[kemiller2002]

I get why companies like them, and there is nothing wrong with them. The truth is that I probably don't want the job enough to actually do it. It takes time away from my family, and my friends and most of the time, it's not that stellar of a place to work anyway. If I'm desperate for a job, I could feasibly see doing it, or if I thought it was a really amazing opportunity. The truth is that I'm probably not going to be in either of those positions. What really does irk me is when a company says you have to do it before they'll even talk to me. I'm definitely not going to spend several hours on something without even knowing anything about the company.

[rdelval]

The asymmetric time investment required from candidates is what bothers me the most about these coding challenges.

My personal experience has been that it's a lopsided process with the candidate putting in hours of unpaid work and the company spending one, maybe two engineering hours if we're being generous, reviewing the submission.

If the reviewer decides to reject the challenge, the loop closes, HR sends a nice e-mail, and the candidate has nothing to show for it.