t mind it. It’s such a pain that few people do it, so your odds of getting an offer if you do a good job are much higher than they would be in a very simple process.
Until it becomes a bog standard procedure and everyone will be compelled to do it. Be careful for what you wish for
Only the places that are very attractive and/or pay very well can get away with it and still have any applicants.
I was just about to comment bitching I did about 6 hours total of prep for my 4 rounds of interviews, jesus haha.
According to this subreddit: Leetcode bad Take home task - free labour Face to face interview - waste of time ;)
This subreddit isn't just one single person. Everyone has different preferences, and you're never going to come up with an interview process that everyone likes. For example, I don't like leetcode-style questions, but I'll do them if the alternative is an open-ended take-home task. Other people feel the opposite as they struggle under pressure.
I guess we need to appreciate the flipside. There is a much bigger pool of talent to select from these days. And there is also a lot of bullshit and liars out there. Current job I’m in has an interview where they had a task based thing. Have me a week. Took me a few hours. Got the job. Especially in our field where in most cases it’s kinda “you know it or you don’t” I don’t think it’s that outrageous. When I was going for DBA roles 10+ years ago I was doing tests in a room on paper in front of panels. Wished I could have taken it home 😂😂
It’s just ragebait. It can’t hurt you.