[remyp]

Code tests are a perfectly reasonable way to assess talent as long as they meet two conditions:

1. They don't take more than an hour or two

2. They closely resemble the work that the candidate will be doing on a day-to-day basis.

Leetcode style exercises have zero value to me as a hiring manager. I'm much more interested in whether people can gather requirements, think critically about them, ask questions, and provide a functioning solution that fulfills them.

[ccajas]

I'm on the 1-2 hour limit camp. As much as I know a lot of people find whiteboard tests awkward, or don't like coding tests with short time limits, I actually prefer them over take-home coding challenges. If a company requires that I do one of those before the interview proper, I usually give them a pass.

With short live coding tests in person, Once it's done, it's done. I do not like to finish an interview, and still having to think about putting more time aside to do additional "work" for them in the form of a take-home test requiring an arbitrary length of time. The fact that they happen outside the office, outside of the worry of the company's time constraints, makes these sorts of tests more prone to exploitation. Self-contained interviews in a short time limit are my personal preference.

There is a Github page that is a compilation of companies that do not use whiteboard tests for their candidates. I'd like to find out if a similar list exists for companies that don't give their candidates take-home tests.