| 30 minutes sounds less objectionable than what I've experienced. The episode that turned me badly against take home tests involved a two-phase approach. Both were handled through a recruiter. The first was about a one hour set of questions (what does this code do, implement this class, explain dependency injection, that short of thing). That went well, so they then moved to a homework project they advised to spend no more than 5-7 hours on. I did this, sent it back in and... crickets chirping. I called the recruiter (in house) every week or so to follow up. In about a month I got the standard "we've decided not to pursue your application further at this time. I honestly have no idea if anyone even looked at it. I certainly never talked to a developer. I can see how a 30 minute exercise could be a good thing, in that it could save everyone some time. Even then, though, I see it as a red flag if a company wants too much of my time before I talk to a developer in the recruiting process. Keep in mind also, there's a huge difference between being available to work on something that comes up in a job, and shaking free 5-7 hours for a take home test that a company only might even bother looking at! |