[janephilipps]

Good point about consistency, which is hard to achieve with the open-ended take-home challenges. I still feel like there is a catch 22 for new developers though - if you're competing with more experienced candidates, your best solution that you can achieve within one hour will rarely be one of the better ones, and the only way to really get better is to have real experience working on a production app. And you still have to get hired to do that, hence the catch 22. So, that's why I advocate for spending more time on these challenges up front, especially for people first making the switch, because they can be used as a learning opportunity. So many companies don't have the time or just don't want to invest the time to train newer developers, which automatically eliminates hiring someone straight out of a bootcamp. Maybe someone with a CS degree and no work experience would have the same problem though.

I like what you said about the importance of companies administering their own challenges as well. I've encountered some like that and they do tend to be a better reflection of the types of challenges and problems the company is facing.